
Book 



THE WORKS 



OF 



-AMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 



PROSE AND VERSE. 



COMPLETE 



IN ONE VOLUME 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CRISSY & MARKLEY, No. 4, MINOR STREET. 

1849. 






ADVERTISEMENT 



OF THE 



AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 



In adding to our edition of Coleridge's Poems, his Prose works, we have 
thought proper to confine the collection to his acknowledged works, as 
they were published with his own final revision. The " Table Talk," 
*' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections," and the " Literary Remains," 
published since his decease, aflford the most remarkable specimens of what 
is technically called " book-making," which have appeared in modern 
times. The most cursory examination of them must satisf}'' any candid 
person that they form no exception to the general rule which excludes 
such compilations from a permanent place in any collection of a great 
author's works. They are made up chiefly of recollected conversations, 
imperfect notes of lectures, and notes written on the margins of the 
books in his library. Not a single complete treatise — not even a finished 
essay, can be found in the volumes. The reader will therefore not be 
surprised at their having been wholly excluded from this collection. The 
same principle has caused the exclusion of several pamphlets relating to 
local and temporary politics. 



Printed by T. K. & P. G. Colling 






J^lcinoCr ot Samuel ^T.iwlov €olcrCTjru;c, 



■ No writer of tlic age was more the theme of 
panegyric by iiis friends, and of censure by his 
cneniic's, than Coleridge. It has been the custom of 
the former to injure him b}' extravagant praise, and 
of the hitter to pour upon his head nmcii unmerited 
abuse. Coleridge has left so mucii undone which 
his talents and genius would have enabled him to 
effect, and has done on the whole so little, that he 
has given his foes apparent foundation for some 
of their vituperation. His natural character, how- 
ever, was indolent ; he was far more an)bilious 
of excelling In conversation, and of pouring out 
his wuld philosophical theories — of discoursing 
about 

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute — 

the mysteries of Kant, and the dreams of meta- 
physical vanity, than " in building the lofty 
rhyme." His poems, however, which have been 
/ecently collected, form several volumes ; — and the 
beauty of some of his pieces so amply redeems 
the extravagance of others, that there can he but 
one regret respecting him, namely, that he should 
nave preferred the shortlived perishing applause 
ocstowed upon his conversation, to the lasting 
renown attending successful poetical efforts. Not 
but that Coleridge may lay claim to the praise due 
to a successful worship of the muses; for as long 
as the English language endures, his "Genevieve" 

' and " Ancient Mariner" will be read : but he has 
been content to do far less than his abilities clearly 
demonstrate him able to effect. 

Sanmel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery 
Saint Mary, a town of Devonshire, in 1773. His 
father, the Rev. John Coleridge, was vicar there, 
having been previously a schoolmaster at South 
Mohon. He is said to have been a person of con- 
siderable learning, and to have published several 
essays in fugitive publications. He assisted Dr. 
Kennicot in collating his manuscripts for a 
Hebrew bible, and, among other things, wrote 

f a dissertation on the "Aoyoj." He was also 
the author of an excellent Latin grammar. He 
died in 1782, at the age of sixty -two, much 
regretted, leaving a considerable family, of 
which nearly all the members are since de- 
ceased. 
Coleridge was educated at Christ's Hospital- 

' school, London. The smallness of his father's 
living and large family rendered the strictest 

I economy necessary. At this excellent seminary 
])<■ was soon discovered to be a boy of talent, ec- 
c( liiric but acute. According to his own state- 
ment, the master, the Rev. J. Bowyor, was a severe 



disciplinarian after tlie inane practice of English 
grammar-school modes, but was fond of encour- 
aging genius, even in tiie lads he flagellated most 
unmercifully. He tauglit with assiduity, and di- 
rected the taste of youth to the beauties of tlie 
better classical authors, and to comparisons of one 
with another. " He habituated me," says Cole 
ridge, " to comi)arc Lucretius, Terence, and above 
all the chaste jwenis of Catullus, not only witJi the 
Roman poets of the so called silver and brazen 
ages, but with even those of the Augustan era; 
and, on grounds of plain sense and miiversal logic, 
to see and assert the superiority of the former, in 
the truth and nativencss both of their thoughts and 
diction. At the same time that we wore stud3-ing 
the Greek tragic poets, he made us read Shak- 
speare and Milton as lessons ; and they were the 
lessons too which required nwif time and trouble 
to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learned 
from him that poetry, even that of the loftiest, and 
seemingly that of the wildest odes, had a logic of 
its own, as severe as that of science, and more 
difficult; because more subtle and complex, and 
dependent on more and more fugitive causes. In 
our English compositions (at least for the last 
three years of our school education) he showed no 
mercy to ])hrase, image, or metaphor, unsupported 
by a sound sense, or where the same sense might 
have been convej^ed with equal force and dignity 
in plainer words. Lute, har]), and lyre, muse 
muses, and inspirations — Pegasus, Parnassus and 
Hippocrene, were all an abomination to him. In 
fancy, I can almost hear him now exclaiming — 
'Harp! harp! lyre! pen and ink, boy, you mean! 
muse, boy, muse ! your nurse's daughter, you 
mean ! Pierian spring ! O ay I the cloister pump, 
I suppose.' " In his " Literary Life," Coleridge 
has gone into the conduct of his master at great 
length ; and, compared to the majority of peda 
gogues who ruled in grammar-schools at that time, 
he seems to have been a singular and most honor- 
able exception among them. He sent his jnipils to 
the university excellent Greek and Latin scholars, 
with some knowledge of Hebrew, and a consider- 
able insiglit into the construction and beauties of 
tlieir vernacular language and its most distin. 
guishcd writers — a rare addition to their classical 
acquirements in such foundations. 

It was owing to a present made to Coleridge of 
Bowles' sonnets by a school-fellow (the late Dr 
Middleton) while a boy of 17, that he was drawn 
away from theological controversy and wild meta,- 
physics to the charms of poetry. He transcribed 
these sonnets no less than forty times in eighteen 



VI 



MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



months, in order to make presents of them to his 
iricnds ; and about the same period he wrote his 
Ode to Chatterton. "Nothing else," he says, 
" pleased me ; history and particular facts lost all 
interest in my mind." Poetry had become in- 
sipid ; all his ideas were directed to his favorite 
theological subjects and mysticisms, mitil Bowles' 
sonnets, and an acquaintance with a very agreeable 
family, recalled him to more pleasant paths, com- 
bined with perhaps far more of rational pm-suits. 

When eighteen years of age, Coleridge removed 
to Jesus College, Cambridge. ' It does not appear 
that he obtained or even struggled for academic 
iionors. From excess of animal spirits, he was 
rather a noisy youth, whose general conduct was 
better than that of many of his fellow-collegians, 
and as good as most : his follies were more remark- 
able only as being those of a more remarkable 
personage ; and if he could be accused of a vice, it 
must be sought for in the little attention he was 
inclined to pay to the dictates of sobriety. It is 
known that he assisted a friend in composing an 
essay on English poetry while at that University ; 
that he was not mnnindful of the muses himself 
while there ; and that he regretted the loss of the 
leisure and quiet he had found within its precincts. 

In the month of November, 1793, while laboring 
under a paroxysm of despair, brought on by the 
combined eifects of pecmiiary difficulties and love 
of a young lady, sister of a school-fellow, he set 
off for London with a party of collegians, and 
passed a short time there in joyous conviviality. 
On his retmn to Cambridge, he remained but a 
few days, and then abandoned it for ever. He 
again directed his steps towards the metropolis, 
and there, after indulging somewhat freely in the 
pleasures of the bottle, and wandering about the 
various streets and squares in a state of mind 
nearly approaching to frenzy, he finished by enlist- 
ing in the 15th dragoons, under the name of Clum- 
berbacht. Here he continued some time, the 
wonder of his comrades, and a subject of mystery 
and curiosity to his officers. While engaged in 
watching a sick comrade, which he did night and 
day, he is said to have got involved in a dispute 
with the regimental surgeon ; but the disciple of 
Esculapius had no chance with the follower of 
the muses ; he was astounded and put to flight by 
the profound erudition and astonishing eloquence 
of his antagonist. His friends at length found 
him out, and procured liis discharge. 

In 1794, Coleridge published a small volume of 
poems, which were much praised by the critics of 
the time, though it appears they abounded in ob- 
scurities and epithets too common with yoimg 
writers. He also published, in the same year, 
while residing at Bristol, " The Fall of Robes- 
pierre, an Historic Drama," wliieh displayed con- 
siderable talent. It was written in conjunction 
with Southey ; and wliat is remarkable in this 



composition is, that they began it at 7 o'clock one 
evening, finished it the next day by 12 o'clock 
noon, and the day after, it was printed and pub- 
lished. The language is vigorous, and the speeclics 
are well put together and correctly versified. — 
Coleridge also, in the winter of that year, delivered 
a course of lectures on the French revolution, .'4 
Bristol. 

On leaving the University, Coleridge was fu. 
of enthusiasm in the cause of freedom, and occii 
pied with the idea of the regeneration of mankind 
He found ardent coadjutors in the same entliusi 
astic undertaking in Robert Lovell and Robea 
Southey, the present courtly laureate. This youth 
fill triimivirate proposed schemes for regenerating 
the world, even before their educations were com- 
pleted ; and dreamed of happy lives in aboriginal 
forests, republics on the Mississippi, and a newly- 
dreamed philanthropy. In order to carry their 
ideas into effi^ct they began operations at Bristol 
and were received with considerable applause by 
several inhabitiints of that commercial city, which 
however remarkable for traffic, has been frequently 
styled the Boeotia of the west of England. Here 
in 1795, Coleridge published two pamphlets, one 
called " Consciones ad Populum, or addresses to 
the people ;" the other, " A protest against certain 
bills (then pending) for suppressing seditious 
meetings." 

The charm of the political regeneration of na 
tions, though thus warped for a moment, was not 
broken. Coleridge, Lovell and Southey, findiu]^ 
the old world would not be reformed after tlieii 
mode, determined to try and fomid a new one, ir 
which all was to be liberty and happiness. The 
deep woods of America were to be the site of this 
new golden region. Tliere all the evils of Eu- 
ropean society were to be remedied, property was 
to be in common, and every man a legislator. The 
name of " Pantisocracy" was bestowed upon the 
favored scheme, while yet it existed only in imagi. 
nation. Unborn ages of human happiness present- 
ed themselves before the triad of philosophicai 
founders of Utopian empires, wliile they were 
dreaming of human perfectibility: — a harmless 
dream at least, and an aspiration after better things 
than life's realities, which is the best tliat can be 
said for it. In the midst of these plans of vast 
import, the three philosophers fell in love with 
three sisters of Bristol, named Fricker (one of 
them, afterwards ]Mrs. Lovell, an actress of the 
Bristol theatre, another a mantua-maker, and the 
third kept a day-school), and all their visions of 
immortal freedom faded into thin air. They mar 
ried, and occupied themselves with the increase 
of the corrupt race of the old world, instead of 
peoi)ling the new. Thus, unhappily lor America 
and mankind, failed the scheme of the Pantisoc 
rae}^, on which at one time so much of human 
happiness and political regeneration was by it» 

6 



MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



VII 



founders believed to depend. None have revived 
Uie pliaiitasy since ; but CoIerid<re has lived to 
sober down his early extravagant views of political 
freedom into soniotliing' like a disavowal of having 
held them ; but he has never changed into a foe 
( of the generous principles of Imnian freedom, 
( which he ever espoused ; while Soutliey lias be- 
come the enemy of political and religious freedom, 
the su|)porter and advocate of arbitrary measures 
in church and state, and the vitupcrator of all who 
support tlic recorded principles of his early years 
About this time, and witii the same object, 
namely, to spread tlie principles of true liberty, 
Coleridge began a weekly paper called "The 
Watchman," wliich only reached its ninth num- 
ber, though the editor set out on his travels to pro- 
cure subscribers among the friends of the doc- 
trines he espoused, and visited Birmingham, 
Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield, 
for the purpose. Tlie failure of this paper was a 
severe mortification to the projector. No ground 
was gained on the score of liberty, though about 
the same time his self-love was flattered by the 
success of a volume of poems, which he rcpub- 
(ished, with some commmiications from his friends 
Lamb and Lloyd. 

Coleridge married Miss Sarah Fricker in the 
autumn of 1795, and in the following year his 
eldest son. Hartley, was born. Two more sons, 
Berkley and Derwent, were the fruits of this union. 
In 17!) 7, he resided at Nether Stowey, a village 
near Bridgewater, m Somersetsliire, and wrote 
there in the spring, at the desire of Sheridan, a 
tragedy, which was, in 1813, brought out under 
tlie title of " Remorse :" tlie name it originally 
bore was Osorio. There were some circumstances 
in this business that led to a suspicion of Sheridan's 
not having acted with any great regard to truth 
or feeling. During his residence here, Coleridge 
was in tlie habit of preaching every Sunday at the 
Unitarian Chapel in Taunton, and was greatly 
respected by the better class of his neighbors. He 
enjoyed the friendship of Wordsworth, who lived 
at Allfoxden, about two miles from Stowey, and 
was occasionally visited by Charles Lamb, John 
Tlielwall, and other congenial spirits. " The 
Brook," a poem that he planned about this period, 
was never completed. 

Coleridge had married before he possessed the 
means of supporting a family, and he depended 
principally for subsistence, at Stowey, upon his 
literary labors, the remuneration for which could 
be but scanty. At length, in 1798, the kind patron- 
age of the late Thomas Wedgwood, Esq., who 
granted him a pension of 100/. a-year, enabled 
him to plan a visit to Germany ; to which country 
lie proceeded with Wordsworth, and studied the 
language at Ratzeburg, and then went to Gottin- 
gen. He there attended the lectures of Blumcn- 



bach on natural liistory and physiology, and the 
lectures of Eichhorn on the New Testament ; and 
from professor Tychven he learned the Gothic 
grammar. He read the Minnesinger and tlie 
verses of Hans Sachs, the Nuremberg cobbler, but 
his time was principally devoted to literature and 
philosophy. At tlic end of liis " Biograpliia Liter 
aria," Coleridge has ])ublislied some letters, which 
relate to his sojourn in Germany. He sailed, Sep- 
tember 16th, 1798, and on the 19th landed at Ham- 
burgh. It was on the 20th of the same month 
that he says he was introduced to the brother of 
the great poet Klopstock, to professor Ebeling, 
and ultimately to the poet himself. He had an 
impression of awe on his spirits when he set out 
to visit the German Milton, whose hmnble house 
stood about a quarter of a mile from the city gate. 
He was much disappointed in the countenance of 
Klopstock, which was inexpressive, and without 
peculiarity in any of the features. Klopstock was 
lively and courteous; talked of Milton and Glover, 
and ])refcrrcd the verse of the latter to the former, 
— a very curious mistake, but natural enough in a 
foreigner. He spoke with indignation of the Eng- 
lish translations of his Messiah. He said his first 
ode was fifty years older than his last, and hoped 
Coleridge would revenge liiin on Enghshmcn by 
translating his Messiah. 

On his return from Germany, Coleridge went to 
reside at Keswick, in Cumberland. He had made 
a great addition to his stock of knowledge, and he 
seems to have spared no pains to store up what 
was cither useful or speculative. He had become 
master of most of the early German writers, or 
rather of the state of early German literature. He 
dived deeply into the mystical stream of Teutonic 
philosophy. There tlie predilections of his earlier 
years no doubt came upon him in aid of his 
researches into a labyrinth which no human clue 
will ever unravel ; or which . were one found ca- 
pable of so doing, would reveal a mighty notliing. 
Long, he says, while meditating in England, had 
his heart been with Paul and John, and his head 
with Spinoza. He tlien became convinced of the 
doctrine of St. Paul, and from an anti trinitarian 
became a believer in the Trinity, ana in Chris- 
tianity as commonly received ; or, (o use his own 
word, fomid a " re-conversion." Yet, for all his 
arguments on the subject, he had better have 
retained his early creed, and saved the time wasted 
in travelling back to exactly the same point where 
he set out, for he finds that faith necessary at last 
which he had been taught, in his church, was 
necessary at his first outset in life. His arguments, 
pro and con, not being of use to any of the com 
niunity, and the exclusive propcrt}' of their owner, 
he had only to look back upon his laborious trifling, 
as Grotius did upon his own toils, when death was 
upon him. Metaphysics are most imjirofitabki 



Vlll 



MEMOIR OF SAMTJEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



things ; as political economists say, their labors 
are of the most " rniproducti^e class" in the com- 
mmiity of thinkers. 

The next step of our poet in a life which seems 
to have had no settled object, but to have been 
steered compassless along, was to undertake the 
political and literary departments of the Morning 
Post newspaper, and in the duties of this situation 
he was engaged in tlie spring of 1802. No man 
was less fitted for a popular writer ; and, in com- 
mon with his early connexions, Coleridge seems 
to have had no fixed political principles that the 
public could understand, though he perhaps was 
able to reconcile in his own bosom all tliat others 
might imagine contradictory, and no doubt he did 
BO conscientiously. His style and manner of 
writing, the learning and depth of his disquisitions 
for ever came into play, and rendered him unin- 
telligible, or, what is equally fatal, unreadable to 
the mass. It was singular, too, that he disclosed 
in his biography so strongly his unsettled political 
principles, wliich showed that he had not studied 
politics as he had studied poetry, Kant, and the- 
ology The public of each party looks upon a 
political writer as a sort of champion round whom 
it rallies, and feels it impossible to follow the 
changeable leader, or applaud the addresses of him 
who is inconsistent or wavering in principles : it 
will not back out any but the firm unflinching 
partisan. In truth, what an ill compliment do 
men pay to their own judgment, when they run 
counter to, and shift about from points they have 
declared in indelible ink are foimded on truth and 
reason irrefutable and eternal ! They must eitlicr 
have been superficial sinatterers in what they first 
promulgated, and have appeared prematurely in 
print, or they must be tinctured with something 
like the hue of uncrimsoned apostasy. The mem- 
bers of what is called the " Lake School" have 
been more or less strongly marked with this re- 
orehensible cliange of political creed, but Coleridge 
the least of them. In truth he got nothing by any 
change he ventured upon, and, what is more, he 
expected nothing ; the world is therefore boimd to 
say of him what cannot be said of his friends, if it 
be true, that it believes most cordially in his sin- 
cerity — and that his obliquity in politics was 
caused by his superficial knowledge of them, and 
nis devotion of his high mental powers to diflerent 
questions. Notwithstanding this, those who will 
not make a candid allowance for him, have ex- 
pressed wonder how the author of the " Consciones 
ad Populum" and the " Watchman," the friend 
of freedom, and one of the founders of the Pantis- 
ocracy, could afterwards regard the drivelling and 
chicanery of the pettifogging minister, Perceval, 
as glorious in British political history, and he 
(Umself is the " best and wisest" of ministers ! 
Although Coleridge avowed his belief that he 
was not cilculated for a popular writer, he en- 



deavored to show that his own writings in the 
Morning Post were greatly influential on the pub- 
lic mind. Coleridge himself confessed that h'8 
Morning Post essays, though written in defence 
or furtherance of the measures of tlie government, 
added nothing to his fortune or reputation, How 
should they have been effective, when their writer, 
who not long before addressed the people, and 
echoed from his compositions tlie principles of free- 
dom and the rights of tlie people, now wrote with 
scorn of "mob-syeophants," and of the "half-wit- 
ted vulgar?" It is a consolation to know that our 
author himself lamented the waste of his manhood 
and intellect in this way. What might he not 
have given to the world that is enduring and ad- 
mirable, in the room of these misplaced political 
lucubrations I Who that has read his better works 
will not subscribe to this truth ? 

His translation of Schiller's Wallenstein may be 
denominated a free one, and is finely executed 
It is impossible to give in the English language a 
more eftective idea of the work of the great Ger- 
man dramatist. This version was made from a 
copy which the autlior himself afterwards revised 
and altered, and the translator subsequently re- 
published liis version in a more correct form, with 
t!ie additional passages and alterations of Schiller. 
This translation will long remain as the most 
eff'ective which has been achieved of the works 
of the German dramatists in the British tongue. 

The censure which has been cast upon our poet 
for not writing more which is worthy of his repu- 
tation, has been met by his enumeration of what 
he has done in all ways and times ; and, in 
truth, he wrote a vast deal which passed un- 
noticed, upon fleeting politics, and in newspaper 
columns, literary as well as political. To the 
world these last go for nothing, though the author 
calculated the thought and labor they cost him at 
full value. He conceded something, however, to 
the prevailing idea respecting him, when he said, 
" On my own account, I may perhaps have had 
suificicnt reason to lament my deficiency in self^ 
control, and the neglect of concentrating my pow- 
ers to the realization of some permanent work. But 
to verse, rather than to prose, if to either, belongs 
' the voice of mourning,' for 
Keen pangs of love awakening as a babe 
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart. 
And fears self-will'd that shunn'd the eye of hope, 
And hope that scarce could know itself from fear; 
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain. 
And genius given and knowledge won in vain. 
And all which I had culPd in wood walks wild, 
And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all 
Commune with thee had open'd out — but flowers 
Btrew'd on my corpse, and borne upon my bier, 
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave! 

S. T. C." 

In another part of his works, Coleridge says 
speaking of what in poetry he had written, " as to 
myself, I have pubhshed so little, anu tliat little 

8 . 



]\IEMOIR OP SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



IX 



pf so little importtoncc, as to make it almost ludi- 
crous to mention my name at all." It is evident, 
therefore, that a sense of what he miffht have done 
for fame, and of tiie little he had done, was felt 
by the poet ; and yet, tiie little he did produce has 
amon? it gems of the purest lustre, tlic brilliancy 
of wiiicli time will not deaden until tlie universal 
voice of nature be heard no longer, and poetry 
j)erish beneatli tlie dull load of life's liackneycd 
realities. 

The poem of " Christabel," Coleridge says, was 
composed in consequence of an agreement witli 
Mr. Wordsworth, that they should mutually pro- 
duce specimens of poetry which should contain 
" tlie power of exciting the sympathy of the rcadcrj 
by a faithful adherence to the trutii of nature, and 
tlje power of giving the interest of novelty by 
the modifying colors of imagination. Tlie sudden 
charm, which accidents of light and shade, which 
moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and 
familiar landscape, appeared to represent the pr.ac- 
ticability of combining both." Further he ob- 
serves on this thought, " that a series of poems 
might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the 
mcidents and agents were to be, in part at least, 
supernatural ; and the excellence to be aimed at 
was to consist in the interesting of the affections 
by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would 
naturally accompany such situations, supposing 
them real, etc. For the second class, subjects 
were to be chosen from ordinary life." Thus, it 
appears, originated the poems of the " Ancient 
Mariner," and "Christabel," by Coleridge, and 
the " Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth. 

Perhaps there is no English writer living who 
understood better than Coleridge the elements of 
poetry, and the way in which they may be best 
combined to produce certain impressions. His 
definitions of the merits and differences in style 
and poetic genius, between the earliest and latest 
writers of his country, are superior to those which 
any one else has it in his power to make ; for, in 
truth, he long and deeply meditated upon tliem, 
and no one can be dissatisfied by the reasons he 
gives, and the examples he furnishes, to bear out 
his theories and opinions. These things he did 
as well or better in conversation than in writing. 
His conversational powers were indeed unrivalled, 
and it is to be feared that to excel in these, he 
sacrificed what was more durable; and that he 
resigned, for the pleasure of gratifying an attentive 
listening circle, and pleasing thereby his self-love 
by its applause, much that would have delighted 
the world. His flow of words, delivery, and va- 
riety of information were so great, and he found 
it so captivating to enchain his auditors to the car 
of his triumphant eloquence, that he sacrificed to 
this gratification what might have sufficed to 
confer upon him a celebrity a thousand times 
more to be coveted by a spirit akin to his own. 



It is equally creditable to the taste and judgment 
of Coleridge, tliat he was one of tlie fir.st to |)oint 
out^ with temper and sound reasoning, tlie fallacy 
of a great portioji of Wordsworth's ])octic theory 
namely, that which relates to low lil'e. Words- 
worth contended that a proper poetic diction is a 
language taken from the mouths of men in gene- 
ral, in tiieir natural conversation under the infiu- 
enoe of natural feelings. Coleridge wisely asserted, 
that philosophers are the authors of the best parts 
of language, not clowns ; and that Milton's lan- 
guage is more tliat of real life than the language 
of a cottager. This subject he has most ably 
treated in chapter 17 of his Biographia Lileiaria. 

Two years after he had abandoned the Morning 
Post, he set off lor Malta, where he most unex- 
pectedly arrived on a visit to his friend Dr. Stodart, 
then king's advocate in that island, and was in- 
troduced by him to the Governor, Sir Alexander 
Ball, who appointed him his secretary. He re- 
mained in the island fulfilling tlie duties of his 
situation, for which he seems to have been but 
indifferently qualified, a very short period. One 
advantage, however, he derived from his official 
employ : that of the pension granted by Govern- 
ment to those who have served in similar situa- 
tions. On his way home he visited Italy ; entered 
Rome, and examined its host of ancient and mod- 
ern curiosities, and added fresh matter for thought 
to his rapidly accumulating store of ideas. Of 
tills visit he gives several anecdotes; among them 
one respecting the horns of Moses on Michael 
Angelo's celebrated statue of that lawgiver, in 
tended to elucidate the character of Frenchmen 
Coleridge was all his life a hater of France and 
Frenchmen, arising from his belief in their being 
completely destitute of moral or poetical feeling. 
A Prussian, who was with liim while looking upon 
the statue, observed that a Frenchman was the only 
animal, " in the human shape, that by no possi- 
bility can lift itself up to religion or poetry." A 
foolisli and imtrue remark on the countrymen of 
Fenelon and Pascal, of Massillon and Corneille- 
.fust then, however, two French officers of rank 
happened to enter the church, and the Goth from 
the Elbe remarked that, tlie first things they would 
notice would be the "horns and beard" (upon which 
the Prussian and Coleridge had just been rearing 
theories and quoting history), and that the associ- 
ations the Frenchmen would connect with them 
" would be those of a he-goat and a cuckold." It 
happened that the Prus-Goth was right : the offi 
cers did pass some such joke upon tlie figure. 
Hence, by inference, would the poet have his 
readers deduce the character of a people, whose 
literature, science, and civilization are perhaps 
only not the very first in the world. 

Another instance of his fixed and absurd disliko 
of every thing French, occurred during the de- 
livery of a course of Lectures on Poetry, at lh» 



MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



Royal Institution, in the spring of 1808 ; in one 
of which he astonished his auditory by thanking 
his Maker, in the most serious manner, for so or- 
dering events, that he was totally ignorant of a 
single word of " that frightful jargon, the French 
language I" And yet, notwithstanding this public 
avowal of his entire ignorance of the language, 
Mr. Coleridge is said to have been in tlie habit, 
while conversing with his friends, of expressing 
the utmost contempt for the literature of that 
country ! 

In the years 1809-10, Mr. Coleridge issued 
from Grasmere a weekly essay, stamped to be 
sent by the general post, called " The Friend." 
This paper lasted for twenty-seven numbers, and 
was then abruptly discontinued ; but the papers 
have since been collected and enlarged in three 
small volumes. 

In the year 1812, Mr. Coleridge, being in Lon- 
don, edited, and contributed several very interest- 
ing articles to, Mr. Southey's " Omniana," in two 
small volumes. In the year 1816, appeared the 
Biographical Sketches of his Literary Life and 
Opinions, and his newspaper Poems re-collected 
under the title of " Sibylline Leaves." 

About this time he wrote the prospectus of 
" The Encyclopoedia Metropolitan a," still in the 
course of publication, and was intended to be its 
editor ; but this final mistake was early discovered 
and rectified. 

In the year 1816 likewise was published by 
Mr. Murray, at the recommendation of Lord By- 
ron, who had generously befriended the brother 
(or rather the father) poet, the wondrous ballad 
tale of " Christabcl." The author tells us in his 
preface that the first part of it was written in his 
great poetic year, 1797, at Stowey ; the second 
part, after his return from Germany, in 1800, at 
Keswick : the conclusion yet remains to be writ- 
ten ! The poet says, indeed, in this preface, " As 
in my very first conception of the tale, I had the 
wliole present to my mind, I trust that I shall yet 
be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to 
come " We do not pretend to contradict a poet's 
dreams ; but we believe that Mr. Coleridge never 
communicated to mortal man, woman, or child, 
how this story of witchcraft was to end. The 
poem is, perhaps, more interesting as a fragment. 
For sixteen years we remember it used to be re- 
cited and transcribed by admiring disciples, till 
at length it was printed, and at least half the 
charm of the poet was broken by the counterspell 
of that rival magician, Faust. In 1818 was pub- 
lished the drama of Zapolya. In 1825, "Aids 
to Reflection, in the Formation of a Manly Char- 
acter, on the several grounds of Prudence, Mo- 



rality and Religion ; illustrated by select passages 
from our older Divines, especially from Arch- 
bishop Leighton." This is for the most part a 
compilation of extracts from the works of the 
Archbishop. 

To conclude the catalogue of Mr. Coleridge's 
works, in 1830 was issued a small volume "On 
the Constitution of the Church and State, accord- 
ing to the idea of each, with Aids towards a right 
Judgment on the late Catholic Bill." 

In the year 1828, the whole of his poetical 
works, including the dramas of Wallenstein 
(which had been long out of print), Remorse, and 
Zapolya, were collected in three elegant volumes 
by Mr. Pickering. 

The latter years of Mr. Coleridge's life were 
made easy by a domestication with his friend Mr. 
Gillman, the surgeon of Highgate Grove, and for 
some years, the poet deservedly received an an- 
nuity from his Majesty of £100 per annum, as 
an Academician of the Royal Society of Litera- 
ture. But these few most honorable pensions to 
worn-out veterans in literature were discontinued 
by the late ministry. Mr. Coleridge contributed 
one or two erudite papers to the transactions of 
this Society. In the summer of 1828, Mr. Cole- 
ridge made the tour of Holland, Flanders, and up 
the Rhine as far as Bergen. For some years be- 
fore his death, he was afflicted witi) great bodily 
pain ; and was on one occasion heard to say, that 
for tliirteen months he had from tliis cause walked 
up and down his chamber seventeen hours each 
day. He died on the 25th of July, 1834, having 
previously written the following epitaph for him- 
self: 

"Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God 1 
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod 
A poet lies, or that which once seein'd he — 
Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C. ! 
That lie, who, many a year, with toil of breath. 
Found death in life, may here tind life in death I 
Mercy for praise — to be forgiven for fame, 
He ask'd and hoped through Christ. Do thou the 
same." 

This is perfection — worthy of the author of 
the best essay on epitaphs in the English lan- 
guage. He was buried in Highgate Church. He 
has left three children, namely. Hartley, Derwent, 
and Sara. The first has published a volume of 
poems, of which it is enough to say that tliey are 
worthy of Mr. Wordsworth's verses addressed to 
him at " six years old." The second son is in 
holy orders, and is married and settled in the 
west of England ; and the poet's daughter is 
united to her learned and lively cousin, Mr. Henry 
Nelson Coleridge, the author of " Six Months in 
the West Indies." This young lady had the good 
10 



MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



XI 



fortune to be educated in the noble library on the 
banks of the Cumberland Greta, where she as- 
sisted her accomplished uncle in transl.itinjj from 
the old French the liistory of the Chevalier Bay- 
ard, and from the Latin the account of the Abi- 
poncs, or Equestrian Indians of Soutli America, 
by the Jesuit Martin Dobrizhoft'er ; both of wliich 
works were published by Mr. Murray. 
" But of liis native speecli, because well nigh 
Disuse in liiui forgetlulness liad wrought, 
In Latin he composed his history, 
A garrulous but a lively tale, and fraught 
With matter of delight and food for thought ; 
And if ho could, in Merlin's glass, have seen 
By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught. 
The old man would have been as pleased (I ween) 
As when he won the ear of that great empress 
queen." 

Southey's Tale of Paraguay. 



The following brief sketches of Coleridge's char- 
acter are selected from among the nurnerous 
notices which appeared m various reviews and 
periodicals at the time oj his decease. 

" As a great poet, and a still greater philoso- 
pher, the world has hardly yet done justice to the 
genius of Coleridge. It was in truth of an order 
not to be appreciated in a brief space. A far 
longer life than that of Coleridge shall not suffice 
to bring to maturity the harvest of a renown like 
his. The ripening of his mind, with all its golden 
fruitage, is but the seed-time of his glory. The 
close and consummation of his labors (grievous 
to those that knew liim, and even to those that 
knew him not,) is the mere commencement of 
his eternity of fame. As a poet, Coleridge was 
unquestionably great ; as a moralist, a theologian, 
and a philosopher, of the very highest class, he 
was utterly unapproachalle. And here, gentle 
reader, let me be plainly understood as speaking 
not merely of the present, but the past. Nay, 
more. Seeing that the earth herself is now^ past 
her prime, and gives various indic:itions of her 
beginning to 'grow grey in years,' it would, per- 
haps, savour more of probability than presump- 
tion, if I were likewise to include the future. It 
is thus that, looking both to what is, and to what 
has been, we seem to feel it, like a truth intuitive, 
that we shall never have another Shakspeare in 
the drama, nor a second Milton in Ihe regions of 
subliiner song. As a poet, Coleiidge has done 
enough to show how much more he might and 
could have done, if he had so thought fit. It was 
truly said of him, by an excellent critic and ac- 
complished judge, 'Let the dullest clod that ever 
vegetated, provided only he be alive and hears, be 
shut up in a room with Coleridge, or in a wood, 



and subjected for a few minutes to the ethereal 
influence of that wonderful man's monologue, and 
he will begin to believe himself a poet. The bar- 
ren wilderness may not blossom like the rose; but 
it will seem, or ratiier feel to do so, under the lus- 
tre of an imagination exhaustless as the sun.' 

" At the house of the attached friend, under 
whose roof this illustrious man spent the latter 
years of his life, it was the custom to have a con- 
versazione every Thursday evening. Here Cole- 
ridge was the centre and admiration of the circle 
that gathered round him. He could not be other- 
wise than aware of the intellectual homage of 
which he was the object ; yet there he sate, talk- 
ing and looking all sweet and simple and divine 
things, the very personification of meekness and 
humility. Now he spoke of passing occurrences, 
or of surrounding objects, — the flowers on the ta- 
ble, or tlie dog on the hearth ; and enlarged in 
most familiar wise on the beauty of the one, the 
attachment, the almost moral nature of the other, 
and the wonders that were involved in each. And 
now, soaring upward with amazing majesty, into 
those sublimer regions in which his soul de- 
lighted, and abstracting himself from the things 
of time and sense, the strength of his wing soon 
carried him out of sight. And here, even in these 
his eagle flights, although the eye in gazing after 
him was dazzled and blinded, yet ever and anon 
a sunbeam would make its way through the loop- 
holes of the mind, giving it to discern that beau- 
tiful amalgamation of heart and spirit, that could 
equally raise him above his fellow-men, or bring 
him down again to the softest level of humanity. 
' It is easy,' says the critic before alluded to, — ' it 
is easy to talk — not very difticult to speechify — 
hard to speak ; but to ' discourse' is a gift rarely 
bestowed by Heaven on mortal man. Coleridge 
has it in perfection. While he is discoursing, the 
world loses all its common-places, and you and 
your wife imagine yourselves Adam and Eve, 
listening to the aflTable archangel Raphael in the 
garden of Eden. You would no more dream of 
wishing him to be mute for awhile, than you 
would a river, that ' imposes silence with a stilly 
sound.' Whether you understand two consecu- 
tive sentences, we shall not stop too curiously to 
enquire ; but you do something better — you feel 
the whole, just like any other divine music. And 
'tis your own fault if you do not " a wiser and a 
better man arise to-morrow's morn." ' " 

The Metropolitan. 

An elaborate and admirable critique on Cole- 
ridge's "Poetical AVorks," in "The Quarterly 
Review, No. ClII.," written just before his death, 
opens as follows : 

2 11 



xn 



MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 



" Idolized by many, and used without scruple 
by more, the poet of ' Christabel' and the ' An- 
cient Mariner' is but little truly known in that 
common literary world, which, witliout the pre- 
rogative of conferring' fame hereafter, can most 
surely give or prevent popularity for the present. 
In that circle he commonly passes for a man of 
genius who has written some very beautiful 
verses, but whose original powers, whatever they 
were, have been long since lost or confounded in 
the pursuit of metaphysic dreams. We ourselves 
venture to think very differenth' of Mr. Coleridge, 
both as a poet and a pliilosopher, although we are 
well enough aware that notliing which we can 
say will, as matters now stand, much advance his 
chance of becoming a fashionable author. In- 
deed, as we rather believe, we should earn small 
thanks from him for our happiest exertions in 
sucli a cause; for certainly, of all the men of let- 
ters whom it has been our fortune to know, we 
never met any one who was so utterly regardless 
of the reputation of the mere author as Mr. Cole- 
ridge — one so lavish and indiscriminate in the 
exhibition of his own intellectual wealth before 
any and every person, no matter who — one so 
reckless who might reap where he had most pro- 
digally sown and vv'atcrcd. 'God knows,' — as we 
once heard him exclaim upon the subject of his 
unpublished system of philosophy, — 'God knows, 
I have no author's vanity about it. I should be 
absolutely glad if I could hear that the thing had 
been done before me.' It is somewhere told of 
Virgil, tliat he took more pleasure in the good 
verses of Varius and Horace than in his own. 
We would not answer for that ; but the story has 
always occurred to us, when we have seen Mr. 
Coleridge criticising and amending the work of a 
contemporary author with much more zeal and 
hilarity than we ever perceived him to display 
about any thing of his own. Perhaps our readers 
may have heard repeated a saying of Mr. Words- 
worth, that many men of this age had done won- 
derful things, as Davy, Scott, Cuvier, &c. ; but 
that Coleridge was the only wonderful man he 
ever knew. Something, of course, must be al- 
lowed in this as in all other such cases of anti- 
tnesis ; but we believe the fact really to be, that 
tne greater part of those who have occasionally 



visited Mr. Coleridge have left him with a feeling 
akin to the judgment indicated in the above re- 
mark. They admire the man more than his 
works, or they forget the works in the absorbing 
impression made by the living author. And no 
wonder. Those who remember him in his more 
vigorous days can bear witness to the peculiarity 
and transcendent power of his conversational elo- 
quence. It was unlike any thing that could bu 
heard elsewhere; the kind was different, the de- 
gree was different ; the manner was different. 
The boundless range of scientific knowledge, the 
brilliancy and exquisite nicety of illustration, the 
deep and ready reasoning, the strangeness and 
immensity of bookish lore, were not all ; the dra- 
matic story, the joke, the pan, the festivity, must 
be added ; and with these the clerical-looking 
dress, tlie thick waving silver hair, the youthful- 
colored cheek, the indefinable mouth and lips, the 
quick yet steady and penetrating greenish-grey 
eye, the slow and continuous enunciation, and the 
everlasting music of his tones, — all went to make 
up the image and to constitute tiie living presence 
of the man." 

In a note at the conclusion of the number of 
"The Quarterly Review" from which the pre- 
ceding passage has been taken, Mr. Coleridge's 
decease is thus mentioned : 

" It is with deep regret that we announce the 
death of Mr. Coleridge. When the foregoing ar- 
ticle on his poetry was printed, he was weak in 
body, but exhibited no obvious symptoms of so 
near a dissolution. The fatal change was sudden 
and decisive ; and six days before his death he 
knew, assuredly, that his hour was come. His 
few worldly affairs had been long settled ; and, 
after many tedious adieus, he expressed a wish 
that he might be as little interrupted as possible. 
His sufferings were severe and constant till vvitliin 
thirty-six hours of iiis end ; but they had no 
power to affect the deep tranquillity of his mind, 
or the wonted sweetness of his address. His 
prayer from the beginning was, that God would 
not withdraw his Spirit ; and that by the way in 
which lie would bear the last struggle, he might 
be able to evince the sincerity of his faith in 
Christ. If ever man did so, Coleridge did." 



12 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



s^mw^m ^» ©®m; 



^11 TBI 



13 



€owteni!5^ 



Page 

MEMOIR OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE v 

Jt'VENILE POEMS 1 

Genevieve 2 

Sonnet, to the Autumnal Moon ib. 

Time, Real and Imaginary', an Allegory . . ib. 

Monody on the death of Chatterton .... ib. 

Songs of the Pixies 4 

The Raven, a Christmas Tale, told by a 

School-boy to his little Brothers and Sisters 5 

Ateence : a F'arewell Oile on quitting School 

for Jesus College, Cambridge ib. 

Lines on an Autumnal Evening ib. 

The Rose 6 

The Kiss ib. 

To a Young Ass — its Mother being tethered 

near it 7 

Domestic Peace ib. 

The Sigh ib. 

Epitaph on an Infant ib. 

Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross . . ib. 

Lines to a beautiful Spring in a Village . . 8 

Lines on a Friend, who died of a frenzy fe- 
ver induced by calumnious reports . . . ib. 

To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French 

Revolution ib. 

Sonnet. " My heart has thanked thee, Bowles ! 

for those soft strains" 9 

" As late I lay in slumber's shadowy 

vale" ib. 

"Though roused by that dark vizir, 

Riot rude" ij. 

" \Vlien British Freedom for a hap- 
pier land" a. 

" It was some spirit, Sheridan ! that 

breathed" H. 

" O what a loud and fearful shriek 

was there" ih. 

" As when faroffthe warbled strains 

are heard" 10 

" Thou gentle look, tliat didst my 

soul beguile" . . , ib. 

" Pale roamer through the night ! 

thou poor forlorn !" ib. 

" Sweet Mercy ! how my very heart 

has bled" ib. 

" Thou bleeaest, my poor heart ! and 

thy distress" ib. 

To the Author of the " Robbers" . ib. 

Lines composed while climbing the left as- 
cent of Brocldey Coomb, Somersetshire, 

May, 1795 ib. 

Lines, in the manner of Spenser 11 

imitated from Ossian ib. 

The Complaint of Ninathoma ib. 

IJnes, imitated from the Welsh ib. 

to an infant ib. 

in answer to a Letter from Bristol . . 12 

to a Friend, in answer to a melancholy 

Letter 13 



Page 
Religious Musings ; a Destdtory Poem . . 13 
The Destiny of JXations ; a Vision 17 

SIBYLLINE LEAVES :— 

L POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS, OR 
FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM. 

Ode to the Departing Year 21 

France ; an Ode 23 

Fears in Solitude; written in April, 1798, 

during the alarm of an Invasion 21 

Fire, Famine, and Slaughter; a War Eclogue 20 
Recantation — illustrated in the Story of the 

Mad Ox 27 

U. LOVE POEMS. 

Introduction to the tale of the Dark Ladie 28 
Lewti, or the Circassian Love Chaunt . . . '2V 
The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution . . 30 
The Night Scene; a Dramatic Fragment . 31 
To an Unfortimate Woman, whom the Au- 
thor had known in the days of her inno- 
cence 32 

To an Unfortunate Woman at the Theatre 33 

Lines, composed in a Concert-room ib 

The Keepsake ib 

To a Lady, with Falconer's " Shipwreck" . 34 
To a Young Lady, on her Recovery from a 

Fever il 

Something childish, but very natural — wril- 

ten in Germany ih. 

Home-sick — written in Germany ib. 

Answer to a Child's Question ih. 

The Visionary Hope ... 35 

The Happy Husband ; a Fragment ib 

Recollections of T^nve ib 

On Revisiting the Sea-shore after long al)- 

sence ib. 

Tlie Composition of a Kiss 36 

III. MEDITATIVE POEMS. 

Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Cha- 
mouny j7ji 

Lines written in the Albiun at Elbingerodc, 
in the Hartz Forest 37 

On observing a Blossom on the 1st of Feb- 
ruary, 1796 ih. 

The Eolian Harp — composed at Clevedon, 
Somersetshire j7*. 

Reflections on having left a Place of Retire- 
ment 38 

To the Rev. Geo. Coleridge of Ottery St. 
Mary, Devon — with some Poems .... 3.0 

Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath . . . ib. 

A Tombless Epitaph 3!» 

This Lime-tree Bovver my Prisoii 4(1 

To a Friend, who had declared his intention 
of writing no more Poetry ib. 

To a Gentleman — composed on the night 
after his Recitation of a Poem on the 
Growth of an Individual Mind ... ,41 
15 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



51 



The Nightingale ; a Conversation Poem . . 42 

Frost at Midnight .' • ' ^^ 

To a Friend, together with an unfinished 

Poem ^"• 

The Hour when we shall meet again ... 44 

Lines to Joseph Cottle i*- 

IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Three Graves ; a Fragment of a Sex- 
ton's Tale i^- 

Dejection ; an Ode 48 

Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire 49 

Ode to Tranquillity 50 

To a Young Friend, on his proposing to do- 
mesticate with the Author ii- 

Lines to W. L. Esq., while he sang to Pur- 
cell's Music 

Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune, 
who abandoned himself to an indolent 
and causeless Melancholy 

Sonnet to the River Otter 

composed on a Journey homeward ; 

the Author having received intelligence 

of the Birth of a Son, Sept. 20, 1796 . . ib. 

Sonnet — To a Friend, who asked how I felt 
when the Nurse first presented my In- 
fant to me 52 

The Virgin's Cradle Hymn ib- 

On the Christening of a Friend's Child . . ib. 

Epitaph on an Infant ib- 

Melancholy ; a Fragment ib. 

Tell's Birth-place — imitated from Stolberg 53 

A Christmas Carol ib. 

Human Life, on the Denial of Immortality ii. 

The Visit of the Gods — imitated from 
Schiller 54 

Elegy — imitated from Akenside's blank 
verse Inscriptions ib. 

Kubla Khan ; or a Vision in a Dream . . . ib. 

The Pains of Sleep 55 

Appendix. 

Apologetic Preface to " Fire, Famine, and 

Slaughter ib. 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 60 

CHRISTABEL 66 

REMORSE ; a Tragedy, in Five Acts 73 

Z A POLY A ; a Christmas Tale. 

Part I. the prelude, entitled " the 
usurper's fortune" 96 



Page 
Part II. the sequel, entitled "the 
usurper's fate" 102 

THE PICCOLOMINI, OR THE FIRST PART 
OF WALLENSTEIN ; a Drama, trans- 
lated from the German of Schiller . . 121 

THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN ; a Tra- 
gedy, in Five Acts 1 1>8 

THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE ; an Historic 

Drama 203 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS:— 

PROSE IN RHYME ; OR EPIGRAMS, MORALITIES, 
AND THINGS WITHOUT A NAME. 

Love 212 

Duty surviving Self-love, the only Sure 
Friend of Declining Life ; a Soliloquy .213 

Phantom or Fact? a Dialogue in Verse . . ib. 

Work without Hope ib. 

Youth and Age ib. 

A Day-dream 214 

To a Lady, offended by a sportive observa- 
tion that women have no souls .... ih. 

" I have heard of reasons manifold" .... ?i. 

Lines suggested by the Last Words of Be- 
rengarius ib. 

The Devil's Thoughts ih. 

Constancy to an Ideal Object 215 

The Suicide's Argument, and Nature's An- 
swer ib 

The Blossoming of the Solitary Date-tree; 
a Lament 216 

Fancy in Nubibus, or the Poet in the 
Clouds ib 

The Two Founts ; Stanzas addressed to a 
Lady on her recovery, with unblemished 
looks, from a severe attack of pain . . ih. 

What is Life ? 217 

The Exchange ib. 

Sonnet, composed by the Sea-side, October, 
1817 rh. 

Epigrams ih. 

The Wanderings of Cain 218 

Allegoric Vision i-'"Ji) 

The Improvisatore, or " John Anderson, my 
jo, John" 22? 

The Garden of Boccaccio 224 

16 



THE 



POETICAL AVORKS 

OF 



3Jtt^cuilc IJocm.o. 



PREFACE. 



Compositions resembling Uiose here collected are 
not unfreqiienlly condemned for their querulous 
Egotism. But Egotism is to be condemned then only 
when it oflends against time and place, as in a Ilis- 
tor)' or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody 
or Sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle 
for being round. Why then vvriic Sonnets or Mono- 
dies ? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps 
riolhir\g else could. Afler the more violent emotions 
of S<jrro\v, the mind demands amusement, and can 
find it in employment alone : but, full of its late siil- 
ferings, it can endure no employment not in .some 
measure coimected wilh them. Forcibly to turn 
away our altenlion to general subjects is a paiiil'ul 
and most ofien an unavailing effort. 

But O ! how grateful to n wounded heart 
The tale of AJisery to imparl — 
From others' eyes bid aniens sorrows flow, 
And raise esteem upon the base of Woe '. 

Shaw. 
The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to 
describe our own sorrows ; in the endeavor to de- 
scribe them, inlellectual activitj- is exerted ; and 
from inlellectual activity there results a pleasure, 
which is gradually associated, and mingles as a cor- 
rective, with the painful subject of the description. 
" True ! "' (it may be answered) " but how are the 
Public interested in your sorrows or your Dcscri|> 
lion 1." We are for ever attributing personal lenities 
to imaginary Aggregates. What is the Public, but a 
term lor a number of scattered individuals ? of whom 
as many will be interested in these sorrows, as have 
experienced the same or similar. 

Holy be the Iny 
Which mourning Boollics the mourner on his way. 

If I could judge of others by myself, I should not 
hesiiale to affirm, that the most interesting pa.ssages 
are those in which the Author develops his own 
fecling.s ? Tlio sweet voice of Cona* never sounds 
so sweetly, as when it speaks of ilself; and I should 
almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who 
could read the opening of the third liook of the Para- 
dise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a Law of our 
Kature, he, who labors under a strong feeling, is 



* Ossian. 
BS 



impelled to seek for sympathy; but a Poet's feelings 
are all strong. Quicquid amel valde aviat. Akenside 
therefore speaks with philosophical accuracy when 
he classes Love and Poetry, as producing the same 
eflods : 

Love and the wisli of Poets when their tongue 
Would ti'acli to others' bosoms, what so charms 
Their own. 

Pleasures of Imagination. 

There is one species of Egotism whicli is iruly 
disgusting ; not that which leads us to communicate 
our feelings to others but that which would reduce 
the feehngs of others to an identity wilh our own. 
'J'he Atheist, who exclaims " pshaw ! " when he 
glances his eye on the praises of Deity, is an J^golisl : 
an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of Love- 
verses, is an J'".golist: and the sleek Favorites of 
Forlune are Egotists, when they condemn :>.ll " mel- 
ancholy, disconlented " verses. Surely, it would be 
candid not merely to ask whether the poem pleases 
ourselves, btit to consider whether or no there may 
not be others, to whom it is well calculated to give 
an innocent pleasure. 

I shall only add, that each of my readere will, I 
hope, remember, that these Poems on various sub- 
jects, which he reads at one time and under tlie in- 
fluence of one set of feelings, were written at differ- 
ent times and prompted by verj' difl'erent feelings ; 
and therefore that the supposed inferiority of one 
Poem lo another may sometimes be owing lo tho 
temper of mind in which he happens to peruse it. 



Mv poems have been rightly charged with a pro 
fusion of (loul)l('-('|)iihols, and a general turgidne.ss 
I have ()runed Ihe double-cpiihcis with no sparing 
hand ; and used my best eliorts to tame the swell 
and glitter botli of iliought and diction.* This latter 



• Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed lo 
express some degree of surprise, that alter having run the 
critical gauntli^t for a certain class of faults, wliiirh I bail, viz. 
a too ornate and elaborately poetic dictiim, and nothing hav- 
ing come before the judgment-seat of the Reviewers during 
tho long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, iiuarler 
afler (lu.irtcr, have been placed by them in the forcniosl rank 
of tho proscribed, and made to abide the brunt of abuse and 
ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz. bald and prosaic lan- 
guage, and an afTeeted simplicity both of matter and manner 
— faults which assuredly did not enter into tho cbariictor of 
my cumpusitiuDS. — Literary Lije, i 51. Published 1817 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL VrORKS. 



fault however had insinuated itself into my Religious 
Musings with such intricacy of union, that some- 
times I have omitted to disentangle the weed from 
the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier 
accusation has been brought against me, that of ob- 
scurity ; but not, I think, with equal justice. An 
Author is obscure, when his conceptions are dim 
and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or unap- 
propriate, or involved. A poem that abounds in 
allusions, like the Bard of Gray, or one that imper- 
sonates high and abstract truths, like CoUins's Ode 
on the poetical character, claims not to be popular — 
but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency 
IS in the Reader. But this is a charge which every 
I Kiel, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must 
expect from his contemporaries. Milton did not 
escape it ; and it was adduced with virulence against 
(Jray and Collins. We now hear no more of it: 
not that their poems are better understood at present, 
I ban they were at their first publication; but their 
iiime is established ; and a critic would accuse him- 
self of frigidity or inattention, who should profess 
not to understand them. But a living writer is yet 
siibjudice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions 
(M- enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our 
pride to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring 
above us. If any man expect from my poems the 
same easiness of style which he admires in a drink- 
uig-song, for him I have not written. Inlelligibilia, 
lion infelleclum adfero. 

I expect neither profit nor general fame by my 
writings ; and I consider myself as having been 
amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me 
its own " exceeding great reward : " it has soothed 
my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my en- 
joyments ; it has endeared solitude : and it has given 
me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and 
the Beautiful in all diat meets and surrounds me. 

S. T. C. 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



GENEVIEVE. 

Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve ! 

In beauty's light you glide along : 

Your eye is like the star of eve, 

And sweet your voice, as seraph's song. 

Yet not your heavenly beauty gives 

This heart with passion soft to glow : 

Within your soul a voice there lives! 

It bids you hear the tale of woe. 

When sinking low the sufferer wan 

Beholds no hand outstreteh'd to save, 

Fair, as the bosom of the swan 

That rises graceful o'er the wave, 

[ 've seen your breast with pity heave, 

And iherefore love I you, sweet Genevieve ! 



SONNET. 

TO THli: AUTUMNAL MOOX. 

Mild Splendor of the various-vested Night ! 
Mother of wildly-working visions ! hail ! 
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light 
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil ; 



And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud 
Behind the gatlier'd blackness lost on high ; 
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud 
Thy placid lightning o'er the awaken'd sky 
Ah such is Hope ' as changeful and as fair I 
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight ; 
Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despiiir • 
But soon emerging in her radiant might. 
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care 
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight. 



TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. 

AN ALLEGORY. 

On the wide level of a mountain's head 
(I knew not where, but 't was some faery place 
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outs[iread, 
Two lovely children run an endless race, 

A sister and a brother ! 

This far outstript the other ; 
Yet ever runs she with reverted face. 
And looks and listens for the boy behind : 

For he, alas ! is blind ! 
O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, 
And knows not whether he be first or last. 



MONODY ON THE DEATH OF 
CHATTERTON. 

O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death, 
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep. 
Babes, Children, Youths and Men, 
Night following night for threescore years and ten 
But doubly strange, where life is l/at a breath 
To sigh and pant wilh, up Want's rugged steep. 

Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, away 

Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display 

For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of state 

Lo ! by the grave I stand of one, for whom 

A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom 

[That all bestowing, this withholding all) 

Made each chance knell from distant spire or tioitio 

Sound like a seeking Mother's anxious call. 

Return, poor Child ! Home, weary Truant, home ! 

Thee, Chatterton ! these unblest stones protect 
From want, and the bleak freezings of neglect. 
Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven. 
Here hast thou found repose ! beneath this sod ! 
Thou! Ovain word! thou dwell'st not with the clod 
Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven 
Thou at the throne of Mercy and thy God 
The triumph of rcdeoming Love dost hymn 
(Believe it, O my soul !) to harps of Seraphim. 

Yet oft, perforce ('t is suffering Nature's call,) 
I weep, that heaven-born Genius so shall fall ; 
And off, in Fancy's saddest hour, my soul 
Averted shudders at the poison'd bowl. 
Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view 

Thy corse of livid hue ; 
Now indignation checks the feeble sigh. 
Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eyo . 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



Is this the land of song-ennobled line ? 

Is tills the land, where Genius ne'er in vain 

Pour'd forth his lofty strain ? 
Ah me ! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine, 
Beneath chill Disapiwintment's shade 
His weary linilxs in lonely anguisli laid. 

And o'er her darling dead 

Pity hopeless hung her head, 
While " 'niid the pelting of that merciless storm," 
unk to the cold earth Otways famish'd form ! 

Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, 

From vales where Avon winds, the Rlinstrel* came. 

Light-hearted youth I aye, as he ha.stes along, 

He meditates the future song, 
How daimtlcss ^lla fray'd the Dacian foe ; 

And while the numbers flowing strong 

In eddies wliirl, in surges throng. 
Exulting in the spirits' genial throe, 
In tides of power his lii'e-blood seems to flow. 

And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame, 
His eyes have glorious meanings, that declare 
More than the light of outward day shines there, 
A holier triumph and a sterner aim ! 
Wings grow within him ; and he soars above 
Or Bard's, or Minstrel's lay of war or love. 
Friend to the friendless, to the Suflferer health, 
He hears the widow's prayer, the good man's praise ; 
To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth. 
And young and old shall now see happy days. 
On many a waste he bids trim gardens rise. 
Gives the blue sky to many a prisoner's eyes; 
And now in wrath he grasps the patriot steel. 
And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel. 

Sweet Flower of Hope ! free Nature's genial child ! 
Tliat didst so fair disclose thy early bloom. 
Filling the wide air with a rich perfume ! 
For thee in vain all heavenly aspects smiled ; 
From the hard v^orld brief respite could they win — 
The frost nipp'd sharp without, the canker prey'd 

within! 
Ah ' where are fled the charms of vernal Grace, 
And Joy's wild gleams that lighten'd o'er thy face ? 
Youth of tumultuous soul, anil haggard eye ! 
Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps, I view, 
On thy wan forehead starts the letlial dew, 
And oh ! the anguish of that shuddering sigh ! 

Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour, 

'When Care, of wither'd brow, 
Prepar'd the poison's death-cold power; 
Already to thy lips was raised the bowl. 
When near thee stood Affection meek 
(Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek,) 
Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll 
On scenes that well might melt thy soul ; 
Thy native cot she flash d upon thy view. 
Thy native cot, where still, at close of day, 
, cace smiling sate, and listen'd to thy lay ; 
Thy Sister's shrielcs she b.ade thee hear. 
And mark thy Mother's tiirilling tear; 

See, see her breast's convulsive throe, 
Her silent agony of woe ! 
Ah ! dash tlie poison'd chalice from thy hand ! 
And thou hadst dash'd it, at her soft command, 



Avon, a river near Bristol ; the birth-place of Chatterton 



But that Despair and Indignation rose, 
.\nd told again the story of thy woes ; 
Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart ; 
The dread dependence on the low-ljorn mind ; 
Told every pang, with which thy soul must sinarl, 
JNcglcot, and grinning Scorn, and Want combined I 
Recoiling quick, thou bad'st the friend of pain 
Roll the black tide of Death Uirough every freezing 
vein ! 

Ye woods ! that wave o'er Avon's rocky steep. 
To F'ancy's ear sweet is your murmuring deep ! 
For here she loves the cyi)ress wreath to weave. 
Watching, witli wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve 
Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove. 
In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove, 
Like star-beam on the slow sequester'd tide 
Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide 
And here, in Inspiration's eager hour. 
When most the big soul feels the mastering power, 
These v^'ilds, these caverns roaming o'er. 
Round which the screaming sea-gul's soar. 
With wild unequal steps he pass'd along. 
Oft pouring on the winds a broken song : 
Anon, upon some rough rock's fearful brow 
Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves 
below. 

Poor Chatterton ! he sorrows for thy fate 

Who would have praised and loved thee, ere too 

late. 
Poor Chatterton ! farewell ! of darkest hues 
This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb ; 
But dare no longer on the sad theme muse, 
Lest kindred Wf)es persuade a kindred doom : 
For oh ! big gall-drops, shook from Folly's wing. 
Have blacken'd the fair promise of my spring ; 
And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart 
The last pale Hope that shiver'd at my heart ! 

Hence, gloomy thoughts ! no more my soul shai3 

dwell 
On joys that were ! No more endure to weigh 
The shame and anguish of the evil day, 
Wisely forgetful ! O'er the ocean swell 
Sublime of Hope I seek the coitaged dell. 
Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray 
And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay. 
The wizard Passions weave a holy spell ! 

O Chatterton ! that thou wert yet alive ! 
Sure thou wouldst spread the canvas to the gale 
And love with us the tinkling team to drive 
O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale ; 
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng. 
Hanging, enraptured, on thy stately song I 
And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy 
All deftly mask'd, as hoar Antiquity. 

Alas vain Phantasies ! the fleeting brood 
Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood ! 
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dreaii. 
Where Susquehannah pours his untamed strean: 
And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side 
Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide 
Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee. 
Sweet Harper of lime-shrouilcd Minstrelsy ! 
And there, soothed sadly l)y the dirgeful wind. 
Muse on the sore ills I had left beliind 

3 iS 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



SONGS OF THE PIXIES. 



The Pixies, in the superslitinn of Devonshire, are a race of 
beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a 
small distance from a village in that county, half-way up a 
wood-covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies' Parlor. 
The roots of old trees form its ceiling ; and on iis sides are 
innumerable ciphers, among which the author discovered his 
own cipher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of tlieir 
childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter. 

To this place the Author conducted a party of young Ladies, 
during the Summer months of the year 1793 ; one of whom, 
of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colorless yet 
clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion 
the following irregular Ode was written. 



I. 

Whom the untaught Sheplierds call 

Pixies in their madrigal, 
Fancy's children, here we dwell : 

Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell. 
Here the wren of softest note 

Builds its nest and warbles well ; 
Here the blackbird straiiLs his throat ; 

Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell. 

II. 

\Vlien fades the moon all shadowy-pale, 
And scuds the cloud before the gale, 
Ere Mom with living gems bedight 
Purples the East with streaky light. 
We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews 
Clad in robes of rainbow hues : 
Or sport amid the rosy gleam, 
Soothed by the distant-tinkling team, 
While lusty Labor scouting sorrow 
Bids the Dame a glad good-morrow. 
Who jogs the accustom'd road along. 
And paces cheery to her cheering song. 

III. 

But not our filmy pinion 
We scorch amid the blaze of day, 
When Noontide's fiery-tressed minion 
Flashes the fervid ray. 
Aye from the sultry heat 
We to the cave retreat 
O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwined 
With wildest texture, blacken'd o'er with age : 
llound them their mantle green the ivies bind, 
Beneath whose foliage pale, 
Fa'nn'd by the unfrequent gale, 
We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage. 

IV. 
Thither, while the murmuring throng 
Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song. 
By Indolence and Fancy brought, 
Al youthful Bard, " unlmown to Fame," 
VVooes the Queen of Solemn Thought, 
Aud heaves the gentle misery of a sigh. 
Gazing with tearful eye, 
As round our sandy grot appear 
Many a rudely-scujptiu'ed name 
To pensive Memory dear I 
Weaving gay dreams of sunny-iinctured hue, 
We glance before his view : 



O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed. 
And twine our faery garlands roiuid liis head. 



Wlien Evening's dusky car, 

Crown'd with her dewy star. 
Steals o'er the fading sky in shadowy flight 

On leaves of aspen trees 

We tremble to the breeze, 
Veil'd from the grosser ken of mortal sight 

Or, haply, at the visionary hour. 
Along our vvildly-bov.er'd sequester'd walk. 
We listen to the enamour'd rustic's talk ; 
Heave with the heavings of the maiden's breast. 
Where young-eyed Loves have built the'r turtle 

nest ; 
Or guide of soul-subduing power 
The electric flash, that from the melting eye 
Darts the Ibnd question and the soft reply. 

VI. 

Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale 
We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank , 
Or, silent-sandall'd, pay our defter court 
Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, 
Where w'earied with his flower-caressing sport 
Supine he slumbers on a violet bank ; 
Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam 
By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream ; 
Or where his waves with loud unquiet song 
Dash'd o'er the rocky channel froth along 
Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest. 
The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast 

VII. 

Hence, thou lingerer. Light! 
Eve saddens mlo Night. 
Mother of wildly-working dreams ! we ^•iew 
The sombre hours, that roimd thee stand 
With downcast eyes (a duteous band!) 
Their dark robes dripping with the heavy dew 
Sorceress of the ebon throne ! 
Thy power the Pixies ov4T1, 
Wlien round thy raven brow 
Heaven's lucent roses glow. 
And clouds, in watery colors drest. 
Float i-ri light drapeiy o'er thy sable vest : 
Wliat time the pale moon sheds a softer day, 
Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beara : 
For 'mid the quivermg light 't is ours to play. 
Aye dancing to the cadence of the stream. 

VIII. 

Welcome, Ladies ! to the cell 
Where the blameless Pixies dwell : 
But thou, sweet Nymph ! proclaim'd our Faery 
Queen, 
With what obeisance meet 
Thy presence shall we greet ? 
For lo ! attendant on thy steps are seen 
Graceful Ease in artless stole, 
And while-robed Purity of soul. 
With Honor's sollor mien ; 
Mirth of the loosely-flowing hair. 
And meek-eyed Pity eloquently fair, 

Wliose tearful cheeks are lovely to the view 
Aa snow-drop wet with dew. 
U 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



IX. 

Unboastful mnid ! though now the Lily pale 

Transparent grace thy beauties meek ; 
Vet ere again along the einpurjiling vale, 
The purpling vale and elfin-haunted grove, 
Young Zei)liyr his fresh flowers profusely throws, 

We'll tinge witli livelier hues thy cheek; 
And haplv, from the neetar-breathing Rose 
Extract a blush for love ! 



THE RAVEN. 

A CHRISTMAS TALC, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS 
LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 

Underneath a huge oak tree 

There was, of swine, a huge company. 

That grunied as they crnnch'd the mast : 

For that was ripe, and fell full fast. 

Then they trotted away, lor tlie wind grew high 

One acorn they left, and no more might you spy. 

Next came a raven, that liked not such folly : 

He belong d, they did say, to the witch Melancholy! 

Blacker was he than blackest jet. 

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet 

He pick'd up the acorn and buried it straight 

By the side of a river both deep and great. 

Where then did the Raven go ? 

He went high and low. 
Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go. 

Many Autunms, many Springs 

Traveird he with wandering wings ; 

Many Summers, many Winters — 

I can't tell half his adventures. 

At lengih he came back, and with him a She, 
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree. 
They built them a nest in the topmost bough, 
And yoimg ones they had, and were happy enow. 
But soon came a woodman in leathern guise. 
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes. 
He'd sn ax in his hand, not a word he spoke, 
But wiih many a hem! and a sturdy stroke, 
At lengih he brought down the poor Raven's own 

oak. 
His young ones were kill'd ; for they could not 

depart. 
And thuir mother did die of a broken heart. 

The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever ; 
And they floated it down on the course of the river. 
They savv'd it w planks, and its bark they did strip, 
And with this tree and others they made a good ship. 
The ship it was launch'd ; but in sight of the land 
Such a storm there did rise as no sliip could witli- 

stand. 
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast : 
The old Raven flew round and round, and caw'd to 

the blast. 

He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls — 
See ! see ! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls ! 

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet. 
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet, 
And he thank'd liim again and again for this treat : 

They hail taken his all, and Revenge was sweet ! 



ABSENCE. 

A FAREWELL ODE ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JEStJ« 
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

Where graced with many a classic spoil 

Cam rolls his reverend stream along, 

I haste to urge the learned toil 

That sternly chides my lovelorn song : 

Ah me! too mindful of the days 

Illumed by Passion's orient rays, 

When Peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health 

Enrich'd me willi the best of wealth. 

Ah fair delights ! that o'er my .soul 
On Memory's wing, like shadows fly ! 
Ah f'lowers ! which Joy from Eden stole 
While Innocence stood smiling by! — 
But cease, fond heart ! this bootless moan t 
Those hours on rapid pinions flown 
Shall yet return, by Absence crown'd 
And scatter lovelier roses round. 

The Sun who ne'er remits his fires 
On heedless eyes may pour the day : 
The Moon, that oft from Heaven retires, 
Endears her renovated ray. 
What tliough she leaves the sky imblesl 
To mourn awhile in murky vest ? 
\Vhen she relumes her lovely light. 
We bless the wanderer of tlie night. 



LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING. 

thou, wild Fancy, check thy wing ! No more 
Tliose thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore. 
Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight 
Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light ; 

Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day, 

With western peasants hail the morning ray ! 

Ah ! rather bid the perish'd pleasures move, 

A shadowy train, across the soul of Love ! 

O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling 

Each flow-er that wreathed ihcdewy locks of Spring 

When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's t-im 

bower 
She leap'd, awaken'd by the pattering shower. 
Now sheds the sinking Sim a deeper gleam, 
Aid, lovely Soiceress! aid thy poet's dream! 
With fairy w'and O bid the Maid arise. 
Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes; 
As erst when from the Muses' calm abode 

1 came, with Learning's meed not unbestow'd ; 
Wlicn as she twined a laurel round my brow, 
And met my kiss, and half rcturn'd my vow. 
O'er all my frame shot rapid my thrill'd heart, 
And every nerve confess'd th' electric dart 

dear deceit ! I see the Maiden rise. 

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes ! 
When first the lark, high soaring, swells his throut, 
Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the wild note, 

1 trace her footsteps on the accusiom'd lawn, 
I mark her glancing 'mid the gleam of dawn. 
When the bent flower beneath the night-dew weep* 
And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps. 



6 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Amid the paly radiance soft and sad, 
She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad. 
With her along the streamlet's brink I rove ; 
With her I list the warblings of the grove ; 
And seems in each low wind her voice to float, 
Lone-whispering Pity in each soothing note ! 

Spirits of Love ! ye heard her name ! obey 
The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair. 
Whether on clustering pinions ye are there, 
Where rich snows blossom on the myrtle trees. 
Or with fond languishment aroimd my fair 
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair ; 
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way, 
Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze ! 

Spirits ! to you the infant Maid was given, 
Form'd by the wondrous alchemy of heaven ! 
No fairer maid does Love's wide empire know. 
No fairer maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow. 
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly ; 
A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye ; 
Love hghts her smile — in Joy's red nectar dips 
His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips. 
She speaks ! and hark that passion- warbled song — 
Still, Fancy ! still that voice, those notes prolong, 
As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls 
Shall wake the sofien'd echoes of Heaven's halls ! 

O (have I sigh'd) were mine the wizard's rod, 
Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful god ! 
A flower-entangled arbor I would seem, 
To shield my Love from noontide's sultry beam : 
Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose odorous boughs 
My love might weave gay garlands for her brows. 
When twilight stole across the fading vale. 
To fan my love I 'd be the Evening Gale ; 
Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest, 
And flutter my faint pinions on her breast ! 
On Seraph wing I 'd float a Dream by night. 
To soothe my Love with shadows of delight :— 
Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, 
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes .' 

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame 
Had bask'd beneath the Sun's unclouded flame, 
Awakes amid the troubles of the air, 
The skiey deluge, and wliite lightning's glare — 
Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep. 
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep : — 
So toss'd by storms along Life's wildering way, 
Mme eye reverted views that cloudless day, 
When by my native brook I wont to rove. 
While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love. 

Dear native brook ! like Peace, so placidly 
Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek ! 
Dear native brook ! where first yoimg Poesy 
Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream! 
Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek. 
As water-liUes ripple thy slow stream ! 
Dear native haunts ! where Virtue still is gay, 
Where Friendship's fix'd star sheds a mellow'd ray, 
Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears, 
Wliere soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears ; 
And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ. 
Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy ! 



No more your sky-larks melting from the sight 
Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight — 
No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet 
With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat. 
Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene 
Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between 
Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song. 
That soars on Morning's wings your vales among. 

Scenes of my Hope ! the aching eye ye leave, 
Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve ! 
Tearful and saddening with the sadden'd blaze. 
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze. 
Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, 
Till chill and damp the moonless night descend 



THE ROSE. 



As late each flower that sweetest blows 
I pluck'd, the Garden's pride ! 
Williin the petals of a Rose 
A sleeping Love I spied. 

Around his brows a beamy wreath 
Of many a lucent hue ; 
All purple, glow'd his cheek, beneath 
Inebriate with dew. 

I softly seized the unguarded Power, 
Nor scared his balmy rest; 
And placed him, caged within the flower, 
On spotless Sara's breast. 

But when unweeting of the guile 
Awoke the prisoner sweet. 
He struggled to escape awhile, 
And stamp'd his faery feet 

Ah ! soon the soul-entrancing sight 
Subdued the impatient boy ! 
He gazed ! he thrill'd with deep delight ! 
Then clapp'd his wings for joy. 

" And O ! he cried — " Of magic kind 
What charm this Throne endear ! 
Some other Love let Venus find^ 
I '11 fix mij empire here." 



THE KISS. 



One kiss, dear Maid ! I said and sigh'd- 
Your scorn the little boon denied. 
Ah why refuse the blameless bliss ? 
Can danger lurk within a kiss ? 

Yon viewless Wanderer of the vale, 
•T'he Spirit of the Western Gale, 
At IVjprning's break, at Evening's close 
Inhales the sweetness of the Rose. 
And hovers o'er the uninjured bloom 
Sighing back the soft perfume. 
Vigor to the Zephyr's wing 
Her nectar-bre»;thing kisses fling; 
16 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



And He the glitter of the Dow 
Scatters on the Rose's hue. 
Bashful, lo ! she bends her head, 
And darts a blush of deeper red ! 

Too well those lovely lips disclose 
The triumplis of the opening Uose ; 
O liiir ! O graceful ! bid ihcni pro\e 
.\s passive to the breath of Love. 
In tender aecenls, lUint and low, 
Well-pleased I hear the whisper'd " No ! " 
The wliisper'd " No" — how little meant! 
Sweet falsehood that endears consent! 
For on those lovely lips the while 
Dawns the sofi-releniing smile, 
And tempts with feign'd dissuasion coy 
The gentle violence of Joy. 



TO A YOUNG ASS. 

ITS MOTHEH BEING TETHERED NEAR IT. 

Poor little foal of an oppressed race ! 

I love the languid patience of thy face : 

And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread, 

And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head. 

But what thy dulled spirits haih dismay'd, 

That never ihou dost sjiort along the glade ? 

And (most unlike the nature of things young) 

That earthward still thy moveless head is hung ? 

Do thy prophetic fears anticipate, 

Meek Child of Misery ! thy future fate ? 

The starving meal, and all the thousand aches 

" Which patient merit of the unworthy takes ?" 

Or is thy sad heart thrill'd with filial pain 

To see thy wretched mother's shorten'd chain ? 

And truly, very piteous is her lot — 

Chain'd to a log within a narrow spot 

Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen, 

While sweet around her waves the tempting green ! 

Poor Ass ! thy master should have learnt to show 

Pity — best tauglit l)y fellowship of woe ! 

For much I fear me that he lives like thee. 

Half famish'd in a land of luxury! 

How askivgly its footsteps hither bend ? 

It seems to say, " And have I then one friend ?" 

Innocent Foal ! thou poor despised forlorn ! 

I hail thee brother — spile of the fool's scorn ! 

And fain would take thee with me, in the dell 

Of peace and mild equality to dwell, 

WTiere Toil shall call the charrncr Health his Bride, 

And Laughter tickle Plenty's ribless side ! 

How thou wouldst toss Ihy heels in gamesome play. 

And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay ! 

Yea ! and more musifally sweet to me 

Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be, 

Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest 

The acliing of pale fashion's vacant breast ! 



DOMESTIC PEACE. 

Tell me, on what holy ground 
May Domestic Peace be found ? 
Halcyon Daughter of the skies, 
Far on fearful wings she flies. 



From the pomp of sceptred state. 
From the rebel's noisy hate. 
In a cottaged vale She dwells 
Lisioning lo the Salibath bells ' 
Still around her steps are seen 
Six)tless Honor's meeker mien, 
Love, the sire of pleasing fears, 
Sorrow smiling through her tears. 
And, conscious of ihe past employ, 
Memory, bosom-spring of joy 



THE SIGH 



When Youth his faery reign began 
Ere sorrow had proclaim'd me man ; 
WTiilo Peace the present hour beguiled, 
And all the lovely prospect smiled ; 
Then, Mary ! 'mid my lightsome glee 
I heaved the painless Sigh for thee. 

And when, /along the waves of woe, 
My harass'd heart was doom'd to know 
The frantic burst of outrage keen. 
And the slow pang that gnaws unseen ; 
Then shipwreck'd on life's stormy sea, 
I heaved an anguish'd Sigh for thee ! 

But soon reflection's power impress'd 
A stiller sadness on my breast ; 
And sickly hope with waning eye 
Was well content to droop and die : 
I yielded to the stern decree, 
Yet heaved a languid Sigh for thee ! 

And though in distant climes to roam, 
A wanderer from my native home, 
I fain would soothe the sense of Care 
And lull to sleep the Joys that were ! 
Thy Image may not banish'd be — 
Still, Mary ! still I sigh for thee, 
June, 1794. 



EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. 

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade. 
Death came with friendly care ; 

The opening bud to Heaven convey'd. 
And bade it blossom there. 



LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S ARMS 
ROSS. 

FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE " MAN OF ROSS,"* 

RicitER than miser o'er his countless hoards. 

Nobler than kings, or king-polluted lords. 

Here dwelt the man of Ross! O Traveller, hear! 

Departed merit claims a reverent tear. 

Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, 

With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth ; 

He hears the widow's heaven-breath'd prayer of 

praise. 
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze. 
Or where the sorrow-shrivell'd captive lay. 
Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noontide ray. 
Benealh this roof if thy chccr'd moments pass, 
Fill to the good man's name one gratelul glaw 
17 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul, 
And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl. 
But if, like me, through hfe's distressful scene, 
Lonely and sad, thy pilgrimage hath been ; 
And if thy breast* wilh heart-sick anguish fraught, 
Thou journeyest onward tempest-toss'd in thought ; 
Here cheat thy cares ! in generous visions melt, 
And dream of goodness, thou hast never felt ! 



LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A 
VILLAGE. 

Once more, sweet Stream ! with slow foot wander- 
ing near, 
I bless thy milky waters cold and clear. 
Escaped the flashing of the noontide hours 
With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers 
(Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn) 
My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn. 
For not through patliless grove with rnurmur rude 
Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph. Solitude ; 
Nor thine unseen in cavern depths to well, 
The Hermit-fountain of some dripping cell! 
Pride of the Vale ! thy useful streams supply 
The scatter'd cots and peaceful hamlet nigh. 
The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks 
With infant uproar and soul-southing pranks, 
Released from school, their little hearts at rest, 
Launch paper navies on thy vvaveless breast 
The rustic here at eve with pensive look 
Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook. 
Or, starting, pauses with ho)58-mingled dread 
To list the much-loved maid's accustom'd trea-d : 
She, vainly mindful of her dame's command. 
Loiters, the long-fiU'd pitcher in her hand. 
Unboastful Stream ! thy fount witli pebbled falls 
The faded form of past delight recalls. 
What time the morning sun of Hope arose, 
And all was joy ; save when another's woes 
A transient gloom upon my soul imprest. 
Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast. 
Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon. 
Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon : 
Ah ! now it works rude brakes and thorns among. 
Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along ! 



LINES ON A FRIEND, 

WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED EV CALUM- 
• NIOUS REPORTS. 

Edmund! thy grave with aching eye I scan. 

And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast — Man! 

'Tis tempest all or gloom : in early youth. 

If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of Truth, 

We force to start amid her feign'd caress 

Vice, siren-hag ! in native ugliness ; 

A brother's fate will haply rouse the tear, 

And on we go in heaviness and fear ! 

But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower 

Some pigmy VoWy in a careless hour. 

The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted ground 

And mingled forms of Misery rise around : 

Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast. 

That courts the future woe to liide the past ; 



Remorse, the poison'd arrow in his side, 

And loud lewd Mirth, to anguish close allied : 

Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain. 

Darts her hot lightning flash athwart the brain. 

Rest, injured shade ! Shall Slander squatting near 

Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear ? 

"^Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow 

In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe , 

Thine all that cheer the moment as it flies, 

The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies. 

Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew, 

And in thy heart they wither'd I Such chill dew 

Wan indolence on each young blossom shed ; 

And Vanity her filmy net-work spread. 

With eye that roU'd around, in aslung gaze, 

And tongue that traffick'd in the trade of praise. 

Thy follies such ! the hard world mark'd them well 

Were they more wise, the proud who never fell ? 

Rest, injur'd shade! the poor man's grateful prayer 

On heavenward wing thy wounded soul shall bear 

As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass, 

And sit me down upon its recent grass. 

With introverted eye I contemplate 

Similitude of soul, perhaps of — Fate ! 

To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd 

Energic Reason and a shaping mind. 

The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part. 

And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart. 

Sloth-jaundic'd all ! and from my graspless hand 

Drop Friendshi'"'s precious pearls, like hour-glass 

sand. 
I weep, yet stoop not ! the faint anguish flows, 
A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish doze. 

Is this piled earth our being's passless mound? 
Tell me, cold grave ! is Death with poppies crown'd 
Tired sentinel I 'mid fitful starts I nod. 
And fain would sleep, though pillow'd on a clod ! 



TO A YOUNG LADY, WITH A POEM ON 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Much on my early youth I love to dwell. 
Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell, 
Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale, 
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale ! 
Yet though the hours flev^- by on careless wing, 
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sinj. 
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam 
In broken radiance on the wavy stream. 
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom 
Mourn'd with the t)reeze, O Lee Boo!* o'er thy tomb 
Where'er I wander'd Pity still was near. 
Breathed from the heart and glisten'd i:i the tear • 
No knell that loll'd, but fill'd my anxious eye, 
And suflTering Nature wept that one should die !t 

Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast, 
Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping West : 
When slumbering Freedom roused with high disdain. 
With giant fury burst her triple chain ! 

* Lro I>i)0, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelew Isl- 
ands, came over to EnijlanQ with Captain Wilson, died of the 
small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich cliurch-yard.- See ^eate'» 
Jlccnv.rtt. 

t Suutliey'e Retrospect. 

18 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



Fierce on her from tlie blasting Dog-star glow'd ; 
Her banner? like a iniiinight meteor, llow'd ; 
Amid tlie yellini; of llie storm-rent skies ! 
She came, and sciilter'd batiU's from her eyes! 
Then Kxiihaiion waked the patriot lire, 
And swept willi wilder hand the Akwan lyro . 
Red from the tyrant's wound I shook the lance. 
And strode in joy the reeking plains of France ! 

Fallen is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low, 
Anil my heart ailios, ihoiiu'li Alercy sinick the blow. 
With wearied liiought once more 1 seek the shade, 
Where |)enceful Virtne weaves the myrtle braid. 
yVnd O I if eyes whose holy glances roll, 
Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul ; 
If smiles more winning, and a gentler mien 
Than the lovc-wilder"d Maniac's brain hath seen 
Shaping celestial lijrms in vacant air. 
If these demand the inii)a.ssion'd poet's care — 
If Mirth and sofien'd Sense and Wit re/lned. 
The blameless features of a lovely mind ; 
Then haply shall my trembling hand assign 
IVo fading wreath to beauty's saintly shrine. 
Nor, Sara ! thou these early flowers refuse — 
Ne'er lurk'd the snake Ix-neaih their simple hues ; 
J^lo purple bloom the child of nature brings 
li'roin Flattery's nighl-shade ; as he feels, he sings. 
September, 1792. 



SONNET. 



Content, as random Fancies might inspire. 
If his weak liarp at times, or lonely lyre 
He etruc!; with desultory hand, and drew 
Some softeu'd tones to Nature not untrue. 

DoidUs. 



Mv heart has thanli'd thee, Bowles! for those soft 

strains. 
Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring 
Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring ! 
For hence not callous to the mourner's pains 
'J'hrough youth's gay prime and thornless path I 

went : 
And when the mightier throes of man began. 
And drove me forth, a thought-bewilder'd man .' 
'nieir mild and manliest melanchol}' lent 
A mingled charm, such as the pang consign'd 
To slumber, though the big tear it renew'd ; 
Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood 
Over the wavy and tumuituotis mind, 
As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep 
Moved on the darkness of tlie unform'd deep. 



SONNET. 

As late I lay in slumber's shadowy vale, 
With wetted cheek and in a mourner's guise, 

saw the sainted form of Freedom rise : 
She spake ! not sadder moans the autumnal gale — 
*' Great Son of Genius ! sweet to me thy name, 
F.re m an evil hour with altcr'd voice 
Thou badst Oppression's liireling crew rejoice, 
Blasting with wizard spell my laurell'd fime. 
Yet never, Burke! thou drank'st Corruption's bowl ! 
The stormy Pity and the cherish'd lure 
C 



Of Pomp, and proud Precipitance of soul 
Wilder'd with meteor tires. Ah spirit pure' 
That error's mist had left thy purged eye : 
So might I clasp tliee witli a mollier's joy J 



SO.NNET. 



Though roused by that dark Vizir, Riot rude 
Have driven our 1'rii«t over the ocean swell 
Though Siiperstiiicm and her wolfish brood 
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell ; 
Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell 
For lo ! Religion at his strong behest 
Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell, 
.'Vnd flings to earth her tiiiscl-glitlering vest. 
Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy; 
And Justice wakes to bid the Oppressor wail. 
Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly: 
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won, 
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil 
To smile with fondness on her gazing son ! 



SONNET. 

When British Freedom for a happier land 

Spread her broad wings, that flulter'd with afl^riglit, 

EitsKiNE ! thy voice she heard, and paused her flii:h< 

Sublime of hope ! For dreadless thou didst stand 

(Thy censer glowing with the hallow'd (lame) 

A hirelcss Priest before the insulted shrine, 

And at her altar pour the stream divine 

Of unnialch'd eloquence. Therefore thy name 

Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast 

With blessings heavenward breathed. And when 

the doom 
Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb 
Thy light shall shine : as sunk, beneath the West, 
Though the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze. 
Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze. 



SONNET. 

It was some Spirit, Sheridan! that breathed 

O'er thy young mind such wildly various power! 

My soul hath niark'd thee in her .shaping hour. 

Thy temples with Hymettian flovv'rets wreathedt 

And sweet thy voice, as when o'er Laura's bier 

Sad music trembled through Vauclusa's glalo; 

Sv\eet, as at dawn the lovtdorn serenade 

Thiit wafts soft dreams to Slumber's listening o»Jf 

JVow patriot rage and indignation high 

Swell the full tones I And now thine eye-beam 

dance 
Meaning of Scorn and Wit's quaint revelry! 
Writhes inly from the bosoin-prol)ing glance 
The Apostate by the brainless rout adored. 
As erst that older fiend beneath great Michael's sword 



SONNET. 

O WHAT a loud and fearful shriek was there. 
As though a thousand souls one death-groan potir'<' 
Ah me I thev vievv'd beneath a hireling's sword 
Fallen Kosciusivo! Through the burihcn'd air 



10 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



lAs pauses the tired Cossack's barbarous yell 

Of tri iniph) on the c)iill and midnight gale 

Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell 

The dirge of murder'd Hope! while Freedom pale 

Bends in such anguish o'er her destined bier, 

As if from eldest time some Spirit meek 

Had gather'd in a mystic urn each tear 

That ever on a Patriot's furrow'd cheek 

Fit channel found ; and she had drain'd the bowl 

In the mere wilfuhiess, and sick despair of soul I 



SONNET. 



As when far off the warbled strains are heard 
That soar on Morning's wing the vales among, 
Within his cage the imprison'd matin bird 
Swells the full chorus with a generous song : 
He bathes no pinion in the dewy light, 
No Father's joy, no Lover's bliss he shares. 
Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight ; 
His Fellows' freedom soothes the Captive's cares : 
Thou, Fayette! who didst wake with startling voice 
Life's better sun from that long wintry night, 
Thus in thy Country's triumphs shall rejoice, 
And mock with raptures high the dungeon's might: 
For lo ! the morning struggles into day, 
And Slavery's spectres shriek and vanish from the 
ray I 



SONNET. 

Thou g«ntle Look, that didst my soul beguile, 
Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream 
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile! 
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam : 
Wliat time, in sickly mood, at parting day 
I lay me down and think of happier years ; 
Of joys, that glimmer'd in Hope's twilight ray, 
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears. 
O pleasant days of Hope — for ever gone ! 
Could I recall you ! — But that thought is vain. 
Availclh not Persuasion's sweetest tone 
To lure the fleet-wing'd travellei"s back again: 
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam 
Like tlie bright rainbow on a willowy stream. 



SONNET. 

Palk Roamer throiigh the Night; thou poor Forlorn! 
Remorse that man on liis death-bed possess, 
Who in the credulous hour of tenderness 
Betray'd, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn! 
The world is pitiless: the Chaste one's pride. 
Mimic of Virtue, scowls on thy distress: 
Thy loves and they, that envied thee, deride : 
And Vice alone will shelter wretchedness! 
O! I am sad to think, that tliere should be 
Cold-hosom'd lewd ones, who endure to place 
Fc'il offerings on the shrine of Misery, 
And 10 roe from Famine the caress of Love ; 
May He shed healing on the sore disgrace, 
He, the great Comforter that rules above ! 



SONNET. 

Sweet Mercy ! how my very heart has bled 
To see thee, poor Old Man! and thy gray hairs 
Hoar with the snowy blast : while no one cares 
To clothe thy shrivell'd limbs and palsied head. 
My Father! throw away this tatter'd vest 
That mocks thy shivering! take my garment — use 
A young man's arm! I'll melt these frozen dews 
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast 
My Sara too sliall tend thee, like a Child : 
And thou shall talk, m our fire-side's recess, 
Of purple Pride, that scowls on Wretchedness. 
He did not so, the Galilsean mild, 
Who met the Lazars lurn'd from rich men's doors, 
And call'd them Friends, and heal'd tlieir noisomd 
Sores ! 



SONNET. 

Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress 
Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile, 
And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while 
Swoln be nine eye and dim with heaviness. 
Why didst tnou listen to Hope's whisper bland? 
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale, 
When Jealousy with feverish faitcies pale 
Jarr'd thy fine fibres vvilh a maniac's hand ? 
Faint was that Hope, and rayless! — Yet 'twas fair 
And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest: 
Thou shouldst have loved it most, when most opprest 
And nursed it with an agony of Care, 
Even as a Mother her sweet infant heir 
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast! 



SONNET. 

to the author of the " ROBBERS." 

Schiller! that hour I would have wished to die, 
If through the shuddering midnight I had sent 
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent 
That fearful voice, a famish'd Father's cry — 
Lest in some after moment aught more mean 
Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout 
Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout 
Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene! 
Ah Bard tremendous in sublimity! 
Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood 
Wanderfng at eve with finely frenzied eye 
Beneath some vast old ternpest-swinging wood! 
Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood: 
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy! 



LINES 

COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBI.NG THE LEFT ASCENT OF 
BROCKLEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE, MAY, 1795. 

With many a pause and oft-reverted eye 
I climb the Coomb's ascent : sweet songsters near 
Warble in shade their wild-wood melody : 
Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. 
Up scour the startling stragglers of the Flock 
That on green plots o'er precipices browse : 
From the forced fissures of the naked rock 
The Yew-tree bursts! Beneath its dark-green boughs 
20 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



li 



f'Mul which the May-thorn blends its blossoms wl.ite) 
Wliero broad sm<x)lh stones jut out in mossy seats, 
I r( St : — and now have gain'd the topmost site. 
Ah 1 what a luxury of" landscape meets 
Mv gaze 1 Proud Towers, and Cols more dear to me, 
i;im-shadow'd Fields, and prospect-bounding Sea ! 
Deep sighs my lonely heart I drop the tear : 
Hiiehanting spot ! O were my Sara here ! 



LINES 

IN THE MANNER OF SPENSER. 

Peacf ! that on a lilied bank dost love 
To rei-t nine head beneath an Olive Tree, 

1 wouiJ, that I'rom the pinions of thy Dove 
One quill withouten pain ypluck'd might be! 
Fur O ! I wish my Sara's frowns to Ilee, 
And fain to her some soothing song would w'rite, 
Lest she lesent ray rude discourtesy, 
Who vowd to meet her ere the morning light, 
But broke my plighted word — ah ! false and recreant 

wight ! 

Last night as 1 my weary head did pillow 
With thoughts of my dissever'd Fair engross'd. 
Chill Fancy droop'd wreathing herself with willow, 
As iliough my breast entomb"d a pining ghost. 
' From some blest couch, young Rapture's bridal 

boast, 
Rejected Slumber ! hither wing thy way ; 
But leave me with the matin hour, at most ! 
As night-closed Floweret to the orient ray, 
M} sad heart will expand, when 1 the Maid survey." 

But Love, who heard the silence of my thought, 
Contrived a too successful wile, I ween : 
And whispcr'd to himself, with malice fraught — 
" Too long our Slave the Damsel's smiles hath seen : 
To-morrow shall he ken her alter'd mien ! " 
He spake, and ambush'd lay, till on my bed 
The morning shot her dewy glances keen, 
When as I 'gan to lift my drowsy head — 
"Now, Bard! I'll work thee woe!" the laughing 
Elfin said. 

Sleep, softly-breathing God ! his downy wing 
VV^as fluttering now, as quickly to depart ; 
When twang'd an arrow from Love's mystic string. 
With pathless wound it jiierced him to the heart. 
\\'as iliere some magic in the Elfin's dart ? 
Or did he strike my couch with wizard lance ? 
For straight so fair a Form did upwards start 
(\o fairer deck'd the Bowers of old Romance) 
That Sleep enamour'd grew, nor moved from his 
sweet trance ! 

My Sara came, with gentlest look divine ; 

Bright shone her eye, yet tender was its beam : 

I felt the pressure of her lip to mine! 

Whispering we went, and Love was all our theme — 

I/)ve pure and sfxitless, as at first, I deem. 

He sprang from Ileaven! Such joys with Sleep did 

'bide. 
That I the living Image of my Dream 
Fondly forgot. Too late I woke, and sigh'd — 
'O! how shall I behold mv Love at eventide !" 



IMTATED FROM OSSIAN. 

The stream with languid murmur creeps, 

In humin'b Jhiweri/ vale : 
Beneath the dew the Lily weef)S, 

Slow-waving to the gale. 

" Cease, restless gale ! " it seems to say, 
" Nor wake me with thy sighing! 

The honors of my vernal day 
On rapid wing are flying. 

" To-morrow shall the Traveller come 
Who late beheld me blooming : 

His searching eye shall vainly roam 
The dreary vale of Lurain." 

With eager gaze and wetted cheek 
My wonted haunts along, 

Thus, tiiilhful Maiden ! thou shall seek 
The Youth of simplest song. 

But I along the breeze shall roll 
The voice of feeble power ; 

And dwell, tlie moon-beam of thy soul, 
In Slumber's nightly hour. 



THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHOMA 

How long v\ill ye round me be swelling, 

O ye blue-tumbling waves of the Sea ? 
Not always in Caves was my dwelling. 

Nor beneath the cold blast of the Tree. 
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathloma 

In the steps of my beauty 1 stray'd ; 
The Warriors beheld Ninathoma, 

And they blessed the white-bosom'd Maid ! 

A Ghost ! by my cavern it darted ! 

In moon-beams tlie Spirit was drest — 
For lovely appear the departed 

When they visit the dreams of my rest ! 
But, disturb'd by the Tempest's commotion. 

Fleet the shadowy forms of Delight — 
Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean ! 

To howl tltrough my Cavern by Night 



IMITATED FROM THE WELSH 

If, while my passion I impart, 
You deem my words untrue, 

O place your hand upon my heart — 
Feel how it throbs for you ! 

Ah no ! reject the thoughtless claim, 

In pity to your lover ! 
That thrilling touch would aid the flame 

It wishes to discover. 



TO AN INFANT. 

Ah cease thy tears and Sobs, my little Life ' 
I did but snatch away the unclasp'd Knife : 
Some safer Toy will soon arrest thine eye, 
And to quick Laughter change this peevish o y ' 
4 21 



12 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Poor Sturabler on the rocky coast of Woe, | 

Tutor'd by Pain each source of Pain to luiow ! 
Alike the foodlul fruit and scorching fire 
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire ; 
Alike tlie Good, the 111 offend thy sight. 
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright ! 
Thitaught, yet wise! 'mid all thy brief alarms 
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms, 
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast 
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest ! 
Man's breathing Miniature ! thou makest me sigh — 
A Babe art thou — and such a thing am I ! 
To anger rapid and as soon appeased, 
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased, 
Break Friendship's Mirror with a techy blow. 
Yet snatch what coals of lire on Pleasm-e's altar 



O thou that rearest with celestial aim 

The future Seraph in my mortal frame. 

Thrice-holy Failh ! whatever thorns 1 meet 

As on I totter with unpractised feet. 

Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee. 

Meek iXuree of Souls through their long Infancy! 



LINES 

WRITTEN AT SIIURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, 
SEPTEMBER, 1795, IN ANSWER TO A LETTER 
FROM BRISTOL. 



Good verse most good, and had verse then seems better 

Received tiom absent friend by way of Letter. 

For what so sweet can labor'd lays impart 

As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart? 



Nor travels my meandering eye 
The starry wilderness on high ; 

Nor now with curious sight 
T mark the glow-worm, as I pass. 
Move with "green radiance" through the grass 

An emerald of light. 

ever present to my view ! 
My wafted spirit is with you. 

And soothes your boding fears : 

1 see you all oppress'd with gloom 
Sit lonely in that cheerless room — 

Ah me ! You are in tears ! 

Beloved Woman ! did you fly 

Chill'd Friendship s dark disliking eye, 

Or Mirth's untimely <?in ? 
With cruel weight these trifles press 
A temper sore wdtli tenderness. 

When aches the void witliin. 

But why with sable wand unbless'd 
Should Fancy rouse within my breast 

Dim-visaged shapes of Dread ? 
Untenanting its beauteous clay 
My Sara's soul has wing'd its way. 

And hovers round my head ! 

[ felt it prompt the tender Dream, 
When slowly sunk the day's last gleam ; 



You roused each gentler sense 
As, sighing o'er the Blossom's bloom, 
Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume 

With viewless influence. 

And hark, my Love ! The sea-breeze moans 
Through yon reft house ! O'er rolling stones 

In bold ambitious sweep. 
The onward-surging tides supply 
The silence of the cloudless sky 

With mimic thunders deep. 

Dark reddening from the channell'd Isle* 
(Where stands one soUtary pile 

Unslatcd by the blast) 
The Watch-fire, like a sullen star 
Twinkles to many a dozing Tar 

Rude cradled on the mast. 

Even there — beneath that light-house tower- 
In the tumultuous evil hour 

Ere Peace with Sara came. 
Time was, 1 should have thought it sweet 
To count the echoings of my feet. 

And watch the siorm-vex'd flame. 

And there in black soul-jaundiced fit 
A sad gloom-pamper'd Man to sit, 

And hsten lo the roar : 
When Mountain Surges bellowing deep 
With an uncouth monster leap 

Plunged foaming on the shore. 

Then by the Lightning's blaze to mark 
Some toiling tempesl-shatter'd bark; 

Her vain distress-guns hear ; 
And when a second sheet of light 
Flash'd o'er the blackness of the night — 

To see no Vessel there ! 

But Fancy now more gaily sings : 
Or if awhile she droop her wings, 

As sky-larks 'mid the corn, 
On summer fields she grounds her breast : 
The oblivious Poppy o'er her nest 

Nods, till returning morn. 

O mark those smiling teare, that swell 
The open'd Rose ! From heaven they fell. 

And wdth the sun-beam blend. 
Bless'd visitations from above. 
Such are the tender woes of Love 

Fostering the heart, they bend ! 

When stormy Midnight howling round 
Beats on our roof with clattering sound. 

To me your arms you '11 stretch : 
Great God ! you '11 say — To us so kind, 
O shelter from this loud bleak wind 

The houseless, friendless wretch ! 

The tears that tremble down your cheek. 
Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek 



* The Holmes, in the Bristol Channev. 
22 



JUVENILE POEjMS. 



13 



In Pity's dew divine ; 
And from yonr heart the sighs that steal 
Sliall UKii\e yonr rising bosom feel 

The answering swell of mine ! 

How oft, my Love ! with shapings sweet 
1 (wint the moment we shall meet! 

Willi eager speed I dart — 
I seize you in the vacant air, 
And fancy, with a Husband's care 

I press you to my heart ! 

'T is said, on Summer's evening hour 
Flashes the golden-color'd flower 

A fair electric llanie : 
And so shall fl;ish my love-charged eye 
When all the heart's big ecstasy 

Shoots rapid tlirough the frame ! 



LINES 



rO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY 
LETTER. 

Away, those cloudy looks, that laboring sigh, 
The pi^evish offspring of a sickly hour ! 
i\'or meanly thus complain of Forlune's power. 
When the blind Gamester throws a luckless die. 

Yon setting Sun flashes a mournful gleam 
Behind tliose broken clouds, his stormy train : 
To-morrow shall the majiy-color'd main 
In brightness roll beneath his orient beam ! 

Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time 
Flies o'er his niyslic lyre : in shadowy dance 
The alternate groups of Joy and Grief advance. 
Responsive to his varj-ing strains sublime .' 

IJears on its wing each hour a load of Fate ; 
The swain, who, luU'd by Seine's mild murmurs, led 
His weary oxen to their nightly shed. 
To-day may rule a tempest-troubled State. 

Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile 
Survey the sanguinary Despot's miglit, 
And haply hurl the Pageant from his height, 
I'nwept to wander in some savage isle. 

There, shiv'ring sad beneath the tempest's frown, 
Round his tir'd hmbs to wrap the purjile vest ; 
And mix'd with nails and beads, an c(jual jest ! 
Barter, for food, the jewels of his crovvu. 



RELIGIOUS MUSINGS; 

A DESULTORY POEM, 
WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1794. 

This is the time, when most divine to hear. 

The voice of Adoration rouses me. 

As with a Cherub's trump: and high upborne, 

Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view 

The vision of the heavenly midtitudc. 

Who bymn'd the song of Peace o'er Bethlehem's 

ilelds ! 
Yet iliou more briglit than all the Angel blaze, 
That harbinger'd iliy binh, Thou, Man of W'oos ! 
C2 



Despised Galihran ! For the Great 
Invisible (hy symbols only scon) 
With a peculiar and surpassing light 
Shines from the visage of the oppress'd good Man 
When heedless of himself the scourged Saint 
Mourns lor the Opi>rcssor. Fair the venial Mead 
Fair the high Grove, the Sea, the Sun, the Stars , 
True impress each of their creating Sire ! 
Yet nor higli Grove, nor many-color'd Mead, 
Nor the green Ocean wilh his thousand Isles, 
Nor the starr'd Azure, nor the sovran Sun, 
E'er wilh such majesty of portraiture 
Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate. 
As thou, meek Savior ! at the fearful hour 
When thy insulted Anguish wing'd the prayer 
Harp'd by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy! 
Wliich wlien the Almighty heard Irom forth hia 

Throne, 
Diviner light fill'd Heaven wilh ecstasy ! 
Heaven's hymuings paused and Hell her yawning 

niouih 
Closed a brief moment. 

Lo\ely wafi the death 
Of Him whose life was love ! Holy with power 
He on the tliought-benightcd sceplic beam'd 
Alanilest Godhead, melting into day 
What floating mists of dark Idolatry 
Broke and misshaped the Omnipresent Sire : 
And first by Fear uncharm'd the drowsed Soul.' 
Till of its nobler nature it 'gan feel 
Dim recollections : and thence soar'd to Hope, 
Strong to believe whate'cr of mystic good 
The Eternal dooms lor liis immortal Sons. 
From Hope and (inner Faith to perfect Love 
Attracted and absorb'd : and centred there 
God only to behold, and know, and feel, 
Till by exclusive Consciousness of God 
All self-annihilated it shall make 
God its Identity : God ail in all ! 
We and our Father one ! 

And bless'd are they, 
WTio in tins fleshly World, the elect of Heaven, 
Their strong eye darling through the deeds of Men, 
Adore with stedfast unpresuming gaze 
Ilim Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy! 
And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend 
Treading beneath their feet all visible things 
As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne 
Lead gradual — else nor glorified nor loved. 
They nor Contempt embosom nor Revenge . 
For they dare know of what may seem deform 
The Supreme Fair sole Operant : in whose sight 
All things are pure, his strong controlling Love 
Alike from all educing perfect good. 
Theirs too celestial courage, inly arm'd — 
Dwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse 
On their great Fatlier, great beyond compare ! 
And marching onwards view high o'er their heads 
His waving Barmers of Omniputence. 

Who the Creator love, created might 

Dread not : within their tents no terrors walL 



* To No>7rov StrjprjKaatv £ij ttoXXoiv 
Gtwv tSiorrirai. 

Dam AS. de Myst. JEgy^A. 

23 



14 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



For they are holy things before the Lord, 

Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with 

Hell; 
God's Altar grasping with an eager hand, 
Fear, the wild-visaged, pale, eye-starting wretch, 
Sure-refuged hears his hot pursuing fiends 
Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh'd from Heaven, 
He calms the throb and tempest of his heart. 
His countenance settles ; a soft solemn bliss 
Swims in his eye — his swimming eye upraised : 
And Faith's whole armor glitters on his limbs ! 
And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe, 
A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds 
All things of terrible seeming : yea, unmoved 
Views e'en the immitigable ministers 
That shower down vengeance on these latter days. 
For kindling with intenser Deity 
From the celestial Mercy-seat they come, 
And at the renovating Wells of Love 
Have fiU'd their Vials with salutary Wrath, 
To sickly Nature more medicinal 
Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours 
Into the lone despoiled traveller's wounds ! 

Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith. 
Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares 
Drink up the spirit and the dim regards 
Self-centre. Lo they vanish ! or acquire 
New names, new features — by supernal grace 
Em-obed with light, and naturalized in Heaven. 
As when a shepherd on a vernal mom 
Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow 

foot. 
Darkling he fixes on the immediate road 
His downward eye : all else of fairest kind 
Hid or deform'd. But lo ! the bursting Sun ! 
Touch'd by the enchantment of that sudden beam, 
Straight the black vapor melteth, and in globes 
Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree ; 
On every leaf, on every blade it hangs ! 
Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays, 
And wide around the landscape streams with glory! 

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, 

Omnific. His most holy name is Love. 

Truth of subliming import ! « ith the which 

Who feeds and saturates his constant soul. 

He from his small particular orbit flies 

With bless'd outstarting ! From Himself he flies, 

Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze 

Views all creation ; and he loves it all. 

And blesses it, and calls it very good ! 

This is indeed to dwell with the Most High ! 

Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim 

Can press no nearer to the Almighty's Throne. 

But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts 

Unfeeling of our universal Sire, 

And that in his vast family no Cain 

Injures uninjured Cm her liesl-aim'd blow 

Victorious Murder a blind Suicide), 

Haply for this some younger Angel now 

Looks down on Human Nature : and, behold ! 

A sea of blood bestrew'd with wrecks, where mad 

Embattling Interests on each other rush 

With urdielm'd rage ! 

'T is the sublime of man, 
Our .p.wntide Majesty, to know ourselves 



Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole ! 
This fralernizes Man, this constitutes 
Our charities and bearings. But 't is God 
Diffused through all, that doth make all one wholes 
This the worst superstition, him except 
Aught to desire. Supreme Reality! 
The plenitude and permanence of bliss ! 

Fiends of Superstition ! not that oft 

The erring Priest hath stain'd with brother's blood 
Your grisly idols, not for this may wrath 
Tliunder against you from the Holy One I 
But o'er some plain that steamelh to the sun, 
Peopled with Death ,• or where more hideous Trade 
Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish : 

1 will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends ! 

And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith, 

Hiding the present God ; whose presence lost, 

The moral world's cohesion, we become 

An anarchy of Spirits ! Toy-bewitch'd, 

Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul. 

No common centre Man, no common sire 

Knoweth ! A sordid solitary thing, 

'Mid countless brethren wiih a lonely heart 

Through courts and cities the smooth Savage roams, 

Feeling himself, his own low Self the whole ; 

When he by sacred sympathy might make 

The whole one Self! Self that no alien knows! 

Self far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel ! 

Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own. 

Yet all of all possessing ! This is Faith ! 

This the Messiah's destin'd victory ! 

But first offences needs must come ! Even now'* 

(Black Hell laughs horrible — to hear the scoff!) 

Thee to defend, meek Galilajan ! Thee 

And thy mild laws of love unutterable. 

Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands 

Of social Peace ; and listening Treachery lurks 

With pious Fraud to snare a brother's life ; 

And childless widows o'er the groaning land 

Wail numberless ; and orphans weep for bread ; 

Thee to defend, dear Savior of Mankind ! 

Thee, Lamb of God ! Thee, blameless Prince of 

Peace ! 
From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War ! 
Austria, and that foul Woman of the North, 
The lustful Murderess of her wedded Lord ! 
And he, connatural Mind ! whom (in their songs 
So bards of elder time had haply feign'dl 
Some Fury fondled in her hale to man. 
Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge 
Lick his young face, and at his mouth inbreathe 
Horrible sympathy ! And leagued with these 
Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore ! 
Soul-harden'd barterers of human blood ! 



* January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the Address to hia 
Majesty, on the speech from tlie Tlirone, the Earl of Guild- 
ford moved an Amendment lo the following elTcct; — "That 
the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest oppor- 
tunity to conclude a peace with France," etc. Thi» motion 
was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who " considered the 
war to be merely grounded on one principle — the preservatio 
of the Christian Religion." May 30th, 1794, the Uuke o. 
Bedford moved a number of Resolutions, with a view to the 
Establishment of a Peace with France. He was opposed 
(among others) by Lord Abingdon in these remarkable words i 
" The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War ! and War car- 
ried on in the same manner in which we are taught to worship 
our Creator, namely, with all our souls, and with all oui 
minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength." 
24 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



15 



Death's prime Slave-merchants ! Scorpion-whijjs of 

Fate ! 
Nor least in savagery of holy zeal, 
Apt lor the yoke, the race (lesrencrale, 
Whom Briiain erst had blush'd to call her sons ! 
Thee to del'onU the Moloch Priest prefers 
The prayer of hale, and bellows to the herd 
That Deity, Accomplice Deity 
In the fierce jealousy of waken'd wrath 
Will go forth wiih our armies and our fleets, 
To scatter the red ruin on their foes ? 
O blasphemy I to mingle fiendish deeds 
With blessedness ! 

Lord of unsleeping Love,* 
From everlasting Thou ! We shall not die. 
These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, 
Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong 
Making Truth lovely, and her future might 
Magnetic o'er tlie fix'd untrembling heart. 

In the primeval age a dateless while 
The vacant Shepherd wander'd with his flock. 
Pitching his tent where'er the green grass waved. 
But soon Jmaginaiion conjured up 
An host of new desires : with busy aim. 
Each for himself. Earth's eager children toil'd. 
So Properly began, two-streaming fount. 
Whence Vice and V'irtue flow, honey and gall. 
Hence the soft couch, and many-color'd robe, 
The timbrel, and arch'd dome and cosily feast. 
With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul 
To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants 
Unsensualizcd the mind, which in the means 
Ijearnt to forget the grossness of the end, 
Best pleasured with its own activity. 
And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, 
The dagger'd tlnvy, spirit-quenching Want, 
Warriors, and Lords, and Priests — all tlie sore ills 
That vex and desolate our mortal life. 
AVide-wa.sting ills I yet each the immediate source 
Of mightier good. Their keen necessities 
To ceaseless action goading human thought 
Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord ; 
And the pale-fealurcd Sage's trembling hand 
Strong as an host of armed Deities, 
Such as the bhnd Ionian fabled erst. 

From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War 

Sprang heavenly Science ; and from Science 

Freedom. 
O'er waken'd realms Philosophers and Bards 
Spread in concentric circles : they whose souls, 
Conscious of their high dignities from God, 
Brook not Wealth's rivalry! and they, who long 
Enamour'd with the charms of order hate 
The unseemly disproportion : and whoe'er 
Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car 
And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse 
On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage 
Call'd the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud, 
And dash'd the beauteous Terrors on the earth 
Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er 
Measured firm paces to the calming sound 
Of Spartan flute ! These on the fated day, 



When, slung to rage by Pity, eloquent iricn 

Have roused with pealing voice unnumber'd tribes 

That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind 

These hush'd awhile with patient eye serene. 

Shall watch the mnd careering of the storm ; 

Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush 

And tamo the outrageous mass, with plastic might 

Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms, 

As erst were wont, bright visions of the day ! 

To float before them, when, the Summer noon. 

Beneath some arch'd romantic rock reclined, 

They felt the sea-breeze lift their youthful locks ; 

Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve, 

Wandering with desultory feet inhaled 

Tiie wafted perfumes, and the rocks and woods 

And many-tinted streams and setting Sun 

With all his gorgeous company of clouds 

Ecstatic gazed ! then homeward as they stray'd 

Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused 

\V\\y there was Misery in a world so fair. 

Ah far removed from all that glads the sense, 

From all that softens or ennobles Man, 

The wretched Many ! Bent beneath their loads 

They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize 

Their cots' transmuted plunder ! From the tree 

Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen 

Rudely disbranch'd ! Blessed Society ! 

Fitlicst depictured by some sun-scorch'd waste, 

Where oft majestic through the tainted noon 

The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp 

Who falls not prostrate dies ! And where by night 

Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs 

The lion couches ; or hyena dips 

Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws • 

Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering milk. 

Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth* yells 

His bones loud-crashing ! 

O ye numberless, 
Whom foul Oppression's rufTian gluttony 
Drives from life's plenteous feast ! O thou po(^ 

wretch, 

Wlio nursed in darkness and made wild by want, 
Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand 
Dost lift to deeds of blood ! O pale-eyed form. 
The victim of seduction, doom'd to know 
Polluted nights and days of blasphemy ; 
Who in lothed orgies with lewd wassailers 
Must gaily laugh, while thy remember'd home 
Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart ! 
O aged Women ! ye who weekly catch 
The morsel toss'd by law-forced Charity, 
And die so slowly, that none call it murder ! 
O lothely Suppliants ! ye, that unreceived 
Totter heart-broken from the closing gates 
Of the full Lazar-house : or, gazing, stand 
Sick with despair ! O ye to Glory's field 
Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, 
Bleed with new wounds beneath the Vulture's beak 
O thou poor Widow, who in dreams dost view 
Thy Husband's mangled corse, and from short doze 
Start'st with a shriek ; or in thy half-thatch'd col 
Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold, 
Cow'rst o'er thy screaming baby ! Rest awhile 



• Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, mine Holy one? 
We »hall not die. O Lc'J tiiou hast ordained llicra for judg- 
meau elc.—Jfaiakkvk. 



* Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. 
Some believe it is the elephant, some the hippopotamas ; soma 
afiirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates any lurga 
quadruped. 

36 



10 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Children of Wretchedness ! More groans must rise. 
More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full. 
Yet is the day of Retribution nigh : 
The Lamb of God lialli open'd the fifth sed : 
And upward rush on swiftest wing of 5re 
The innumerable multitude of wrongs 
By man on man inflicted ! Rest awhile, 
Children of Wretchedness ! The hour is nigh ; 
And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, 
The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, 
With all that fix'd on high like stare of Heaven 
Shot baleful influence, shall be east to earth. 
Vile and dowii-trodden, as the untimely fruit 
Shook fro.Ti the fig-tree by a sudden storm. 
Even now the storm begins:* each gentle name, 
Faith and meek Piety, wilh fearful joy 
Tremble far-off — for lo ! the Giant Frenzy, 
Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm, 
Mocketh high Heaven ; burst hideous from the cell 
Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge. 
Creation's eyeless drudge, black Ruin, sits 
Nursing the impatient earthquake. 



O return ! 
Pure Faith ! meek Piety ! The abhorred Form 
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, 
Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, 
\Vhose names were many and all blasphemous, 
Ham met the horrible judgment ! Whence that cry 
The mighty army of foul Spirits shriek'd 
Disherited of earth ! For she hath fallen 
On whose black front was written Mystery ; 
She that reel'd heavily, whose wine was blood ; 
S't'* that work'd whoredom with the Demon Power, 
And from the dark embrace all evil things 
Brought forth and nurtured : mitred Atheism : 
And patient Folly who on bended knee 
Gives back the steel that stabb'd him ; and pale 

Fear 
Hunted by ghastlier shapings than surround 
Moon-blasled Madness when he yells at midnight ! 
Return, pure Failh ! return, meek Piety ! 
The kingdoms of the world are yours : each heart, 
Self-govern'd, the vast family of Love 
Raised from the common earth by common toil, 
Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights 
As float to earth, permitted visitants ! 
When in some hour of solemn jubilee 
The massy gates of Paradise are thrown 
Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild 
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies. 
And odors snatch'd from beds of Amaranth, 
And they, that from the ciystal river of life 
Spring up on freshen'd wing, ambrosial gales ! 
The favor'd good man in his lonely walk 
Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks 
Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven. 
And such delights, such strange beatitude 
Seize on my young anticipating heart 
\Vhen that blest future rushes on my view ! 
For in his own and in his Father's might 
The Savior comes ! While as the Thousand Years 
Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts ! 
Old Ocean claps liis hands ! The mighty Dead 
Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time 



Wilh conscious zeal had urged Love's w'ondrous plan. 
Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump 
The high Groves of the renovated Earth 
Unbosom their glad echoes : inly hush'd. 
Adoring Newton his serener eye 
Raises to heaven : and he of mortal kind 
Wisest, he* first who mark'd the ideal tribes 
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. 
Lo ! Prieslley there. Patriot, and Saint, and Sage, 
Him, full of years, from his loved native land 
Statesmen blood-stain'd and Priests idolatrous 
By dark lies maddening the blind multitude 
Drove wilh vain hate. Calm, pitying, he retired. 
And mused expectant on these promised years. 

O years ! the blest pre-eminence of Saints ! 
Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright. 
The wings that veil the adoring Seraph's eyes, 
What time he bends before the Jasper Throne.t 
Reflect no lovelier hues ! yet ye depart, 
And all beyond is darkness ! Heights most strange, 
Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing. 
For who of woman born may paint the hour. 
When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane 
Maldng noon ghastly ! Who of woman born 
May image in the workings of his thought. 
How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretcli'dt 
Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans. 
In feverish slumbers — destin'd then to wake, 
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name 
And Angels shout, Destruction I How his arm 
The last great Spirit lifting high in air 
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One, 
Time is no more ! 

Believe thou, O my soul 
Life IS a vision shadowy of Truth ; 
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, 
Shapes of a dream ! The veiling clouds retire, 
And lo ! the Throne of the redeeming God 
Forth flashing unimaginable day, 
Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell 

Contemplant Spirits ! ye that hovsr o'er 

With untired gaze the immeasurabus fount 

Ebullient wilh creative Deity ! 

And ye of plastic power, that interfused 

Roll through the grosser and material mass 

In organizing surge ! Holies of God ! 

(And what if Monads of the infinite mind) 

I haply journeying my immortal course 

Shall someiime join your mystic choir? Till then 

I discipline my young noviciate thought 

In ministries of heart-stirring song, 

And aye on Meditation's heavenward wing 

Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air 

Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, 

Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul 

As the great Sun, when he his influence 

Sheds on the frost-bound waters — The glad stream 

Flows to the ray, and warbles as it flows. 



* Alluding lo the French Rerolution. 



* David Hartley. 

t Rev. Chap. iv. v. 2 and 3. — And immediately I was in the 
Spirit: and behold, a Throne was set in Heaven, and one sat 
on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jaspel 
and sardine stone, etc. 

t The final Destruction irnpeisonated. 

26 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



17 



THE DESTINY OF NATIONS. 



Kuspiciot's Reverenrc! Hush all meaner song, 
V.re \vc the deep preluding strain Iiave jiour'd 
Tc tlie Great Father, only Rightful King, 
Eternal Father! King Otnniix)ient ! 
The Will, the^Vord, the Breath, — the Living God. 

Sueh symphony requires best instrument. 
Seize, then I luy soul! from Freedom's irophied dome. 
The Harp wiiich hangclh high between the Shields 
Of Brutus and Leonidas ! With that 
Strong music, that soliciting spell, iorce back 
(Carth's free and stirring spirit that lies entrancM 

For what is Freedom, but the unfetter'd use 
Of all tiie powers which God for use had given? 
But chiefly this, him First, him Last to view 
Through meaner [wwers and secondary tilings 
EirulgenI, as tiirough clouds that veil his blaze. 
For all that meets the bodily sense I deem 
Symlx)lirat, one mighty alphabet 
For infant minds ; anii we in this low world 
Placed with our backs to bright Reality, 
That we may learn with young unwounded ken 
The siil)stance from its shadow. Inlliiile Love, 
Whose latence is the plenitude of .411, 
Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse 
Veiling, revealcst tliino eternal Son. 

But some there are who deem themselves most free 
Wion (hoy within this gross and visible sphere 
Chain down the winged lhon<rht, scoffing ascent, 
Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat 
With noisy emptiness of learned phrase. 
Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences. 
Self-working tools, tincaus'd effects, and all 
Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, 
Untenanting creation of its God. 

But properties are God : the naked mass 
(If mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost) 
Acts only by its inactivity. 
Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think 
That as one body seems the aggregate 
Of Atoms numberless, each organized ; 
So, by a strange and dim similitude, 
Infmite myriads of self-conscious minds 
Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs 
With a!)solute ubiquity of thought 
(His one eternal self-afTirming Act !) 
All his involved ISIouads, that yet seem 
With various province and apt agency 
Each to pursue its own self-centering end. 
Some nurse the inlhnt diamond in the mine; 
Some roll the genial juices through the oak ; 
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air, 
And rushing on the storm w-ilh whirlwind speed, 
Voke She red lightning to their volleying car. 
Thus these pursue their never-varying course, 
JVo eddy in their stream. Others, more wild. 
With complex interests weaving human fates. 
Duteous or proud, alike obedient all, 
Evolve the process of eternal good. 
3 



And wliat if some rebellious, o'er dark realms 
Arrogate jtower? yet these train up to God, 
.\nd on llie rude eye, unconlirm'd lor day, 
Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom 
As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapory head 
The Laplander iieholds the far-off' Sun 
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows. 
While yet the stern and solitaiy Night 
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn 
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam, 
(iuiding his course or by Nicmi lake 
Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the mossy stone 
Of Sollar-kapper,t while the snowy blast 
Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge. 
Making the poor babe at its mother's backt 
Scream in its scanty cradle: he the while 
Wins gentle solace as with upward eye 
He marks the streamy banners of the North, 
Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join 
Who there in floating robes of rosy light 
Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power 
Tliat first unsensualizcs tlie dark mind. 
Giving it new delights ; and bids it swell 
\Vilh wild activity ; and peopling air, 
By obscure fears of Beings invisible, 
F.mancipates it from the grosser thrall 
Of the present im{)ulse, teaching Self-control, 
Till Superstition with unconscious hand 
Scat Reason on her throne. Wliercfore not vain. 
Nor yet without permilled power impress'd, 
I deem'd those legends terrible, with which 
The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng; 
Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan 
O'er slaughler'd infants, or that Giant Bird 
Vuoklio, of whose rushing wings the noise 
Is Tempest, when the unutterable shape* 
Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once 
That shriek, which never .Murderer heard and lived. 
Or if the Cireenland Wizard in strange trance 
Pierces the untravell'd realms of Ocean's bed 
(Where live the innocent, as for from cares 
.\s from the storms and overwhelming waves 
Dark tumbling on the surliiee of the deep). 
Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave 
By misshaped prodigies beleaguer'd, such 
As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea. 

There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard 
name 
With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath, 



• Balda Zhiok ; i. e. mons alliludinis, the highest mountain 
in Lapland. 

t Solfar Kappcr ; capitiiim Solfar, hie locus omnium quot- 
quot Vftirum Lapponuni superstilio sacrificiis religiosoquecul- 
tui (ledicavit,celebi«tis»inius erat, in parte sinus australis situa 
scmimilliaris spatio a maii distans. Ip-ise locus, quern curiositatia 
gratia aliquando nio invisisse memini, duabus prcaltis lapidibus, 
sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus crat, 
constabat. — I^eemius Dc I^iipjHiml/us. 

t The Lapland Women carry Iheir infants at their back in a 
piece of excavated wood, which serves ihem for a cradle 
Opposite to the inlanl's mouth there is a hole for it to breathe 
through. — Mirandum prorsus est elvixcredibile nisi cui vidisset 
contigit. Luppones hyeme iter facientcs per vasfas monies, pcr- 
que horrida et iiivia lesqua. eo prcserlim tempore quo omnia 
perpetuis nivibus oblecta sunt et nivcs ventis agitanlur et in 
gyros agunlur, viam ad destinata loca absque erroro invenira 
posse, luctantcm autein iiifantcrn si quem haboal, ipsa mater 
in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed'k ipsi vocant) quod 
pro cunia utuntur: In hoc infans pannis et pcllibus convolutua 
colligatus Janet. — Leemius De Lappanibus 

Q Juibme Aibrao. 



18 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



And lips half-opening with the dread of sound, 

Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out Avith fear, 

Lest, haply escaping on some treacherous blast, 

The fateful word let slip the Elements, 

And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her, 

Arm'd with Torngarsuck's* power, the Spirit of 

Good, 
Forces to unchain the foodful progeny 
Of the Ocean's stream. — Wild phantasies! yet wise, 
On the victorious goodness of High God 
Teaching Reliance, and Medicinal Hope, 
Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth, 
With gradual steps winning her difficult way. 
Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure. 

If there be Beings of higher class than Man, 
I deem no nobler province they possess. 
Than by disposal of apt circumstance 
To rear up Kingdoms : and the deeds they prompt, 
Distinguishing from mortal agency, 
They choose their human ministers from such states 
As still the Epic song half fears to name, 
Repell'd from all the Minstrelsies that strike 
The Palace-roof and soothe the Monarch's pride. 

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words 
V/itness'd by answering deeds may claim our Faith) 
Held commune with that warrior-maid of France 
Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days. 
With Wisdom, Mother of retired Thoughts, 
Her soul had dwelt; and she was quick to mark 
The good and evil thing, in human lore 
Undisciplined. For lowly was her Birth, 
And Heaven had doom'd lier early years to Toil, 
That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself 
Unfear'd by Fellow-natures, she might wait 
On the poor Laboring man with kindly looks. 
And minister refreshment to the tired 
Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn Bench 
The sweltry man had stretch'd him, and aloft 
Vacantly watch'd the rudely pictured board 
Which on the Mulberry-bough vrith welcome creak 
Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid 
Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shift- 
ing mind. 
His Vices and his Sorrows ! And full oft 
At Tales of cruel Wrong and strange Distress 
Had wept and shiver'd. To the tottering Eld 
Still as a Daughter would she run : she placed 
His cold Limbs at the sunny Door, and loved 
To hear him story, in his garrulous sort. 
Of his eventful years, all come and gone. 

So twenty seasons past. Tlie Virgin's Form, 
Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury 
Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, 
Her flexile eye-brows wildly hair'd and low. 
And her full eye, now bright, now unillum'd. 
Spake more than Woman's Thought ; and all her 
face 



* They call the Good Spirit Tornearsuck. The other great 
but malignant spirit is a nameless Female; she dwells under 
the sea in a great house, where she can detain in captivity all 
the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth 
befalls the Greenlanders, an Angekok or magician must under- 
take a journey thither. He passes through the kingdom of 
Kjuls, over an horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, 
•»nd by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend 
directly to the surface of the ocean.— See Cranti' Hal. of 
OretiUand, vol. i. 206. 



Was moulded to such features as declared 
That Pity there had oft and strongly work'd, 
And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien 
And like a hauglity Huntress of the woods 
She mov'd : yet sure she was a gentle maid ! 
And in each motion her most innocent soul 
Beam'd forth so brightly, that vAxo saw would say 
Guilt was a thing impossible in her! 
Nor idly would liave said — for she had lived 
In this bad World as in a place of Tombs, 
And touch'd not the pollutions of the Dead. 

'Twas the cold season, when the Rustic's eye 
From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields 
Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints 
And clouds slow varying their huge imagery ; 
When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid 
Had left her pallet ere one beam of day 
Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone. 
Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft, 
With dim inexplicable sympathies 
Disquieting the Heart, shapes out Man's course 
To the predoom'd adventure. Now the ascent 
She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top 
The Pilgrim-Man, who long since eve had watch d 
The alien shine of unconcerning Stars, 
Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights 
Seen in Neufchatel's vale ; now slopes ado\\'n 
The winding sheep-track vale-ward : when, behold 
In the first entrance of the level road 
An unattended Team ! The foremost horse 
Lay with stretch'd limbs ; the others, yet alive. 
But stiff and cold, stood motionless, their manes 
Hoar with the frozen night-dews. Dismally 
The dark-red dowTi now glimmer'd ; but its gleams 
Disclosed no face of man. The Maiden paused. 
Then hail'd who might be near No voice rephed. 
From the thwart wain at length there reach'd hei 

ear 
A sound so feeble that it almost seem'd 
Disttmt : and feebly, with slow effort push'd, 
A miserable man crept forth : his limbs 
The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire. 
Faint on the shafts he rested. She, meantime, 
Saw crowded close beneath the coverture 
A mother and her children — lifeless all. 
Yet lovely ! not a lineament was marr'd — 
Death had put on so slumber-like a form ! 
It was a piteous sight ; and one, a babe. 
The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips, 
Lay on the woman's arm, its little hand 
Stretch'd on her bosom. 



Mutely questioning. 
The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch. 
He, his head feebly turning, on the group 
Look'd with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke 
The drowsy pang that steals on worn-out anguish. 
She shudder'd : but, each vainer pang subdued. 
Quick disentangling from the foremost horse 
The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil 
The stiff cramp'd team forced homeward. There 

arrived. 
Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs, 
And weeps and prays— but the numb power of Death 
Spreads o'er his limbs ; and ere the noontide hour 
The hovering spirits of his Wife and Babes 
Hail him immortal ! Yet amid his pangs, 

28 



JUVENILE POEMS. 



19 



With interruptions long from glitistly throes, 
Ills voice hud faltcr'd out this simple tale. 

The Village, where he dwelt an ITushnndman, 
By siiddou inroad had been seized and (ired 
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife 
And httle ones lie hurried his escape. 
They saw the neighboring Handets flame, they 

heard 
I'proar and shrieks ! and terror-struck drove on 
Through unfrequented roads, a weary way ! 
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had (lucnch'd 
Their evening hearth-lire : lor the alarm had spread. 
Tiie air dipt keen, the night was fang'd with frost, 
And ihey provisionless ! The weeping wife 
111 hush'd her children's moans ; and still they 

moan'd, 
Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life. 
They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 't was 

Death. 
He only, lashing his o'er- wearied team, 
Gaiii'd a sad respite, till beside the ba.se 
Of the high hill his foremost horse dropp'd dead. 
Then hojHiless, strengtliles,s, sick for lack of food, 
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced, 
rill waken'd by the maiden. — Such his tale. 

Ah ! suffering to the height of what was sufTer'd, 
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid 
Brooded with moving lips, mute, slartful, dark ! 
And now her flush'd tumultuous features shot 
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye 
Of misery Fancy-crazed ! and now once more 
Naked, and void, and fix'd, and all within 
The unquiet silence of confused lliought 
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand 
Was strong ujwn her, till in the heat of soul 
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps, 
Aside the beacon, up whose smoulder'd stones 
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there. 
Unconscious of the driving element, 
Yea, swallow'd up in the ominous dream, she sate 
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber ! a dim anguish 
Breathed from her look! and still, with pant and sob. 
Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued. 
Felt an inevitable Presence near. 

Thus as she toil'd in troublous ecstasy, 
An horror of great darkness wrapt her round. 
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones. 
Calming her soul, — " Thou of the Most High 
Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven 
Behold expectant 

[The following fragments were intended to form part of the 
Poem when finished.] 

" Maid beloved of Heaven ! " 
(To her the tutelary Power exclaim'd) 
*" Of Chaos the adventurous progeny 
Thou seest ; foul missionaries of foul sire, 
tierce to regain the losses of that hour 
When Love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings 
Over the abyss flutter'd with such glad noise, 
As what time after long and pestful calms, 
With slimy shapes and miscreated life 
I'oi.soning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze 
Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night 
A heavy unimaginable moan 



Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld 
Stand beauteous on (^onfusion's charmed wave. 
Moaning she lied, and entered tlie Profound 
That leads with downward windings to the Cave 
Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death 
Sunk deep beneaih Gehenna's massy roots. 
There many a dateless age the Beldame lurk'd 
.'Vnd trembled ; till eiigoiider'd by fierce Hate, 
Fierce Hate and gloomy Hoi>e, a Dream aro.se, 
Shaped like a black cloud niark'd with streaks of 

fire. 
It roused the Hell-Hag : she the dew damp wiped 
From off her brow, and through the uncouth maz< 
Retraced her steps ; but ere she reach'd the moutL 
Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused, 
Nor dared re-enter the diminish'd Gulf 
As through the dark vaults of some moulder'd 

Tower 
(Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind 
Circles at distance in his homeward way) 
The winds breathe hollow, deem'd the plaining groan 
Of prison'd spirits ; with such fearful voice 
Night murmur'd, and the soimd through Chaos went 
Leap'd at her call her hideous-fronted brood! 
A dark behest they heard, and rush'd on earth; 
Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored, 
Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind!" 



From his obscure haunt 
Shriek'd Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam, 
Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow. 
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds, 
Ague, the biform Hag ! when early Spring 
Beams on the marsh-bred vapors. 



" Even so" (the exulting Maiden said) 
" The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell. 
And thus they witness'd God I But nov^' the clouds 
Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar 
Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing 
Loud songs of Triumph ! O ye spirits of God, 
Hover around my mortal agonies I" 
She spake, and instantly faint melody 
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow, — 
Such Measures, as at calmest midnight heard 
By aged Hermit in his holy dream. 
Foretell and solace death ; and now they rise 
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice 
The white-robed* multitude of slaughter'd saints 
At Heaven's wide-open'd portals gratulant 
Receive some marlyr'd Patriot. The harmony 
Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense 
Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy. 

At length awakening slow, she gazed around : 
And through a Mist, the relic of that trance 
Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appear'd, 
Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted clif&, 
Glass'd on the subject ocean. A vast plain 
Stretch'd opposite, where ever and anon 



" Revel, vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, 1 
eaw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the 
word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And 
white robes wore given unto every one of them, uiid it whs 
said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, 
until their fellow scrvanls also and their brethren, that should 
be killed as ihey were, should tie fulfilled. 

5 29 



20 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The Plow-man, following sad his meagre team, 
Turn'd up fresh sculls unstartled, and the bones 
Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there 
All mingled lay beneath the common earth. 
Death's gloomy reconcilement ! O'er the Fields 
Slept a fair form, repairing all she might, 
Her temples olive-wreathed ; and where she trod 
Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb. 
But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure. 
And anxious pleasure beam'd in her faint eye, 
As she had newly left a couch of pain. 
Pale Convalescent ! (yet some time to rule 
With power exclusive o'er the willing world. 
That bless'd prophetic mandate then fulfill'd, 
Peace be on Earth !) A happy while, but brief, 
She seem'd to wander with assiduous feet. 
And heal'd the recent harm of ciiill and blight. 
And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew. 

But soon a deep procursive sound moan'd hollow: 
Black rose the clouds, and now (as in a dream) 
Their reddening shapes, transformed to Warrior- 
hosts, 
Coursed o'er the Sky, and battled in mid-air. 
Nor did not the large blood-drops fall from Heaven 
Portentous ! while aloft were seen to float. 
Like hideous features booming on the mist. 
Wan Stains of ominous Light! Resigii'd, yet sad, 
The fair Form bowed her olive-crowned Brow, 
Then o'er the plain with oft-reverted eye 
Fled till a Place of Tombs she reach'd, and there 
Within a ruined Sepulchre obscure 
i'oimd Hiding-place. 

The delegated Maid 
Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaim'd, 
" Thou mild-eyed Form ! wherefore, ah ! wherefore 

fled? 
The power of Justice, like a name all Light, 
Shone from thy brow ; but all they, who unblamed 
Dwelt in thy duellings, call thee Happiness. 
Ah ! why, uninjured and unprofited, 
Should multitudes against their brethren rush ? 
Why sow they guilt, still reaping Misery ? 
Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace ! are sweet. 
As after showers the perfumed gale of eve. 
That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek : 
And gay the grassy altar piled with fruits. 
But boasts the slirine of Dfemon War one charm, 
Save that with many an orgie strange and foul. 
Dancing around with interwoven arms. 
The Maniac Suicide and Giant Murder 
Kxult in their fierce union ? I am sad. 
And know not why the simple Peasants crowd 
Beneath the Chieftains' standard ! " Thus the Maid. 



To her the tutelary Spirit replied : 
" When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores 
IVo more can rouse the appetites of Kings ; 
When the low flattery of their reptile Lords 
Falls flat and heavy on the accustom'd ear ; 
When Eunuchs sing, and Fools bufli)onery make, 
And Dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain ; 
Tlion War and all its dread vicissitudes 
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant Hearts ; 
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats, 
Insipid Royalty's keen condiment ! 
There f<jTe uninjured and unprofited 



(Victims at once and Executioners), 
The congregated Husbandmen lay waste 
The Vineyard and the Harvest. As long 
The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line, 
Though hush'd the Winds and cloudless the high 

Noon, 
Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease. 
In sports unwieldy toss his Island-bulk, 
Ocean behind him billows, and before 
A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand. 
And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark. 
Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War 
And War, his strained sinews knit anew. 
Still violate the unfmish'd worlis of Peace. 
But yonder look ! for more demands thy view!" 
He said : and straightway from the opposite Isle 
A Vapor sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled 
From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence. 
Travels the sky for many a trackless league. 
Till o'er some Dealh-doom'd land, distant in vain, 
It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the Plain, 
Facing the Isle, a brighter cloud arose, 
And steer'd its course which way the Vapor went 

The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean. 
But long time pass'd not, ere that brighter cloud 
Return'd more bright; along the plain it swept ; 
And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged 
A dazzling form, broad-bosom'd, bold of eye. 
And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound. 
Not more majestic stood the heahng God, 
When from his bow the arrow sped that slew 
Huge Python. Shriek'd Ambition's giant throng. 
And with them hiss'd the Locust-fiends that crawl'd 
And glitter'd in Corruption's slimy track. 
Great was their wrath, for short they knew their 

reign ; 
And such commotion made they, and uproar. 
As when the mad Tornado bellows through 
The guilty islands of the western main. 
What time departing from their native shores, 
Eboe, or Koromantyn's* plain of Palms, 



* The slaves in the West- Indies consider death as a passport 
to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in 
the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of 
which the ideas are better than the language in which they 
are conveyed. 

SI GKOTOV TtiXaf, Qavart, Trpo\£i-wv 
Es yivog aircviois vtto^cv^Qcv Any 
Ov ^ci'tcOr] ct} ytvvwv cvapay/xoi ; 

Oui' oAoXuy/ito, 
AXXa Kai KVK^oiai ^opoiTviroici 
K'tta/xariiiv X'^'Pf <poStpoi pev taci 
AXX' opwi E\ev6tpi(f cvvotKiis, 

Xruyve Tvpavvc ! 
Aaantois tint T!Ttpvytani nrini 
A ! ^a\aaaiov KaOopwvTCs oiSpa 
A.i9cpoT:\ayToii vtio Tiotrtr' avsiai 

Harpil trr' aiav. 
E)'6a pav Kpacai 'E,p(pp!:\'Jiciv 
A.p<pL TTt]y)]aiv KiTpivwi' vrr' aXawv, 
Oaa'vTTO PpoTots fraOov pporct, ra 

iitiva \iyovai.. 

LITERAL TRANSLATION. 

Leaving the Gates of Darkness, O Death ! hasten thou to a 
Race yoked with Misery ! Thou wilt not be received wiui 
30 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



21 



The infuriate spirits of the Miirder'd make 
Fierce merriment, nnd vengeance nsk of Heaven. 
Wamid with new influence, the unwholesome plain 
Sent up its foulest logs to meet the Morn : 
The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in blood ! 

" Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven !" 
fTo her the tutelary Spirit said) 
' Soon shall the Morning struggle into Day, 
The stormy Moniing into cloudless Noon. 
Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand — 
But this be iliy best Omen — Save lliy Country ! " 



lacerations of cheeks, nor with funeral ululation — but with 
I'iicline dances and the joy ofsongs. Thou art terrible indeed, 
yet ihou dwellesl with Liberty, stern Genius! Borne on thy 
diirk pinions over the swelling of ocean, they return to their 
native country. There, by the side of Fountains beneath 
• "itron-grovee, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, 
being Men, they had endured from Mca. 



Thus saying, from the answering Maid he pa-ss'd. 
And with him disnppear'd the Heavenly Vision. 

" Glory to Tliee, Father of Earth and Heaven ' 
All-conscious Presence of the Universe ! 
Nature's vast Kver-acting Energy ! 
In Will, in Deed, Impulse of All to All ! 
Whether thy love with unrefracted ray 
Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if 
Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought. 
Scatter new frenzies on the infected throng, 
Thou both inspiring and predooming both. 
Fit instruments and best, of perfect end : 
Glory to Thee, Father of Earlji and Heaven ! " 

And first a landscape rose, 
More wild and waste and desolate than where 
The white bear, drifting on a field of ice. 
Howls to her sunder'd cubs with piteous rage 
And savage agony. 



Sili|)Utne aca^cfii* 



I POEMS CKXASIONED BY POLITICAL 
EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED 
WITH THEM. 



When 1 have borne in memory what has tamed 

Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart 

When men change swords for legers, and desert 

The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed 

I had, my country ! Am I to be blamed 1 

But, when 1 think of Thee, and what Thou art. 

Verily, in the bottom of my heart. 

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. 

But dearly must we prize thee ; we who find 

In thee a bulwark of the cause of men ; 

And I by my affection was beguiled. 

VV'hat wonder if a poet, now and then. 

Among the many movements of his mind. 

Felt for thee as a Lover or a. Child. 

Wordsworth. 



ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.* 

lot), loi), (3 m Kaxd. 
Yjr' av jit itivif ipBojiavrtiai itSvoi 
J^rpoSei, rapdaaiav (ppoijiiots ((prifiiots. 

****** 

TiJ piXXov Ti^ti. Kat mi priv faytj irapiiv 
'Ayav y' i\ij06jtavTiv )i ipiii. 

iEscHYL. Agam. 1225. 



ARGUMENT. 

The Ode commences with an Address to the Divine 
Providence, that regulates into one vast harmony all 
liie events of time, however calamitous some of them 



• This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days 
of December, 1796 : and was first published on the last day of 
ll)di year. 



may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls 
on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, 
and devote them for a while to the cause of human 
nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the 
Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 
17th of November, 1796; having just concluded a 
subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against 
France. The first and second Antistrophe describe 
the Image of the Departing Year, etc. as in a vision. 
The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, 
the downfall of this country. 



I. 

Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time I 
It is most hard, with an imtroubled ear 
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear! 
Yet, mine eye fix'd on Heaven's unchanging clime; 
Long when I listen'd, free from mortal fear, 
With inward stillness, and submitted mind ; 
When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind, 
I saw the train of the Departing Year ! 
Starting from my silent sadness, 
Then with no unholy madness. 
Ere yet the enter'd cloud foreclosed my sight, 
I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized hia 
flight. 

II. 

Hither, from the recent tomb. 
From the prison's direr gloom, 
From Distemper's midnight anguish ; 
And thence, where Poverty doth waste and Linguist^ 
Or where, his two bright torches blending, 

Love illumine? manhood's maze ; 
Or where, o'er cradled infants bending, 
Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze, 
Hither, in perplexed dance. 
Ye Woes ! ye young-eyed Joys ! advance • 
31 



22 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



By Time's wild harp, and by the hand 
Whose indefatigable sweep 
Raises its fateful strings from sleep, 
I bid you haste, a raix'd tumultuous band ! 
From every private bower. 

And each domestic hearth. 
Haste lor one solemn hour ; 
And with a loud and yet a louder voice, 
O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth 

Weep and rejoice I 
Still echoes the dread Name that o'er the earth 
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell : 

And now advance in saintly Jubilee 
Justice and Truth ! They too have heard thy spell. 
They too obey thy name, Divinest Liberty ! 

in. 

I mark'd Ambition in his war-array ! 

I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry — 
"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! 
Groans not her chariot on its onward way ?" 
Fly, mailed Monarch, fly ! 
Stunn'd by Death's twice mortal mace, 
No more on Murder's lurid face 
The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye ! 
Manes of the unnumber'd slain ! 
Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain ! 
Ye that erst at Ismail's tower. 
When human ruin choked the streams. 

Fell in conquest's glutted hour, 
'Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams ! 
Spirits of the uncoffin'd slain. 

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling. 
Oft, at night, in misty train. 

Rush around her narrow dwelling ! 
The exterminating fiend is fled — 

(Foul her life, and dark her doom) 
Mighty armies of the dead 

Dance like death-fires round her tomb ! 
Then with prophetic song relate. 
Each some tyrant-murderer's fate ! 



IV. 

Departing Year I 't was on no earthly shore 
My soul beheld thy vision ! Where alone. 
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne. 
Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore. 
With many an unimaginable groan 

Thou storied'st thy sad hours ! Silence ensued, 
Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude. 
Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with 
glories shone. 
Then, his eye wild ardors glancing, 
From the choired Gods advancing. 
The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet. 
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat. 



Throughout the blissful throng, 

Hush'd were harp and song : 
Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven 

(The mystic Words of Heaven), 

Permissive signal make : 
The fervent Spirit bow'd, then spread his wings and 



" Thou in stormy blackness throning 

Love and uncreated Light, 
By the Earth's unsolaced groaning, 
Seize thy terrors. Arm of might ! 
By Peace with proffer'd insult sacred, 
Masked Hate and envying Scorn ! 
By Years of Havoc yet unborn ! 
And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared ! 
But chief by Afric's wrongs. 

Strange, horrible, and foul ! 
By what deep guilt belongs 
To the deaf Synod, ' full of gifts and lies'' 
By Wealth's insensate laugh ! by Torture's howl ! 
Avenger, rise ! 
For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, 
Her quiver full, and with imbroken bow ? 
Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven, O speak aloud , 

And on the darkling foe 
Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud ! 

O dart the flash ! O rise and deal tlie blow ! 
The past to thee, to thee the future cries ! 

Hark ! how wide Nature joins her groans luJ»iw '. 
Rise, God of Nature ! rise." 



VI. 

The voice had ceased, the vision fled ; 
Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread. 
And ever, when the dream of night 
Renews the phantom to my sight, 
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs ; 

My ears throb hot ; my eye-balls start ; 
My brain with horrid tumult swims ; 
Wild is the tempest of my heart ; 
And my thick and struggling breath 
Imitates the toil of Death ! 
No stronger agony confounds 

The Soldier on the war-field spread. 
When all foredone with toil and wounds. 

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead 
(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled. 

And the night-wind clamors hoarse ! 
See ! the starting wretch's head 

Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse !) 



VII. 

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, 
O Albion ! my mother Isle ! 
Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers. 
Glitter green with stmny showers ; 
Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells 

Echo to the bleat of flocks 
(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells 

Proudly ramparted with rocks) ; 
And Ocean, 'mid his uproar wild 
Speaks safety to his island-child ! 

Hence, for many a fearless age 

Has social Quiet loved thy shore ! 
Nor ever proud Invader's rage 
Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gor» 



VIII. 

Abandon'd of Heaven ! mad Avarice thy guide, 
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride — 
32 



SIBYLUNE LEAVES. 



23 



'Mid thy hcnls and ihy corn-fields secure thou hast 

st(X>d, 
And joiiid the wild yelling of Famine and Bloocl ! 
The nations curse thee ! They wilh eager wondering 

Shall hear Destruction, like a Vulture, scream ! 

Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a dream 
Of central fires through nether seas upthundering 

Soothes her fierce solitude ; yet. as she lies 
By livid fount, or red volcanic stream, 

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes, 

O Albion! Ihy predestin'd ruins rise. 
The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, 
Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep. 

IX. 

Away, my soul, away ! 
In vain, in vain, the Birds of warning sing — 
And hark ! I hoar the famish'd brood of prey 
Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! 
Away, my soul, away ! 
I, unpartaking of the evil thing, 
With daily prayer and daily toil 
Soliciting for food my scanty soil, 
Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. 
Now I recentre my immortal mind 

In the deep sabbath of meek self content ; 
Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim 
God' a Image, sister of the Seraphim. 



FRANCE. 



Ye Clouds ! that far above me float and pause. 

Whose pathless march no mortal may control ! 

Ye Ocean- Waves ! that, w-heresoe'er ye roll, 
Yield homage only to eternal laws ! 
Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds' singing, • 

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined. 
Save when your own imperious branches swinging, 

Have made a solemn music of the wind ! 
Wliere, like a man beloved of God, 
Through gUwms, which never woodman trod, 

How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, 

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, 
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! 
O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forcst.s high ! 

And O ye Clouds that far above me soar'd ! 
Tliou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! 

Yea, every thing that is and w-ill be free ! 

Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 

With what deep worship I have still ador'd 
The spirit of divinest Liberty. 

n. 

When France in WTath her giant-limbs iiprear'd. 
And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea, 
Stamp'd her strong foot and said she would be free, 

Boar witness for me, how I hoped and fear'd ! 

With what a joy my lofty gratulalion 
Unaw'd I sang, amid a slavish band : 

And when to wlielm the disenchanted nation, 
Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, 



The Monarchs march'd in evil day. 
And Briiain joined the dire array ; 

Thougii dear her shores and circling ocean. 
Though many friendships, many youthful loves 

Had swoln the patriot emotion, 
And Hung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; 
Yet still my voice, unalter'd, sang defeat 

To all that braved tlie tyrant-ciuelling lance, 
.\nd shame too long delay'd and vain retreat! 
For ne'er, O Liberty! with parlial aim 
I dimui'd thy light or damp'd thy holy flame , 

But bless'd the pagans of deliver'd France. 
And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. 

in. 

" And what," I said, " though Blasphemy's loud scream 
With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! 
Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove 
A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream ' 

Ye storms, that round the dawning cast assembled, 
The Sun was rising, though he hid his light ! 

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped aiid 
trembled, 
The dissonance ceased, and all seem'd calm anc' 
bright ; 
When France her front decp-scarr'd and gory 
Conccal'd with clustering wreailis of glory ; 

When, insupportably advancing, 
Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp; 

While timid looks of fury glancing. 
Domestic treason, crush'd beneath her fatal stamp, 
Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore ; 

Then I reproach'd my fears that would not flee ; 
" And soon," I said, " shall Wisdom teach her lore 
In the low huts of them that toil and groan ! 
And, conquering by her happiness alone. 

Shall France compel the nations to be free, 
Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth 
their own." 

IV. 

Forgive me. Freedom ! O forgive those dreams! 

I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament. 

From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent — ^ 

I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain'd streams! 

Heroes, that for your peaceful country perish'd 
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows 

Wilh bleeding wounds; forgive me that I cheri.sh'd 
One thought that ever bless'd your cruel foes ! 

To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt. 

Where Peace her jealous home had built, 
A patriot race to disinherit 
Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; 

And with inexpiable spirit 
To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer— 
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind, 

And patriot only in pernicious toils ! 
Are these thy boasts. Champion of human-kind ? 

To mix wilh Kings in the low lust of sway, 
Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey ; 
To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils 

From Freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray ? 



The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain 
Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game 
They burst their manacles and wear the name 

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! 
33 



24 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



O Liberty ! wth profitless endeavor 
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour ; 

But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever 
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. 
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee 
(Not prayer nor boastful name delays thee), 

Alike fi-om Priestcraft's harpy minions, 
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves. 
Thou speedest on Ihy subtle pinions. 
The guide of homeless winds, and playmates of the 

waves ! 
And there I felt thee ! — on that sea-cliff's verge, 

Whose pines, scarce travell'd by the breeze above, 

Had made one murmur with the distant surge ! 

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, 

And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, 

Possessing all things with intensest love, 

O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there. 

February, 1797. 



FEARS IN SOLITUDE. 

WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF 
AN INVASION. 

A GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills, 

A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place 

No sinking sky-lark ever poised himself 

The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope. 

Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on. 

All golden with the never- bloomless furze, 

AVTiich now blooms most profusely ; but the dell. 

Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate 

As vernal corn-field, or the unripe llax. 

When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, 

The level Sunshine glimmers with green light. 

Oh! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook! 

Which all, methinks, would love ; but chiefly he. 

The humble man, who, in his youthful years. 

Knew just so much of folly, as had made 

His early manhood more securely wise ! 

Here he might lie on fern or wither'd heath. 

While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen 

The minstrelsy that solitude loves best). 

And from the Sun, and from the breezy Air, 

Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame ; 

And he, with many feelings, many thoughts. 

Made up a meditative joy, and found 

Religious meanings in the forms of nature ! 

And so, his senses gradually wrapt 

In a half-sleep, he dreams of belter worlds, 

And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark ! 

That singest like an angel in the clouds ! 



My God ! it is a melancholy thing 
For such a man, who would full fain preserve 
His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel 
For all his human brethren — O my God ! 
It weighs upon the heart, that he must think 
What uproar and what strife may now be stirring 
This way or that way o'er these silent hills — 
'nva-sion and the thunder and the shout. 



And all the crash of onset ; fear and rage, 

And undetermined conflict — even now. 

Even now, perchance, and in his native isle ; 

Carnage and groans beneath this blessed Sun! 

We have offended, Oh ! my countrymen ! 

We have offended very grievously, 

And been most tyrannous. From east to west 

A groan of accusation pierces Heaven ! 

The v«-etched plead against us ; multitudes 

Countless and vehement, the Sons of God, 

Our Brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on, 

Steam'd up from Cairo'* swamps of pestilence. 

Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth 

And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs. 

And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint 

With slow perdition murders the whole man, 

His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home. 

All individual dignity and power 

Ingulf 'd in Courts, Committees, Institutions, 

Associations and Societies, 

A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild, 

One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery, 

We have drunk up, demure as at a grace. 

Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ; 

Contemptuous of all honorable rule. 

Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life 

For gold, as at a market! The sweet words 

Of Christian promise, words that even yet 

Might stem destruction were they wisely preach'd. 

Are mutter'd o'er by men, whose tones proclaim 

How flat and wearisome they feel their trade : 

Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent 

To deem them fiilsehoods or to know their truth. 

Oh ! blasphemous ! the book of life is made 

A superstitious instrument, on which 

We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break ; 

For all must swear — all and in every place. 

College and wharf, council and justice-court ; 

All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed. 

Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest. 

The rich, the poor, the old man and the yoimg ; 

All, all make up one scheme of perjury. 

That faith doth reel ; the very name of God 

Sounds like a juggler's charm ; and, bold with joy 

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, 

(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, 

Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon. 

Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, 

And hooting at the glorious Sun in Heaven, 

Cries out, " Where is it l " 

Thankless too for peace 
(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)^ 
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved 
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war ! 
Alas ! for ages ignorant of all 
Its ghastlier workings (famine or blue plague. 
Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows). 
We, this whole people, have been clamorous 
For war and bloodshed ; animating sports. 
The which we pay lor as a thing to talk of, 
Spectators and not combatants 1 No guess 
Anticipative of a wrong unfelt. 
No speculation or contingency. 
However dim and vague, loo vague and dim 
To yield a justifying cause ; and forth 
(StuiTd out with big preamble, holy names. 
34 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



25 



And adjurations of the God in Hoavcn), 

We send our mandates for the reriaiii ileath 

Of tliousands and ten thousands ! lioys and girls, 

And women, that would groan to see a child 

Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war, 

The best amusement lor our morning-meal I 

The jioor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers 

From curses, who knows scarcely words enouj;h 

To ask a blessing from his Ileaxenly Father, 

Becomes a lluenl phraseman, absolute 

And technical in victories and defeats, 

And all our dainty terms for fratricide ; 

Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues 

Like mere abstractions, empty sounds, to which 

We join no feeling and attach no form ! 

As if the soldier died without a wound ; 

As if the librcs of this godhke frame 

Were gored without a pang; as if the wretch. 

Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, 

Pass'd off to Heaven, translated and not kill'd : 

As though he had no wife to pine for him, 

No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days 

Are coming on us, O my countrymen ! 

And what if all-avenging Providence, 

Strong and retributive, should make us know 

The meaning of our words, force us to feel 

The desolation and the agony 

Of our fierce doings ! 



Spare us yet awhile, 
Father and God ! ! spare us j'et awhile ! 
Oh I let not English women drag their flight 
Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes, 
Of the sweet inlants, that but yesterday 
Laugh'd at the breast ! Sons, brothers, husbands, all 
Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms 
Which grew up with you round the same iire-side. 
And all who ever heard the sabbaih-bells 
Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure ! 
Stand forth : be men ! repel an impious foe, 
Impious and false, a light yet cruel race. 
Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth 
With deeds of murder ; and still promising 
Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free. 
Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart 
Of faith and quiet hojie, and all that soothes 
And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand we forth ; 
Render them back upon the insulted ocean, 
And let them loss as idly on its waves 
As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast 
Swept from our shores I And oh! may we return 
Not with a drunken triuni|)li, but with fear. 
Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung 
So fierce a foe to frenzy ! 



I have told, 
O Britons ! my brethren ! I have told 
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. 
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed ; 
VoT never can true courage dwell with them. 
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look 
At their own vices. We have been too long 
Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike. 
Groaning with restless enmity, expect 
All change from change of coastituted power ; 
As if a (JoverniBent had been a robe, 
D2 



On which our vice and wretihcdncss were lagg'd 

Like lancy jwinls and I'ringes, with the robe 

I'uU'd oil' at pleasure. Fondly these attach 

A radical causation to a lew 

Poor drudges of chastising Providence, 

Who Iwrrow all their hue.^ and <]ualities 

From our own folly and rank wickedness. 

Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others. 

meanwhile. 
Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all 
WTio will not fall before their images. 
And yield them worship, they are enemies 
Even of their country ! 

Such have I been deem'd— 
But, O dear Britain ! O my I\Iothcr Isle ! 
Xeeds must thou prove a name most dear and holy 
To me, a son, a brother, and a i'riend, 
A husband, and a father! who revere 
All bonds of natural love, and find them all 
Within the limits of thy rocky shores. 

native Britain! O my Mother Isle ! 

How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and 

holy 
To me, who from lliy lakes and mountain-hills. 
Thy clouds, ihy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas. 
Have drunk in all my intellectual life. 
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts. 
All adoration of the God in nature, 
All lovely and all honorable things. 
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 
The joy and greatness of its future being ? 
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul 
Unborrow'd from my country. O divine 
And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole 
And most magnificent temple, in the which 

1 walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, 
Loving the God that made me ! 

May my fears. 
My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts 
And menace of the vengeful enemy 
Pass like the gust, that roar'd and died away 
In the distant tree : which heard, and oidy heard 
In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass. 

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad 
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze : 
The light has left the summit of the hill. 
Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful. 
Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell. 
Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot ! 
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill. 
Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recall'd 
From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, 
I find myself upon the brow, and pause 
Startled ! And after lonely sojourning 
In such a quiet and surrounding nook. 
This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main. 
Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty 
Of that huge amphitheatre of ricl\ 
And eliny fields, seems like society — 
Conversing with the mind, and giving it 
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought ! 
And now, beloved Stowey! I behold 
Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elnn 
35 



2(5 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend, 
And close behind them, hidden from my view. 
Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe 
And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! With light 
And quicken'd footsteps thitherward I tend, 
Remembering thee, O green and silent dell ! 
And grateful, that, by nature's quietness 
And solitary musings, all my heart 
Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge 
JjQve, and the thoughts that yearn for human-kind. 
Nether Slowey, April 28lk, 1798. 



FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER. 

A WAR ECLOGUE. 

WITH AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE.* 



The Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendie. Famine 
IS discovered lying on the ground ; to her enter Fire 
and Slaughter. 

FAMINE. 

Sisters ! sisters ! who sent you here ? 

SLAUGHTER {tO FIRE). 

( will whisper it in her ear. 



No ! no ! no ! 
Spirits hear what spirits tell : 
Twill make a holiday in Hell. 

No ! no I no ! 
Myself, 1 named him once below, 
And all the souls, that damned be, 
Leap'd up at once in anarchy, 
Clapp'd their hands and danced for glee. 
The: ..o longer heeded me ; 
But laugh'd to hear Hell's burning rafters 
Unwillingly re-echo laughters ! 

No ! no ! no ! 
Spirits hear what spirits tell ! 
T will make a holiday in Hell ! 



Whisper it, sister ! so and so ! 
I>1 a dark hint, soft and slow. 

SLAUGHTER. 

Letters four do form his name — 
And who sent you ? 

BOTH. 

The same! the same! 

SLAUGHTER. 

He came by stealth, and unlock'd my den, 
And I have drunk the blood since then 
Of thrice three hundred thousand men. 



Who bade you do it? 



SLAUGHTER. 

The same! the same! 



I Appendix to " Sibi/lline Leaves.' 



Letters four do form his name. 
He let me loose, and cried Halloo ' 
To him alone the praise is due. 



Thanks, sister, thanks ! the men have bled. 

Their wives and tlieir children faint for bread. 

I stood in a swampy field of battle ; 

With bones and sculls I made a rattle, 

To frighten the wolf and carrion crow. 

And the homeless dog — but they would not ga 

So off I flew ; for how could I bear 

To see them gorge their dainty fare? 

I heard a groan and a peevish squall, 

And through the chink of a cottage-wall— 

Can you guess what I saw there ? 

BOTH. 

Whisper it, sister! in our ear. 



A baby beat its dying mother. 

1 had starved the one, and was starving the Other" 



Who bade you do't? 

FAMINE. 

The same! the same! 
Letters four do form his name. 
He let me loose, and cried Halloo! 
To him alone the praise is due. 



Sisters! I from Ireland came! 

Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, 

I triumph'd o'er the setting sun! 

And all the while the work was done 

On as I strode with my huge strides, 

I flung back my head and I held my sides. 

It w-as so rare a piece of fun 

To see the swelter'd cattle run 

With uncouth gallop through the night. 

Scared by the red and noisy light! 

By the light of his own blazing cot 

Was many a naked rebel shot : 

The house-stream met the flame and hiss'd. 

While crash! fell in the roof, I wist, 

On some of those old bedrid nurses, 

That deal in discontent and curses. 



Who bade you do 't ? 

FIRE. 

The same! the same! 
Letters four do form his name. 
He let me loose, and cried Halloo! 
To him alone the praise is due. 



He let us loose, and cried Halloo ! 
How shall we yield him honor due? 

FAMINE. 

Wisdom comes with lack of food, 
I '11 gnaw, 1 '11 gnaw the multitude, 

36. 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



27 



Till the cup of rage o'erbriiu : 

Thf y shall seize him and his brood — 

PI.AUGllTKR. 

They shall tear him limb from limb ! 



ihniikless bohlames and untrue ! 
And is litis all ihal you <'au do 
For him who diil so much for you? 
Ninety months he, by my troth ! 
Halh richly cater'd for you both ; 
And in an hour would you repay 

An eight years' work ? — Away ! away ! 

1 alone am faithful ! I 
Cling to him everlastingly. 

1796. 



RECANTATION 

ILLUSTRATED IN THE STORY OF THE MAD OX. 

An Ox, long fed with musty hay, 

And work'd with yoke and chain, 
Was turn'd out on an April day, 
\Vlicn fields are in their best array, 
And growing grasses sparkle gay, 
At once with sun and rain. 

The grass was fine, the sun was bright, 

With truth I may aver it ; 
The Ox was glad, as well he might. 
Thought a green meadow no bad sight. 
And fWsk'd to show hie huge delight, 

Much like a beast of spirit. 

" Stop, neighbors ! stop ! why these alarms ? 

The Ox is only glad." 
But still they pour from cots and farms — 
Halloo ! the parish is up in arms 
(A hoaxing hunt has always charms), 

Halloo! the Ox is mad. 

The frighted beast sramper'd about. 

Plunge I through the hedire he drove — 

The mob pursue with hideous rout, 

A bull-dog fastens on his snout. 

He gores the dog, his tongue hangs out — 
He's mad, he 's mad, by Jove ! 

" Stop, neighl)ors, slop!" aloud did call 

A sage of sober hue. 
But all at once on him they fall. 
And women squeak and children squall, 
" What ! would you have him toss us all ? 

And, damme ! who are you ? " 

Ah, hapless sage ! his ears they stun. 

And curse him o'er and o'er — 
" You bloody-minded dog ! " (cries one,) 
" To slit your windpipe were good fun — 
'Od bl — you for an impious* son 
Of a Presbyterian w — re ! 



' One of the many fine words whicli the most uneducated 
had aliout this time a constant opportunity of ar<|uiring from 

\he svrmons in tlie pulpit, and llie proclamalioiis OB llic 

torocra. 



" You 'd have him gore tne parish-priest. 

And ruti against the altar — 
You Fiend!" — The sage his warnings ceased 
And North, and South, and West, and East, 
Halloo! they follow the poor beast. 

Mat, Dick, Tom, Bob, and Walter. 

Old Lewis, 't was his evil day. 

Stood trembling in his shoes ; 
Tlie Ox was his — what could he say ? 
His legs were stiflcn'd with dismay. 
The Ox ran o'er him 'mid the fray, 

And gave him his death's bruise. 

The frighted beast ran on — but here, 
The Gospel scarce more true is — 

My muse stops short in mid-career — 

Nay ! gentle reader ! do not sneer, 

I cannot choose but drop a tear, 
A tear for good old Lewis. 

The frighted beast ran through the towTi, 

All foUow'd, boy and dad. 
Bull-dog, Parson, Shopman, Clown, 
The Publicans rush'd from the Crown, 
" Halloo ! hamstring him ! cut him down ! ' 

They drove the poor Ox nuid. 

Should you a rat to madness tease, 

Why even a rat might plague you : 
There 's no philosopher but sees 
That rage and fear are one disease — 
Though that may bum and this may freeze 
They're both alike the ague. 

And so this Ox, in frantic mood. 

Faced round like any Bull — 
The mob turn'd tail, and he pursued. 
Till they with flight and fear were stew'd, 
And not a chick of all this brood 

But had his belly-full. 

Old Nick's astride the beast, 't'is clear — 

Old Nicholas to a tittle ! 
But all agree he 'd disappear, 
Would but the parson venture near, 
And through his teeth, right o'er the steer. 

Squirt oUt some fasting-spittle.t 

Achilles was a warrior fleet, 

The Trojans he could worry — 
Our parson too was swift of feet, 
But show'd it chiefly in retreat ! 
The victor Ox scour'd down the street, 

The mob fled hurry-skurry. 

Tlirough gardens, lanes, and fields new-plow'd. 
Through his hedge and through her hedge. 

Ho plunged and toss'd, and bellow'd loud. 

Till in his madness he grew proud 

To see this helter-skelter crowd 

That had more wrath than courage. 



t According to the superstition of the West Countries, if you 
meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, ot 
you may cause bim instantly to disappear by spitting over hi* 
horns. 

6 37 



28 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Alas ! to mend the breaches wide 

He made for these poor ninnies, 
They all must work, vvhate'er betide, 
Both days and months, and pay beside 
(Sad news for Avarice and for Pride) 

A sight of golden guineas. 

But here once more to view did pop 

The man that kept his senses. 
And now he cried — " Stop, neighbors ! stop ! 
Tlie Ox is mad ! I would not swop, 
JVo, not a school-boy's farthing top 

For all the parish fences. 

" The Ox is mad ! Ho ! Dick, Bob, Mat ! 

What means this coward fuss ? 
Ho ! stretch this rope across the plat — 
'T will trip him u\i — or if not that. 
Why, damme ! we must lay him flat — 

See, here's my blunderbuss!" 

" A lying dog ! just now he said, 

The Ox was only glad. 
Let 's break his Presbyterian head ! " — 
" Hush! " quoth the sage, " you 've been misled, 
No quarrels now — let's all make head — 

You drove the poor- Ox 7nad!" 

As thus I sat in careless chat. 

With the morning's wet newspaper, 

In eager haste, without his hat. 

As blind and blundering as a bat, 

In came that fierce aristocrat, 
Our pursy woollen draper. 

And so my Muse perforce drew bit, 

And in he rush'd and panted : — 
" Well, have you heard ? " — " No ! not a whit.' 
" What! han't you heard ? " — Come, out with it ! ' 
" That Tierncy votes for Mister Pitt, 

And Sheridan 's recanted." 



presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love 
and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt the 
force of this objection. But, alas ! explosion has succeeded 
explosion so rapidly, that noveliy itself ceases to appear new; and 
it is possible that now even a sitnple story, wholly uninspired with 
politics or personality, may find some attention amid the hub- 
bub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time 
by the falls of Niagara, the lowest wh ispering becomes distinct 
ly audible. S. T. C 

Dec. 21. 1799. 



II. LOVE POEMS. 



duns humilistenero stylus olim effudit in aevo. 

Perlegis hie lacrymas, et quod pharelratus acuta 

Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus. 

Omnia paulatim consumit longior astas, 

Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo. 

Ispe mihi coUatusenim non ille videbor: 

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, 

Voxque aliud sonat — 

Pectore nunc gelido calidos misereraur amantes, 

Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres Iranquilla tumultus 

Mens horret relegensque alium putat ista locutum. 

Petrarch. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE 
DARK LADIE. 

The following Poem is intended as the introduction to a 
somewhat longi.T one. The use of the old Ballad word JLadie [ot 
Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is pro- 
fessedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the affectionate 
lovers of venerable antiquity [as Camden saysj will grant me 
their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force 
and propriety in it A heavier objection may be adduced 
against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, 
when novelties explode around us in all directions, he should 



O LEAVE the lily on its stem ; 

leave the rose upon the spray; 
O leave the elder bloom, fair maids! 

And listen to my lay. 

A cypress and a myrtle-bough 

This morn around my harp you twined 
Because it fashion'd mournfully 

Its murmurs in the wind. 

And now a Tale of Love and Woe, 
A woful Tale of Love I sing ; 

Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs 
And trembles on the string. 

But most, my own dear Genevieve, 
It sighs and trembles most for thee ! 

come, and hear what cruel wrongs 
Befell the Dark Ladie. 

Few Sorrows hath she of her own. 
My hope, my joy, my Genevieve! 

She loves me best, whene'er I sing 
The songs that make her grieve. 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stir this mortal frame, 

All are but ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Oh ! ever in my waking dreams, 

1 dwell upon that happy hour, 
When midway on ihe mount I sate, 

Beside the ruin'd tower. 

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, 
Had blended with the lights of eve • 

And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve! 

She lean'd against the armed man. 
The statue of the armed knight , 

She stood and listen'd to my harp, 
Amid the ling'ring light. 

1 play'd a sad and doleful air. 

I sang an old and moving story — 
An old rude song, that fitted well 
That ruin wild and hoary. 

She listen'd with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes and modest graco « 

For well she knew, I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

I told her of the Knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand ; 

And how for ten long years he woo'd 
The Ladie of the Land : 

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SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



29 



I told her how he phied : and ah ! 

The deep, ilie low, the pleading tone 
With whieii I sung another's love, 

Interpreted my own. 

She lisicn'd with a flitting blush ; 

With downcast eyes, and modest grace ; 
And she forgave me, that I gazed 

Too fondly on her face ! 

But when I told the cruel scorn 

That crazed this Ixild and lonely Knight, 

And how he roam'd the mountain-woods, 
Nor rested day or night; 

And how he cross'd the woodman's paths. 
Through briers and swampy mosses heat ; 

How boughs rebounding scourged his limbs, 
And low stubs gored his feet ; 

That sometimes from the savage den, 

And sometimes from the darksome shade. 

And sometimes starling up at once 
In green and sunny glade ; 

There came and look'd him in the face 
An Angel beaulil'ul and bright ; 

And how he knew it was a Fiend, 
This miserable Knight ! 

And how, unknowing what he did. 

He leapt amid a lawless band, 
And saved from outrage worse than death 

The Ladie of the Land ! 

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees ; 

And how she tended him in vain — 
And meekly strove to expiate 

The scorn that crazed his brain : 

And how she nursed him in a cave ; 

And how his madness went away. 
When on the yellow forest-leaves 

A dying man he lay ; 

His dying words — but when I reach'd 
That tend'rest strain of all the ditty. 

My falt'ring voice and pausing harp 
Disturb'd her soul with pity ! 

All impulses of soul and sense 

Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve ; 

The music and the doleful tale. 
The rich and balmy eve ; 

And hopes and fears that kindle hope, 

An undistinguishable throng. 
And gentle wishes long subdued, 

Subdued and cherish'd long ! 

She wept with pity and delight. 

She blush'd with love and maiden-shame; 
An:i, like the murmurs of a dream, 

I heard her breathe my name. 

saw her bosom heave and swell. 
Heave and swell with inward sighs— 
I could not choose but love to see 
Her gentle bosom rise. 



Her wet cheek glow'd : she stept aside. 
As conscious of my look she stepp'd ; 

Then suddenly, with tim'rous eye. 
She flew to me and wept. 

She half inclosed me with her arms, 
She pressed me with a meek emijrace ; 

And bending back her head, look'd up. 
And gazed upon my face. 

'T was partly love, and partly fear, 
And partly 't was a bashful art. 

That I might rather feel than see 
The swelling of her heart. 

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm. 
And told her love with virgin pride ; 

And so I won my Genevieve, 
My bright and beauteous bride. 

And now once more a tale of woe, 

A woeful tale of love I sing : 
For thee, my Genevieve ! it sighs, 

And trembles on the string. 

When last I sai^g the cruel scorn 

That crazed this bold and lonely Knight, 

And how he roam'd the mountain-woods 
Nor rested day or night ; 

I promised thee a sister tale 

Of man's perfidious cruelty : 
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong 

Befell the Dark Ladie. 



LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN 
LOVE-CHAUNT. 

At midnight by the stream I roved. 
To forget the form I loved. 
Image of Lewti I from my mind 
Depart ; for Lewti is not kind. 

The moon was high, the moonlight gleam 

And the shadow of a star 
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream ; 

But the rock shone brighter far. 
The rock half-shelter'd i'rom my view 
By pendent boughs of trcssy yew — 
So sliines my Lewti's {()rehead fair. 
Gleaming through her sable hair. 
Image of Lewti ! from my mind 
Depart ; for Lewti is not kind. 

I saw a cloud of palest hue, 

Onward to the moon it pass'd ; 
Still brighter and more bright it grew 
With floating colors not a few. 

Till it reach'd the moon at last : 
Then the cloud was wholly bright 
With a rich and aml)er light ! 
And so with many a hope I seek 

And with such joy 1 find my Lewti : 
And even so my pale wan cheek 

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty ! 
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind. 
If Lewti never will be kind. 

39 



30 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The little cloud — it floats away, 

Away it goes ; away so soon ? 
Alas ! it has no power to stay : 
Its hues are dim, its hues are gray — 

Away it passes from the moon! 
How mournfully it seems to fly, 

Ever fading more and more, 
To joyless regions of the sky — 

And now 't is whiter than before ! 
As white as my poor cheek will be. 

When, Lewti ! on my couch I lie, 
A dying man for love of thee. 
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — 
And yet thou didst not look unkind. 

T saw a vapor in the sky. 

Thin, and white, and very high ; 
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud : 

Perhaps the breezes that can fly 

Now below and now above, 
Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud 

Of Lady fair — that died for love. 
For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd 
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd. 
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — 
For Lewti never will be kind. 

Hush ! my heedless feet from under 
Slip the crumbling banks for ever : 

Like echoes to a distant thunder. 
They plunge into the gentle river. 

The river-swans have heard my tread. 

And startle from their reedy bed. 

O beauteous Birds ! methinks ye measure 
Your movements to some heavenly tune ! 

beauteous Birds ! 't is such a pleasure 
To see you move beneath the moon, 

1 would it were your true delight 
To sleep by day and wake all night. 

I know the place where Lewti lies, 
When silent night has closed her eyes : 

It is a breezy jasmine-bower. 
The nightingale sings o'er her head : 

Voice of the Night ! had I the power 
That leafy labyrinth to thread. 
And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, 
I then might view her bosom white 
Heaving lovely to my sight. 
As these two swans together heave 
On the gently swelling wave. 

Oh ! that she saw me in a dream. 

And dreamt that I had died for care ; 

All pale and wa-sted I would seem, 
Yet fair withal, as spirits are ! 

I 'd die indeed, if I might see 

Her bosom heave, and heave for me ! 

Soothe, gentle image ! soothe my mind ! 

To-morrow Lewti may be kind. 
1795. 



THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S 
RESOLUTION. 

THROUfii! weeds and thorns, and matted underwood 
1 force my way j now climb, and now descend 



O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot 
Crushing the purple whorls ; while oft unseen, 
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves. 
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, 
I know not, ask not whither! A nevi' joy, 
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust. 
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring. 
Beckons me on, or follows from behind, 
Playmate, or guide I The master-passion quell'd, 
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark 
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, 
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake 
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault 
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea. 

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse , 
Here too the lovelorn man who, sick in soul, 
And of this busy human heart aweary. 
Worships the spirit of unconscious life 
In tree or wild-flower. — Gentle Lunatic ! 
If so he might not wholly cease to be. 
He would far rather not be that, he is ; 
But would be something, that he Itnows not of. 
In winds or waters, or among the rocks ! 

But hence, fond wretch ! breathe not contagiofi 
here ! 
No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves 
Where Love dare loiter ! If in sullen mood 
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore 
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn 
Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird 
Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, 
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades ! 
And you, ye Earth-winds ! you that make at mom 
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs ! 
You, O ye wingless Airs ! that creep between 
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze. 
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, 
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed — 
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp. 
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. 
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and ellin Gnomes! 
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock 
His little Godship, making him perforce 
Creep tlu-ough a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back 

This is my hour of triumph ! I can now 
With my own fancies play the merry fool. 
And laugh away worse folly, being free. 
Here will I seat myself, beside this old. 
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine 
Clothes as with net-work : here will I couch my 

limbs. 
Close by this river, in this silent shade. 
As safe and sacred from the step of man 
As an invisible world — unheard, unseen, 
And list'ning only to the pebbly brook 
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound 
Or to the bees, that in the neighboring trunk 
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits mt 
Was never Love's accomplice, never raised 
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow. 
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; 
Ne'er play'd the wanton — never half disclosed 
The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence 
Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth. 
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove 
40 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



31 



Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart 
Shall flow away like a dissolving thing. 

Sweet breeze ! thou only, if I guess aright, 
Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, 
That swells its little breast, so full of song, 
Sinking aliove me, on the mouniain-ash. 
And thou too, desert Stream ! no pool of thine, 
Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, 
Did e'er relied tlie stately virgin's robe, 
The face, the form divine, the downcast look 
Contemplative ! Behold ! her open palm 
Presses her cheek and brow ! her elbow rests 
On the bare branch of hall-uprooted tree. 
That leans towards its mirrtir I Who erewhile 
Had from her countenance turn'd, or look'd by 

stealth 
vFor fear is true love's cruel nurse), lie now 
With stedfast gaze and unoffending eye, 
Worshiiw the watery idol, dreaming hopes 
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain. 
E'en as that phanlom-world on which he gazed. 
But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah ! see, 
The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks 
The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow. 
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fo\-glove bells : 
And suddenly, as one that toys with time. 
Scatters them on the pool ! Then all the charm 
Is broken — all that phantom-world so fair 
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread. 
And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile, 
Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes ! 
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon 
The visions will return ! And lo ! he stays : 
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms 
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more 
The pool becomes a mirror ; and behold 
Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there, 
And there the half-uprooted tree — but where, 
O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd 
On its bare branch ? He turns, and she is gone ! 
Homeward she steals through many a woodland 

maze 
WTiich he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth ! 
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime 
In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook. 
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou 
Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, 
The Naiad of the Mirror ! 

Not to thee, 

wild and desert Stream ! belongs this tale : 
Gloomy and dark art thou — the crowded firs 
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, 
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well : 

Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest 
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream! 

This be my chosen haunt — emancipate 
From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, 

1 rise and trace its devious course. O lead. 
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. 
Lo ! stealing through the canopy of firs, 
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, 
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves 
Dart off asunder with an angry sound. 
How soon to reunite ! And see ! they meet. 
Each in the other lost and found : and see 



Placeles.s, as si)irits, one soft water-sun 

Throbbing within them. Heart at once and Eye I 

With its soft ncighlx)rh()o<l of filmy clouds. 

Tlie stains and shadings of forgotten tears. 

Dimness o'crswum with lustre I Such the hour 

Of deep enjoyment, lijllowing love's brief feuds , 

And hark, tlie noise of a near waterfall ! 

I pass forth into light — I find myself 

Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful 

Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods). 

Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock 

That overbrows the cataract. How bursts 

The landscape on my sight ! Two crescent hills 

Fold in behind each other, and so make 

A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem. 

With brook and bridge, and gray stone cottages, 

Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, 

The whortle-berrics are bcdew'd with spray, 

Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall. 

How solemnly the pendent ivy mass 

Swings in its winnow : all the air is calm. 

The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with 

light. 
Rises in columns ; from this house alone, 
Close by the waterfall, the column slants. 
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this ? 
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke. 
And close beside its porch a sleeping child, 
His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog — 
One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand 
Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, 
Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths. 
A curious picture, with a master's haste 
Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin, 
Peel'd from the birchen bark ! Divinest maid ! 
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries 
Her pencil ! See, the juice is scarcely dried 
On the fine skin ! She has been newly here ; 
And lo ! yon patch of heath has been her couch- ■ 
The pressure still remains ! O blessed couch I 
For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun, 
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long 
Upon thy purple bells ! O Isabel ! 
Daughter of genius ! stateliest of our maids ! 
More beautiful than whom AIcabus wooed, 
The Lesbian woman of immortal song ! 
O child of genius ! stately, beautiful. 
And full of love to all, save only me, 
And not ungentle e'en to me ! My heart. 
Why beats it thus ? Through yonder coppice-wood 
Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway 
On to her father's house. She is alone ! 
The night draws on — such ways are hard to hit — 
And fit it is I should restore this sketch, 
Dropt unawares, no doubt. Why should I yearn 
To keep the relic ? 't will but idly feed 
The passion that consumes me. Let me haste .' 
The picture in my hand which she has left. 
She cannot blame me that I foUow'd her ; 
And I may be her guide the long wood through 



THE NIGHT-SCENE. 

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT. 

SANDOVAL. 

1 Vou loved the daughter of Don Manrique f 
41 



32 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



EARL HENRY. 
SANDOVAL. 

Did you not say you woo'd her ? 

EARL HENRY. 

Her whom I dared not woo ! 



Loved? 



Once I loved 



SANDOVAL. 

And woo'd, perchance, 
One whom you loved not ! 

EARL HENRY. 

Oh ! I were most base. 
Not loving Oropeza. True, I woo'd her, 
Hoping to heal a deeper wound ; but she 
Met my advances with impassion'd pride. 
That kindled love with love. And when her sire. 
Who in his dream of hope already grasp'd 
The golden circlet in his hand, rejected 
My suit with insult, and in memory 
Of ancient feuds pour'd curses on my head, 
Her blessings overtook and baffled them ! 
But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance 
An iiily reasoning whilst thou listenest to me. 

SANDOVAL. 

Anxiously, Henry ! reasoning anxiously. 
But Oropeza — 

EARL HENRY. 

Blessings gather round her ! 
Within this wood there winds a secret passage, 
Beneath the walls, which opens out at length 
Into the gloomiest covert of the garden — 
The night ere my departure to the army. 
She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom, 
And to that covert by a silent stream. 
Which, with one star reflected near its marge. 
Was the sole object visible around me. 
No leaflet stirr'd ; the air was almost sultry ; 
So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us ! 
No leaflet stirr'd ; — yet pleasure hung upon 
The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air. 
A little further on an arbor stood. 
Fragrant with flowering trees — I well remember 
What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness 
Their snow-white blossoms made — thither she led 

me, 
To that sweet bower ! Then Oropeza trembled — 
I heard her heart beat — if 't were not my own. 

SANDOVAL. 

A rude and scaring note, my friend ! 

EARL HENRY. 

Oh! no! 
I have small memory of aught but pleasm-e. 
The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams 
Still flowing, still were lost in those of love : 
So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature, 
Fleeing from Pain, shelter'd herself in Joy. 
The stars above our heads were dim and steady, 
Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us : 
We were all life, each atom of our frames 
A living soul — I vow'd to die for her : 
With the famt voice of one who, having spoken. 



Relapses into blessedness, I vow'd it: 
That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard, 
A murmur breathed against a lady's ear. 
Oh ! there is joy above the name of pleasure, 
Deep self-possession, an intense repose. 

SANDOVAL {with a sarcastic smile). 
No other than as eastern sages paint, 
The God, who floats upon a lotos leaf. 
Dreams for a thousand ages ; then awaking. 
Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble. 
Relapses into bliss. 

EARL HENRY. 

Ah ! was that bliss 
Fear'd as an alien, and too vast for man ? 
For suddenly, impatient of its silence. 
Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead. 
I caught her arms ; the veins were swelling on them. 
Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice, 
Oh ! what if all betray me ? what if thou ? 
I swore, and with an inward thought that seem'd 
The purpose and the substance of my being, 
I swore to her, that were she red with guilt, 
I would exchange my unblench'd state with hers.— 
Friend ! by that winding passage, to that bower 
I now will go — all objects there will teach me 
Unwavering love, and singleness of heart. 
Go, Sandoval ! I am prepared to meet her — 
Say nothing of me — I myself will seek her — 
Nay, leave me, friend ! I cannot bear the torment 
And keen inquiry of that scanning eye — 

[Earl Henry retires into the wood 

SANDOVAL {alone). 
O Henry ! always sfrivest thou to be great 
By thine own act — yet art thou never great 
But by the inspiration of great passion. 
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up 
And shape themselves : from Earth to Heaven they 

stand, 
As though they were the pillars of a temple. 
Built by Omnipotence in its own honor ! 
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit 
Is fled : the mighty columns were but sand. 
And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins ' 



TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN, 

WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF 

HER INNOCENCE. 

Myrtle-leaf that, ill besped. 

Finest in the gladsome ray, 
Soil'd beneath the common tread. 

Far from thy protecting spray ' 

When the Partridge o'er the sheaf 
Whirr'd along the yellow vale. 

Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf! 
Love the dalliance of the gale 

Lightly didst thou, foolish thing . 

Heave and flutter to his sighs, 
While the flatterer, on his wing, 

Woo'd and whisper'd thee to rise. 
42 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



33 



Gaily from thy niolher-stalk 

Wert thoii lianccd anil wafted high — 
Soon on tliis unshelter'd walk 

Flunff to fade, to rot and die. 



Tf' AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE 
THEATRE. 

Maidev, that with sullen hrow 
Siltest behind those virgins gay, 

Like a sc-orch'd and niildew'd t><)ugh, 
Leafless 'mid the hloonis of May ! 

Him who lured ihce and forsook, 

Oft I waich"d with angry gaze. 
Fearful saw his pleading look. 

Anxious heard his fervid phrase. 

Soft the glances of the youth. 
Soft his speenh, and soft his sigh ; 

But no sound like simple truth, 
But no true love in his eye. 

Lothing Ihy polluted lot. 

Hie thee. Maiden, hie thee hence ! 

Seek thy weeping Mother's cot, 
With a wiser innocence. 

Thou hast known deceit and folly. 
Thou hast felt that vice is woe : 

With a musing melancholy 
Inly arm'd, go. Maiden ! go. 

Mother sage of Self-dominion, 

Firm thy steps, O Melanclioly ! 
The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion 

Is the memory of past folly. 

Mute the sky-lark and forlorn. 

While she moults the firstling plumes, 

That had skimm'd the tender corn. 
Or the bean-field's odorous blooms : 

Soon with renovated wing 

Shall she dare a loftier flight, 
I'pward to the day-star spring, 

And embathe in heavenly light 



LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM. 

Nor cold, nor stem, my soul ! yet I detest 

These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng 

Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast, 
In nilrioacies of laborious song. 

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign 
To niclt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint ; 

Cut when the long-breathed singer's uptrill'd strain 
Bursts in a squall — they gape for wonderment. 

Hark the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate ! 

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer 

My lady eyes some maid of humbler state. 
While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest, 
I'raiiles accordant scaTidal in her ear. 
4 £ 



O give me, from this heartless scene released. 
To hear our old musician, blind and gray 

(Whom strelciiing from my inirsc's anus I kiss'd), 
His Scottish times and warlike marches play 

By mocmshine, on the balmy sunwuer-night, 
The while I dance amid the tedded hay 

With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light 

Or lies the purple evening on the bay 
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide 

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees 
For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied. 

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, 
And while iIk; lazy boat sways to and fro, 

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, 
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears. 

But O, dear Aime ! when midnight wind careers, 
And the gust ])elliHg on the oiil-house shed 

Makes the cock shrilly on the rain-storm crow. 

To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, 
Ballad of shipvvreck'd sailor floating dead. 

Whom his own true-love buried in the sands ' 
Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures 
Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures 

The things of Nature utter ; birds or trees. 
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves. 
Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves, 

Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. 



THE KEEPSAKE. 

The tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil, 
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field. 
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall 
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust. 
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark. 
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose 
(In vain the darling of successful love) 
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years, 
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone. 
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk 
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side, 
I'hat blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, 
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!* 
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline 
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk 
Has work'd (the flowers which most she knew 1 

loved), 
And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair. 

In the cool morning twilight, early waked 
By her full bosom's joyous restlessness. 
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, 
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower. 
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, 
Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, 
Making a quiet image of disquiet 
In the smooth, scarcely movmg nvei-]iool. 
There, in that bower where first she ow'n'd her love 
And let me Iviss my own warm tear of joy 
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and strctch'd 



* One of the namps (nnd meriting to be the only one) of the 
Miiasotis Scorpioitirs Puhistris, a flower from six to twelve 
inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has 
the Siimc name over thn whole Empire of Germany d'ergtsa- 
iiietn niclU) uiitl, we believe, in Denmark and SwtJf* 
43 



34 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The silk upon the frame, and work'd her name 
Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not — 
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair ! 
That forced to wander till sweet spring return, 
I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look. 
Her voice (that even in her mirthful mood 
Has made me wish to steal away and wee[)). 
Nor yet the enlrancement of that maideii kiss 
With which she promised, that when spring retum'd. 
She would resign one half of that dear name. 
And own thenceforth no other name but mine ! 



TO A LADY. 

WITH falconer's " SHIPWRECK." 

Ah ! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams. 

In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice ; 

Nor while half listening, 'mid delicious dreams. 
To harp and song from lady's hand and voice ; 

Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood 

On cliff, or cataract, in Alpine dell ; 
Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strew'd. 

Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell ; 

Our sea-bard sang this song ! which still he sings. 
And sings for thee, sweet friend ! Hark, Pity, hark ! 

Now mounts, now totters on the Tempest's wings, 
Now groans, and shivers, the replunging Bark ! 

" Cling to the shrouds ! " In vain ! The breakers 
roar — 

Death shrieks ! With two alone of all his clan 
Forlorn the poet paced the Grecian shore. 

No classic roamer, but a shipwreck'd man ! 

Say then, what muse inspired these genial strains. 
And lit his spirit to so bright a flame ? 

The elevating thought of suffer'd pains, 

Which gentle hearts shall mourn j but chief, the 
name 

Of Gratitude ! Remembrances of Friend, 
Or absent or no more ! Shades of the Past, 

Which Love makes Substance! Hence to thee I send, 
O dear as long as life and memory last ! 

I send with deep regards of heart and head, 

Sweet maid, for friendship form'd ' this work to 
thee : 

And thou, the while thou canst not choose but shed 
A tear for Falconer, wilt remember me. 



TO A YOUNG LADY. 

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER. 

iVhy need I say, Louisa dear! 
How glad I am to see you here 

A lovely convalescent ; 
Risen from the bed of pain and fear, 

And feverish heat incessant. 

i'he ssunny Showers, the dappled Sky, 
The little Birds that warble high. 

Their vernal loves commencing. 
Will better welcome you than I 

With their sweet influencing. 



Believe me, while in bed you lay, 
Your danger taught us all to pray : 

You made us grow devouter ! 
Each eye look'd up, and seem'd to say 

How can we do without her ? 

Besides, what vex'd us worse, we knew. 
They have no need of such as you 

In the place where you were going; 
This World has angels all too few, 

And Heaven is overflowing ! 



SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY 
NATURAL. 

WRITTEN IN GERMANY. 

If I had but two little wings. 
And were a hitle feathery bird, 
To you I 'd fly, my dear ! 
But thoughts like ihese are idle things. 
And I stay here. 

But in my sleep lo you I fly : 

I 'm always with you in my sleep ! 
The world is all one's own. 
But then one wakes, and where am I ? 
All, all alone. 

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids : 
So I love to wake ere break of day : 
For though my sleep be gone. 
Yet, while 't is dark, one shuts one's lid«, 
And still dreams on. 



HOME-SICK. 

WRITTEN IN GERMANY. 

'T IS sweet to him, who all the week 
Through city-crowds must push his way. 

To stroll alone through fields and woods. 
And hallow thus the Sabbath-Day 

And sweet it is, in summer bower. 

Sincere, aflfectionate, and gay. 
One's own dear children feasting round. 

To celebrate one's marriageKlay. 

But what is all, to his delight. 

Who having long been doom'd to roam. 
Throws oflT the bundle from his back. 

Before the door of his own liome ? 

Home-sickness is a wasting pang ; 

This feel I hourly more and more : 
There 's Healing only in thy wings. 

Thou Breeze that playest on Albion's shore ! 



ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION. 

Do you ask what the birds say ? The Sparrow, tM 

Dove, 
The Linnet and Thrush, say, " I love and I love ! " 
In the winter they 're silent — the wind is so strong , 
What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. 
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm 

weather. 
And singing, and loving — all come back together 

44 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



35 



But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, 
The green fields below him, tiie blue sky above. 
That he sings, and he sings ; and for ever sings he 
" 1 love my Love, and my Love loves mo ! " 



TIIE VISIONARY HOPE. 

Sad lot. to have no Hope! Though lowly kneeling 
He fain would frame a prayer wiiliin his breast, 
Would lain entreat for some sweet breath of liealing, 
That his sick body might have ease and rest ; 
He strove in vain! the tiull sighs from liis chest 
Against his will the stilling load revealing. 
Though Nature forced ; thougli like some captive guest, 
Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, 
An alien's restless mood but half concealing, 
The sternness on his gcnile brow confess'd, 
Sickness within and miserable feeling: 
Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, 
And dreaded sleep, each niglit repell'd in vain, 
Each night was scatler'd by its own loud screams, 
Yet never could his heart command, though fain, 
One deep full wish to be no more in pain. 

Tliat Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, 
Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood. 
Though changed in nature, wander where he would 
For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost ! 
For this one Hope he makes his hourly moan, 
He wishes and can wish for this alone ! 
Pierced, as \\ ith light from Heaven, before its gleams 
(So the love-stricken visionary deems) 
Disease would vanish, like a summer shower. 
Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower 
Or let it stay ! yet this one Hope should give 
Such strength that he would bless his pains and live. 



THE HAPPY HUSBAND. 

A FRAGME.NT. 

Oft, oft methinks, the while with Thee 
I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear 
And dedicated name, I hear 

A promise and a mystery, 

A pledge of more than passing life, 
Yea, in that very name of Wife ! 

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep! 

A feeling that upbraids the heart 

With happiness beyond desert. 
That gladness half recjuests to weep! 

Nor bless I not the keener sense 

And unalamiing turbulence 

Of transient joys, that ask no sting, 

From jealous fears, or coy denying; 

But bom beneath Love's brooding wing, 
And into tenderness soon dying. 

Wheel out their giddy moment, then 

Resign the soul to love again. 

A more precipitated vein 

Of notes, that eddy in the flow 

Of smoothest song, they come, they go, 

And leave the sweeter under-strain 



Its own sweet self — a love of Thee 
That seems, yet cannot greater be! 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE. 

How warm this woodland wild Recess! 
Love surely iialh been breathmg here. 
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear ! 

Swells up, then sinks, with faint caress, 
As if to have you yet more near. 

Eight springs have flowTi, since last 1 lay 
On seaward Quanlock's healhy hills, 
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills 

Float here and there, like things astray, 
And high o'erhead the sky-lark shrills 

No voice as yet had made the air 
Be music with your name; yet why 
That asking look ? that yearning sigh ? 

That sense of promise every where ? 
Beloved ! flew your spirit by ? 

As when a mother doth explore 

The rose-mark on her long-lost child 
I met, I loved you, maiden mild! 

As whom I long had loved before— 
So deeply, had I been beguiled. 

You stood before me like a thought, 
A dream remember'd in a dream. 
But when those meek eyes first did seem 

To tell me, Love within you wrought — 
O Greta, dear domestic stream ! 

Has not, since then. Love's prompture deep, 
Has not Love's whisper evermore, 
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar? 

Sole voice, when other voices sleep. 
Dear under-song in Clamor's hour. 



ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE, AFTER 
LONG ABSENCE, 

UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO 
BATHE. 

GoD be with thee, gladsome Ocean! 

How gladly greet I thee once more! 
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion, 

And men rejoicing on thy shore. 

Dissuading spake the mild Physician, 

" Those briny waves for thee are Death ! " 

But my soul fulfili'd her mission. 

And lo! I breathe untroubled breath." 

Fashion's pining sons and daughters. 
That seek the crowd they seem to fly, 

Trembling they approach thy waters; 
And what cares Nature, if they die ? 

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures, 

A thousand recollections bland, 
Tliouphts sublime, and stately measures 

Revisit on thy eclioing strand : 
7 45 



36 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Dreams (the soul herself forsaking), 
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth ; 

Silent adorations, making 

A blessed shadow of this Earth ! , 

O ye hopes, tliat stir within me. 

Health comes with you from above! 

God is with me, God is in me ! 
I camiot die, if Life be Love. 



THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS. 

Cupid, if storying legends* tell aright, 

Once framed a rich elixir of delight. 

A chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd. 

And in it nectar and ambrosia mix'd : 

With these the magic dews, which evening brings, 

Brush'd from the Idalian star by laery wings : 

Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join'd. 

Each gentler pleasure of the unspotted mind — 

Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow. 

And Hope, the blameless parasite of woe. 

The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise, 

The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs; 

Sweet sounds transpired, as when th' enamour'd dove 

Pours the soft miu-m'ring of responsive love. 

The finish'd work might Envy vainly blame. 

And " Kisses " was the precious compound's name. 

With half the god his Cyprian mother blest, 

And breathed on Sara's lovelier lips the rest. 



III. MEDITATIVE POEMS. 

IN BLANK VERSE. 



Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived. 
Who seeks a heart in the unthinking Man. 
Like shadows on a stream, the Ibvms ot'life 
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead : 
Naught sinks into the Bosom's silent depth. 
Quick sensibility of Pain and Pleasure 
Moves the light fluids lightly ; but no soul 
Warmeth the inner frame. 

Schiller. 



HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE 
OF CHAMOUNY. 

Besides the Rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their 
sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents 
rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers, 
the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its 
"flowers of loveliest blue." 



Hast thou a chann to stay the Morning-Star 
In (US steep course ? So long he seems to pause 



* Effinxit quondam blandum meditata laborem 

Basia lasciva Cypria Diva mana. 
Ambrosia) succos occulta temperat arte, 

Fragransque inl'uso nectare tingit opus. 
Sufficit et partem mellis, quod subdolus olim 

Non impune favis surripuisset Amor. 
Decussos viol;E foliis ad niiscet odores 

Et spolia a;stivis plurima rapta roais. 
Addit et illecebras et mille tt mille lopores, 

Et quot Acidalius gaudia Cestus habet. 
Kr his composuit Dea basia ; et omnia libans 

Invenia-s nitidai sparsa per ora Cloija 

Carm. Quod. Vol. II. 



On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! 
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 
Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form' 
Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines, 
How silently ! Around thee and above 
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black. 
An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it. 
As with a wedge ! But when I look again. 
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine. 
Thy habitation from eternity ! 

dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee. 
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense. 

Didst vaiiish from my thought: entranced in prayer 

1 worshipp'd the Invisible alone. 

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody. 
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it. 
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, 
Yea v^'ith my Life and Life's own secret Joy : 
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused. 
Into the mighty vision passing — there 
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven ! 

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise 
Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, 
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, 
Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn. 

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale ! 
O struggling with the darkness all the night, 
And visited all night by troops of stars. 
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : 
Companion of the Morning-Star at dawn, 
Th}'self earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise ' 
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? 
Wlio fill'd thy countenance with rosy light ? 
Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams ? 

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, 
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth. 
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 
F'or ever shatter'd and the same for ever ? 
Who gave you your invulnerable life. 
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy 
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? 
And who commanded (and the silence came), 
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? 

Ye Ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brov? 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain — 
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice, 
And slopp'd at once amid tlieir maddest plunge ! 
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
Wlto made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven 
Beneath the keen full Moon ? Who bade the Sun 
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers 
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? — 
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations. 
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
God ! sing ye meadow-s'Toam^i with sladsome voice 
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds 
And they loo have a voice, yon piles of snow. 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 
46 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



37 



Ye li\'ing flowers that skirt the otcrniil frost ' 
Ye wild goats sporting round tlie oagle"s nost ! 
Ye eagles, play-males of the inountain-storni ! 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! 
Yc signs and wonders of the element ! 
Utter forth God, and fill the hills w^ith praise! 

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-ix)iuting peaks, 
Oft fmm whose feet the Avalanche, imheanl, 
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene 
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast — 
Tliou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou. 
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low 
In adoration, upward from thy base 
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, 
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, 
To rise before me — Rise, ever rise. 
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth! 
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, 
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven, 
Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky. 
And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising sun 
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. 



LINES 



WRITTEN I\ THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE 
HARTZ FOREST. 

I STOOD on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw 

Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills, 

A surging scene, and only limited 

By the blue distance. Heavily my way 

Downward I dragg'd through fir-groves evermore, 

Where bright green moss heaves in sei)ulchral forms 

S()eckled wiih sunshine; and, but seldom heard, 

The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound ; 

And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly. 

Preserved its .solemn murmur most distinct 

F'rom many a note of many a waterfall. 

And the brook's chatter ; 'mid whose islet stones 

The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell 

Leap'd frolicsome, or old romantic goal 

Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on 

In low and languid mood :+ for I had found 

That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive 

Their finer influence from the Life within : 

Fair ciphers else : fair, but of import vague 

Or luiconceniing, where the Heart not finds 

History or prophecy of Friend, or Child, 

Or gentle Maid, our first and early love, 

Or Father, or the venerable name 

Of our adored Country ! O thou Queen, 

Thou delegated Deity of Earth, 

O dear, dear England ! how my longing eye 

Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds 

Thy sands and high white cliffs ! 



* The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North 
Germany. 



-When I have gazed 



From some high eminence on goodly vales. 
And cots and villages eml)ower'd below. 
The thought vrould rise that all to mo was strange 
Amid the scenes so fair, nor one sninll spot 
^here my tired mind might rest, and call it home. 

Snvthey's Hymn to the Penates. 

E2 



My native land ! 
Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart v.as proud 
Yea, mine eye swam with tears : that all the view 
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills. 
Floated away, like a departing dream. 
Feeble and dim ! Stranger, these impulses 
Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane, 
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt. 
That man's sublimcr spirit, who can feel 
That God is everywhere! the God who framed 
Mankind to bo one mighty Family, 
Himself our Father, and the World our Home. 



ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST CP 

FEBRUARY, 1706. 
Sweet Flower ! that peeping from thy russet stem 
Unfoldest timidly (lor in strange sort 
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering 

month 
Ilath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee 
With blue volui)Hi()iis eye), alas, poor Flower! 
These are but tiallerics of the faithless year. 
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave. 
E'en now the keen Norlh-East is on its way. 
Flower that must perish ! shall I liken thee 
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth, 
Nipp'd by Consumption 'mid untimely charms ? 
Or to Bristowa's Bard,* the wondrous boy ! 
An Amaranth, -which earth scarce seem'd to own, 
Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong 
Beat it to earth ? or with indignant grief 
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope, 
Bright flower of Hope kill'd in the opening bud ? 
Farewell, sweet blossom ! better fate be thine. 
And mock my boding ! Dim similitudes 
Weaving in moral strains, I 've stolen one hour 
From anxious Self, Life's cruel Task-Master! 
And the warm wooings of this sunny day 
Tremble along my frame, and harmonize 
The atiemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts 
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes 
Play'd deftly on a soft-toned instrument. 



THE EOLIAN HARP. 

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE. 

My pensive Sara ! thy soft cheek reclined 

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is 

To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown 

With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leaved 

Myrtle, 
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !) 
And watch the clouds, tliat late were rich with light, 
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve 
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) 
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents 
Snatch'd fiom you bean-field! and the world so 

hush'd ! 
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea 
Tells us of Silence. 

And that simplest Lute, 
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark 
How by the desultory breeze caress 'd. 
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lO'V.r, 



• ChttHertou. 



47 



38 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs 

Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings 

Boldher swept, the long sequacious notes 

Over deUcious surges sink and rise, 

Such a soft floating witchery of sound 

As twihght Elfins make, when they at eve 

Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, 

Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, 

Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, 

Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wdng ! 

O the one life within us and abroad. 

Which meets all molion and becomes its soul, 

A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, 

Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— 

Methinks, it should have been impossible 

Not to love all things in a world so fill'd ; 

Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air 

Is Music slumbering on her instrument. 

And thus, my love ! as on the midway slope 
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon. 
Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold 
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, 
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity ; 
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd, 
And many idle flitting phantasies. 
Traverse my indolent and passive brain, 
As wild and various as tlie random gales 
That swell and flutter on this subject lute ! 

And what if all of animated nature 
Be but organic harps diversely framed, 
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps. 
Plastic and Vast, one intellectual breeze, 
At once the Soul of each, and God of All ? 

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof 
Darts, O beloved woman ! nor such thoughts 
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject. 
And biddest me walk humbly with my God. 
Meek daughter in the family of Christ ! 
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised 
These shapings of the unregenerate mind ; 
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break 
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. 
For never guiltless may I speak of him. 
The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe 
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ; 
Who with his saving mercies healed me, 
A sinful and most miserable Man, 
Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess 
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honor'd Maid ! 



REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE 
OF RETIREMENT. 



Sermoni propriora. — Hor. 



Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest rose 
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear. 
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn. 
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air 
Our myrtles blossom'd ; and across the Porch 
Thick jasmins twined : the httle landscape round 



Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. 
It was a spot which you might aptly call 
The Valley of Seclusion ! once I saw 
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) 
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, 
Bristowa's citizen : methought, it calm'd 
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse 
With wiser feelings ; for he paused, and look'd 
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, 
Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again, 
And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place. 
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear 
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note 
(Viewless or haply for a moment seen 
Gleaming on sunny wings), in whisper'd tones 
I've said to my beloved, " Such, sweet girl ! 
The inobtrusive song of Happiness, 
Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard 
When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd, 
And the Heart listens ! " 

But the time, when first 
From that low dell, steep up the stony Mount 
I climb'd with perilous toil, and reach'd the top, 
Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak Mount, " 
The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep 
Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ; 
And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, 
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ; 
And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey and the Wood, 
And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint Cily-spire ; 
The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails, 
Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless 

Ocean — 
It seem'd like Omnipresence ! God, methought, 
Had built him there a Temple : the whole World 
Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference. 
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart. 
Blest hour! It was a luxury, — to be ! 

Ah ! quiet dell ; dear cot, and Mount sublime ! 
I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right. 
While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled. 
That I should dream away the intrusted hours 
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart 
With feelings all too delicate for use ? 
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye 
Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth : 
And He that works me good with unmoved face. 
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, 
My Benefactor, not my Brother Man I 
Yet even this, this cold beneficence. 
Praise, praise it, O my Soul I oft as thou scann'st 
The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe ! 
Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched. 
Nursing in some delicious solitude 
Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies ! 
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand. 
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight 
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ. 

Yet oft, when after honorable toil 
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream, 
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot ! 
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose. 
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air. 
And I shall sigh fond wishes — sweet Abode ! 
48 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



39 



Ah ! — had none greater ! And that all had such '. 
It might be so — but the time is not yet. 
Speed it, O Father ! Let thy Kingdom come ! 



TO THE REV. Gi:ORGE COLERIDGE OF 
OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON. 

WITH SO-ME POEMS. 



Notus in fratrcs aiiimi paterni. 

Uor. Carm. lib. i. 2. 



A nLE?SED lot hath he, who having pass'd 
His youth and early manhood in the .stir 
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length. 
With cares that move, not agitate the heart, 
To the same dwelling where his ihlhcr dwelt; 
And haply views his tottering little ones 
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap, 
On which first kneeling his own infancy 
Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend ! 
Thy lot, and such thy brothei-s too enjoy. 
At distance did ye climb Life's upland road, 
Yet cheer'd and cheering : now fraternal love 
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days 
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live ! 

To me th' Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed 
A diflerent fortune and more different mind — 
Me from the siwt where first I sprang to light 
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd 
Its first domestic loves ; and hence through life 
Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while 
Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills ; 
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem. 
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze 
Runied the boughs, they on my head at once 
Dropp'd the collected shower ; and some most false. 
False and fair foliaged as the Manchinccl, 
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade 
E 'en 'mid the storm ; then breathing subtlest damps, 
Mix'd their own venom with the rain from Heaven, 
That I woke poison'd ! But, all praise to Ilim 
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me 
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend, 
Beneath th' impervious covert of one Oak, 
I 've raised a lowly shed, and know the names 
Of Husband and of Father ; nor unhearing 
Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice, 
Which from my childhood to matiirer years 
Spake to me of pretlestinated wreaths, 
Bright with no fading colors ! 

Yet at times 
My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life 
Still most a stranger, most with naked licart 
At mine own home and birth-place : chiefly then, 
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend ! 
n hee, vvho didst watch my boyhood and my youth ; 
Didst trace my wanderings with a Father's eye ; 
And Iwding evil, yet still hoping good, 
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes 
Sorrow'd in silence ! Ho who counts alone 
The boatings of the solitary heart. 
That Being knows, how 1 have loved thee ever. 



Ijoved as a brother, as a son revered thee ! 

Oh ! 't is to mo an ever-new delight. 

To lalk of thee and thine: or when the blast 

Of liie shrill winter, rattling our rude sash, 

Knilears the cleanly hearth and social bowl ; 

Or when as now, on some delicious eve, 

We, in our sweet scquester'd orchard-plot. 

Sit on the tree crooked earthward; wliose old boughs, 

That hang above us in an arborous roof, 

Slirr'd by the laiiit gale of departing May, 

Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads ! 

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours. 
When with the joy of hope thou gavcst thine ear 
To my wild firslling-Iays. Since then my song 
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem 
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind. 
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times. 
Cope with the tempest's swell ! 

The.se various strains 
Which I have framed in many a various mood. 
Accept, my Brother! and (lor some jierchance 
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) 
If aught of i'^rror or intemperate Truth 
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age 
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it ! 



INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH. 

This Sycamore, oft musical with bens, — 

Such tents the Patriarchs loved ! O long unharm'd 

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy 

The small roimd basin, which tliis jutting stone 

Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring, 

Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath. 

Send up cold waters to the traveller 

With soft and even pulse ! Nor ever cease 

Yon liny cone of sand its soundless dance, 

Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page, 

As merry and no taller, dances slill. 

Nor wrinkles the siiioolh suriace of the Fount 

Here twilight is and coolness : here is moss, 

A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. 

Thou mayst toil far and find no second tree. 

Drink, Pilgrim, here ! Here rest ! and if thy heart 

Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh 

Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, 

Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees! 



A TOMBLESS EPITAPH. 

'T IS true, Idoloclastes Satyrane ! 

(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise. 

And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends. 

Masking his birth-name, wont to character 

His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) 

'T is true that, passionate for ancient truths, 

And honoring with religious love the Great 

Of elder times, he hated to excess. 

With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, 

Tlie hollow puppets of a hollow age, 

Ever idolatrous, and changing ever 

lis worthless Idols! I,earning, Power, and Time 

(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war 

49 



40 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 't is true, 

Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, 

Even to the gales and inlets of his life ! 

But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, 

And with a natural gladness, he maintain'd 

The citadel unconquer'd, and in joy 

Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. 

For not a hidden Path, that to the Shades 

Of tlie beloved Parnassian forest leads, 

Lurk'd undiscover'd by him ; not a rill 

There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, 

But he had traced it upward to its source. 

Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell. 

Knew the gay wild-llowers on its banks, and cuU'd 

Its med'cinaljle herbs. Yea, oft alone. 

Piercing the long-neglected holy cave. 

The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, 

He bade with lifted torch its starry walls 

Sparkle as erst they sparkled to the flame 

Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. 

O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts ! 

O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! 

Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, 

Yet docile, childlike, full of life and love ! 

Here, rather than on monumental slone, 

This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, 

Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek. 



THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON. 



In the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit 
to the Author's Cottage; and on the morning of their ar- 
rival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from 
walking during the whole time of their stay. One Evening, 
when they had left liim for a few hours, he compused tlie 
following lines in the Garden Bower. 



Well, they are gone, and here must I remain. 
This Lime-tree bovver my prison I I have lost 
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been 
Most sweet to my remembrance, even when age 
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness ! They, mean- 
while. 
Friends, whom I never more may meet again, 
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge. 
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, 
To that still roaring dell, of which I told : 
The roaring dell, o"erwooded, narrow, deep, 
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ; 
Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to rock 
I'lings arching like a bridge ; — that branchless Ash, 
l^nsumi'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves 
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, 
Fann'd by the waterfall ! and tliere my friends 
Behold tlie dark-green file of long lank weeds,* 
That all at once (a most fantastic sight I) 
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge 
Of tlie blue clay -stone. 

Now, my Friends emerge 
Beneath the wide wide Heaven — and view again 
The many-steepled tract magnificent 
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea. 
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up 



The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles 

Of purple shadow I Yes, they wander on 

In gladness all ; bvit thou, methinks, most glad, 

My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined 

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year, 

In the great city pent, winning thy way 

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pair 

And strange calamity ! Ah ! slowly sink 

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun ! 

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb. 

Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! 

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves ! 

And kindle, thou blue Ocean ! So my Friend, 

Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood, 

Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round 

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem 

Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues 

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes 

Spirits perceive his presence. 

A delight 
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad 
As I myself were there ! Nor in this bower, 
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd 
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze 
Hung the transparent foliage ; and 1 watch"d 
Some broad and suimy leaf, and loved to see 
The shadow of the leaf and stem above 
Dappling its sunshine ! And that Walnut-tree 
Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay 
Full on the ancient Ivy, which usurps 
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass, 
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue 
Through the late twilight : and though now the Bai 
Wlieels silent by, and not a Swallow twitters, 
Yet still the solitary Humble-Bee 
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall knovr 
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure : 
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there. 
No waste so vacant, but may well employ 
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart 
Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes 
'T is well to be bereft of promised good. 
That we may lift the soul, antl contemplate 
With lively joy the joys we cannot share. 
My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last Rook 
Boat its straight path along the dusky air 
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing 
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in lighl) 
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory. 
While thou stood'st gazing ; or when all was still. 
Flew creakingt o'er thy head, and had a charm 
For thee, my genlle-hearted Charles, to whom 
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life. 



TO A FRIEND 

WHO HAD DECLARED HIS I.\TE\T10N OF WRITING 
NO WORE POETRV. 

Dear Charles ! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween 
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount 



* The Asplenium Scolopendriiim. called in some countries 
the Adder's Tongue, in otiieis the Marl's Tonjrue ; hut With- 
ering gives the Adder's Tongue as the trivial name of the 
Uphioglossuni only. 



t Some months after I had written this line, it gave me plea- 
sure to observe that Bartram had observed the same circum- 
stance of the Savanna Crane. " When these Birds move 
their wings in flight, tlieir strokes are slow, moderate and 
50 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



41 



Hight Castnhe: and (sureties of thy failh) 
'I'liat Pity and Simplicily tiiood by. 
And promised lor tliec, that thou slionldst renounce 
The world's low cares and lying vanities. 
Sledfast and rooted in the heaveidy .Muse, 
And waslfd and sanclilied to Poesy- 
Yes — thou wcrt plunged, but with forgetful hand 
Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son : 
And with those recreant unbaptized heels 
Thou 'rt living I'roni thy bounden minisleries — 
So sore it seems and burlhensonie a task 
'l"o weave innvithering dowers ! i5ut take thou heed: 
For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy, 
And 1 have arrows* mystically dipp'd, 
Such as may slop thy speed. Is ihy Burns dead ? 
And shall he die unwept, and sink to Karih 
'' VVilhout the meed of one melodious tear ?" 
Thy Burns, and Kattire's own beloved Bard, 
Who to the " Illustrioust of his native land 
' So properly did look ibr patronage." 
Ghost of Ma;cen.ns ! hide thy blushing face! 
They snatch'd him from the Sickle and the Plow — 
To gauge Ale-Firluiis. 

Oh ! for shame return ! 
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian Mount, 
There stajids a lone and melancholy tree, 
VV'hose aged branches in llie midnight blast 
Make solemn nuisic : pluck its darkest bough, 
F,re yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled. 
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb. 
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, 
Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers 
Of night-shade, or its red and temjiting fruit. 
These with slopp'd nostril and glove-guarded hand 
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine 
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility. 

1796. 



TO A GEiNTLEMAN. 

COMPOSED O.N THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION 
OF A POE.U ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL 
MIND. 

Friend of the Wise ! and Teacher of the Good ! 

Into my heart have I received that lay 

More than historic, that prophetic lay. 

Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) 

Of the foundations and the building up 

Of a Human Spirit thou luist dared to tell 

What may l)e told, to the understanding mind 

lievealable ; and what within the mind. 

By vital breathings secret as the soul 

Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart 

Thoughts all too deep for words ! — 

Theme hard as high ! 
Of smiles sjxintaneous, and mysterious fears 
The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), 

feeular ; and even when at a considerable dinWnce or high 
above U3, we plainly hear the quill fealliers ; their shafts and 
webs upon one another creak aa the joints or working of a 
vessel in a tempestuous sea." 

* Vide Find. Olymp. iii. I. 156. 

t Verbatim from Biirns's dcdirntion of his Poems to the No 
oility and Ueiilry of the Caledonian IIuiiU 



Of tides obedient to exicrnal force, 

Anil currents self-determined, as might seem, 

Or by some inner Power; of moments awful. 

Now in thy inner lile, and now abroad. 

When Power sircain'd from thee, and thy soul 

received 
'I'he light reflecled, as a light bestow'd — 
Of Fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, 
llyblean miiruuii-s of poclic thought 
Industrious in its joy, in Vales and Glens 
Native or otilland, l.akcs and famous Mills! 
Or on the lonely High-road, when the Stars 
Were rising; or by sc<-rct Mouniain-streams, 
The Guides and the Companions of thy way ' 

Of more tlian Fancy, of the Social Sense 
Distending wide, and Man beloved as Man, 
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating 
Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst 
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud 
Is visible, or shadow on the Main. 
For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, 
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, 
Amid a mighty nalion jubilant, 
VV'hen from the general heart of human-kind 
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! 

Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down 

So summon'd homeward, thencclbrih calm and sure 

F'rom ihe dread watch-tower of man's absolute Self, 

With light nnwaning on her eyes, to look 

Far on — herself a glory to behold. 

The Angel of the vision ! Then (last strain) 

Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice, 

Aclion and Joy ! — An orphic song indeed, 

A song divine of high ami passionate thoughts, 

To their own music chanted ! 

O great Bard ' 
Kre yet that last strain dying awed the air, 
With stedfast eye I view'd thee in the choir 
Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great 
Have all one age, and from one visible space 
Shed influence ! They, both in power and act, 
Are permanent, and Time is not v\ilh l/icm, 
Save as it workelh for them, Ihey in it. 
Nor less a sacred roil, than those of old. 
And to be placed, as ihey, with gradual fame 
Among the archives of mankind, thy work 
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, 
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay. 
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes ' 
Ah ! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn. 
The pulses of my being beat anew : 
And even as life returns upon the drown'd, 
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains- 
Keen Pangs of Love, awakening as a babe 
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; 
And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of Hope 
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear 
Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain 
And Cienius given, and knowledge won in vain 
And all which I had cull'tl in wood-walks wild 
And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all, 
Commime with (hec had open'd out — but flowers 
Slrew'd on my corse, and borne uiwn my bier, 
In Ihe same coffin, for the self-same gravel 

That way no more ! and ill beseems it me. 
Who came a wclcomer in herald's guise, 

51 



42 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Singing of Glory, and Futurity, 
To wander back on such unhealtiiful road, 
Plucking the poisons of self-hami ! And ill 
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths 
Sirew'd before thy advancing ! 

Nor do thou, 
Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour 
Of my communion with ihy nobler mind 
By Pity or Grief, already felt too long ! 
Nor let my words import more blame than needs. 
The tumult rose and ceased : for Peace is nigh 
Adhere Wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. 
Amid tlie howl of more than wintry storms. 
The Halcyon hears tlie voice of vernal hours 
Already on the wing. 

Eve following eve, 
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home 
Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hail'd 
And more desired, more precious for thy song, 
In silence hstening, like a devout child. 
My soul lay passive, by the various strain 
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, 
With momentary Stars of my own birth, 
Fair constellated Foam,* still darting off 
Into the darkness ; now a tranquil sea. 
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon. 

And when — O Friend ! my comforter and guide ! 
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength ! — 
Thy long sustained song finally closed, 
And thy deep voice had ceased — yet thou thyself 
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both 
That happy vision of beloved faces — 
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close 
I sate, my being blended in one thought 
frhought was it ? or Aspiration ? or Resolve ?) 
Absorb'd, yet hanging still upon the soimd — 
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer. 



THE NIGHTINGALE: 

A CONVERSATION POEM; 

WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798. 

No cloud, no relic of the sunken day 
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip 
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. 
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge ! 
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, 
But hear no murmuring : it flows silently, 
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, 
A balmy night ! and though the stars be dim. 
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers 
Tnat gladden the green earth, and we shall find 
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. 
And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song, 



" Most musical, most melancholy "t bird ! 

A melancholy bird ? Oh ! idle thought ! 

In nature there is nothing melancholy. 

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was 

pierced 
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, 
Or slow distemper, or neglected love 
(And so, poor Wretch ! filled all things with himself 
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale 
Of his own sorrow), he and such as he, 
First named these notes a melancholy strain. 
And many a poet echoes the conceit ; 
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme 
When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs 
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell. 
By Sun or Moon-light, to the influxes 
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements 
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song 
And of his frame forgetful ! so his fame 
Should share in Nature's immortality, 
A venerable thing ! and so his song 
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself 
Be loved like Nature ! But 't will not be so ; 
And youths and maidens most poetical, 
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring 
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, 
Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs 
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. 

My friend, and thou, our Sister ! we have learnt 
A different lore : we may not thus profane 
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love 
And joyance ! 'T is the meny Nightingale 
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates 
With fast thick viarble his delicious notes. 
As lie were fearful that an April night 
Would be too short for him to utter forth 
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul 
Of all its music ! 

And I know a grove 
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge. 
Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so 
This grove is wild with tangling underwood. 
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass. 
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths 
But never elsewhere in one place I knew 
So many Nightingales ; and far and near. 
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, 
They answer and provoke each other's song, 
With skirmish and capricious passagings. 
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 
And one low piping sound more sweet than all^— 
Stirring the air with sucli a harmony, 
That should you close your eyes, you might almost 
Forget it was not day ! On moonlight bushes, 
Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed. 
You may perchance behold them on the twigs, 
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright 

and full. 
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade 
Lights up her love-torcli. 



* " A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals 
coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars 
of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every 
now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam 
dartud off from the vessel's side, each with its own small con- 
stellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar 
troop over a wilderness." — The Friend, p. 220. 



t This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superio 
to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the 
melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The 
author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the chargn 
of having alluded wilh levity to a line in Milton : a charge tlian 
which none could he more painful to him, except perhaps that 
of having ridiculed his Bible. 

58 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



43 



A most gentle Muid, 
Who dwellelh in her hospitable home 
Hani by the castle, and at latest evo 
(Kven lilvo u laily vow'd and dedicate 
To something more than IS'atiire in the grove) 
Glides through the pathways ; she knows all their 

notes, 
That gentle Maid ! and oft a moment's space, 
What time the Moon was lost behind a cloud, 
Hath heard a pause of silence ; till the Moon 
Kmertring, hath awaken"d eariii and sky 
With one sensation, and these wakeful Birds 
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 
As if some sudden gale had swept at once 
A hundred airy harps ! And she hath watch'd 
Many a Nightingale perch'd giddily 
On blossomy twig slill swinging from the breeze, 
And to that motion tunc his wanton song 
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. 

Farewell, O Warbler ! till to-morrow eve. 
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! 
We have been loitering long and ])lcasantly. 
And now for our dear homes. — Thai strain again ? 
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, 
\Y\\o, capable of no articulate sound. 
Mars all things with his imitative lisp. 
How he would place his hand beside his ear. 
His little hand, the small forefinger up, 
And bid us listen ! And I deem it wise 
To make him Nature's Play-mate. He knows well 
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke 
In most distressful mood (some inward pain 
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), 
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot. 
And he beheld the Moon, and, hush'd at once. 
Suspends his sobs, and lauglis most silently, 
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears 
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam ! Well ! — 
It is a father's tale : But if that Heaven 
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up 
F'amiliar with these songs, that with the night 
He may associate joy! Once more, farewell, 
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends ! iiirewell. 



FROST AT MIDNIGHT. 

PiiK Frost performs its secret ministry, 
Cnhelp'd by any wind. The owlet's cry 
Came loud — and hark, again ! loud as before. 
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, 
Have left me to that solitude, which suite 
Abstruser musings : save that at my side 
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 
'T is calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs 
And vexes meditation with its strange 
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood. 
This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood. 
With all the numberless goings on of life, 
Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame 
Lies on my low burnt fire, and quivers not ; 
Only tiiat film, which llutter'd on the grate, 
Still (hitters there, the sole uiKiiiiot thing. 
Methinlts, ii.s motion in this hush of nature 
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, 
Making it a companionable form. 
Whose puny Haps and freaks the idling Spirit 



l}y its own moods interprets, everywhere 
F.cho or mirror seeking of itself. 
And makes a toy of Thought, 

But O ! how oft. 
How oft, at school, with most believing mind 
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars. 
To w atch that fluttering slraiiffer ! and as oft 
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt 
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tom'er 
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang 
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, 
So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me 
With a wild pleasure, fulling on mine ear 
Most like articulate sounds of things to come ! 
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, 
LuU'd me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreama ■ 
And so I brooded all the following morn. 
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye 
Fix'd with mock study on my swimming book : 
Save if the door half-open'd, and I snalch'd 
A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up, 
For slill I hoped to see the stranger s face, 
Towiisman, or aunt, or sister more beloved. 
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike ! 

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, 
WTiose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm. 
Fill up the interspersed vacancies 
And momentary pauses of the thought ! 
My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart 
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee. 
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore. 
And in far other scenes ! For I was rcar'd 
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim. 
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. 
But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze 
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags 
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds. 
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores 
And mouniain crags : so shalt thou see and hear 
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible 
Of that eternal language, which thy God 
Utters, who from eternity doth teach 
Himself in all, and all things in himself. 
Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould 
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. 

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 
Whether flie summer clothe the general earth 
With greermess, or the redbreast sit and sing 
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch 
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch 
Smokes in the sim-thaw ; whether the eave-drops 

fall 
Heard only in the trances of the blast. 
Or if the secret ministry of frost 
Shall hang them up in silent icicles, 
Quietly shining to tlie quiet Moon. 



TO A FRIEND. 

TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM 

Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme 

Elalxjrate and swelling : yet the heart 

Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers 

8 d3 



44 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS, 



I ask not now, my friend ! the aiding verse, 
Tedious to thee, and from my anxious thought 
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know) 
F'rom business wand'ring far and local cares, 
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed 
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look, 
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude, 
And tendercst tones medicinal of love. 

1 too a Sister had, an only Sister 

She loved me dearly, and I doled on her ! 
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows 
(As a sick patient in his nurse's arms). 
And of the heart those hidden maladies 
That shrink ashamed from even Friendship's eye. 
Oh ! I have woke at midnight, and have wept 
Because she was not ! — Cheerily, dear Charles ! 
Thou thy best friend shall cherish many a year : 
Such warm presages feel I of high Hope. 
P'or not uninterested the dear maid 
I've view'd — her soul affectionate yet wise, 
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories, 
That play around a sainted infant's head. 
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees. 
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love 
Aught to implore* were impotence of mind) 
That my mute thoughts are sad before liis throne, 
Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes, 
To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart. 
And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's joy ! 
December, 1794. 



THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. 
COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE. 

Dim hour ! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar, 
O rise and yoke the turtles to thy car ! 
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove. 
And give me to the bosom of my love ! 
My gentle love, caressing and carest. 
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest ; 
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes, 
Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs : 
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, 
Like melted rubies, o'er my palhd cheek. 
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May 
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day ; 
Young Day, returning at her promised hour. 
Weeps o'er the sorrows of her fav'rite flower ; 
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs, 
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes. 
New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels : 
His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals ! 



LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE. 

My honor'd friend ! whose verse concise, yet clear, 
Tunes to smooth melody iinconquer'd sense, 
May your fame fadeless live, as " never-sere " 
The ivy wreathes yon oak, whose broad defence 



* I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines 
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love 
Aught to implore were impotence of mind, 
it being written in Scripture, "^sk, and it shall be given you," 
and my human reason being moreover convinced of the pro- 
priety uf oft'ering petitions as well as ttianksgivings to the Deity. 



Embow'rs me from noon's sultry influence ! 

For, hke that nameless riv'let stealing by. 

Your modest verse, to musing Quiet dear, 

Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd : the charm'd eye 

Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the sofien'd sky 

Circling the base of the Poetic mount 

A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow 

Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount : 

The vapor-poison'd birds, that fly too low, 

Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go. 

Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet, 

Beneath the Mountain's lofty-frowning brow. 

Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet, 

A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlab'ring feet 

Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast. 
That like some giant-king, o'erglooms the hill ; 
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast 
Makes solemn music ! But Ih' unceasing rill 
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill 
Murmurs sweet under-song 'mid jasmin bowers. 
In this same pleasant meailow, at yoar will, 
I ween, you wander'd — there collecting flow'rs 
Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers ! 

There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb 
You wove th' uniinish'd wreath of saddest hues ;* 
And to thai holier chaplett added bloom. 
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews. 

But lo I your Henderson^ awakes the Muse 

His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height ! 
You left the plain and soar'd 'mid richer views ' 
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light, 
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of 
night ! 

Still soar, my friend, those richer views among. 
Strong, rapid, fervent flashing Fancy's beam! 
Virtue and Truth shall love your gentler song ; 
But Poesy demands th' impassion'd theme : 
Waked by Heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam. 
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around ! 
But if the vext air rush a stormy stream. 
Or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound. 
With fruits and flowers she loads the tempesU 
honor'd ground. 



IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

THE THREE GR.WES. 
A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON's TALE. 



[The Author has published the following humble fragment, 
encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one 
of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was in- 
tended to be dramatic ; that is, suited to the narrator ; and the 
metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is there- 
fore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a com 
mon Ballad-tale. Whether this is sulBcient to justify the adop 
tion of such a style, in any metrical composition not profess 
edly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all 
events, it is not presented as Poetry, and it is in no way con- 
nected with the Author's judgment concerning Poetic diction. 
Its merits, if any, are exclusively Psychological. The story 



* War, a Fragment. t John the Baptist, a Poem. 

X Monody on John Henderson. 

54 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



45 



which must bo supposed to have been narrated in the first and 
Bccond pnrt<), is as follows. 

Edward, a young larincr, meets, at the house of Ellen, her 
bosom friend, Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which 
ends In a mutual attachment. With licr con.'sent, and by the 
advice of tJieir common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes 
and intentions to Mary's Mother, a widow-woman borderini; 
on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession 
of a competent property, and from bavins had no otiier children 
but Wary and another daughter (the Kullier died in their in- 
fancy), retaining, for the greater part, her personal attraeiions 
and comeliness of appearance; but awoninn of low education 
and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned 
to E«lward'8 application was remarkable — " Well, Edward '. 
you are a handsome young fellow, and you shall have my 
Daughter." From this time all tlieir wooing passed under the 
Mother's eye; and, in fine, she became heriiclf enamoured of her 
future Son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment 
and of calumny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to 
herself. (The outlines of the Talo are positive facts, and of no 
very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the 
names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters 
of tJio parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, how- 
ever, though perplexed by her strange detraction from her 
daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart 
still mistaking her increasing fondness for motherly affection • 
she, at length overcome by her miserable passion, after much 
abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with 
violent emotion — " O Edward 1 indeed, indeed, she is not fit for 
you — she has not n heart to love you as you deserve. It is I 
that love you ! Marry me, Edward ! and I will this very day 
settle all my properly on you." — The Lover's eyes were now 
opene<l ; and thus taken by surprise, whether from the cflect 
of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on 
his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense 
of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, 
he flung her from him and burst into a fit of laughter. Irritated 
by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a 
loud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a Curse 
both on him and on her own Child. Mary happened to be in 
the room directly above them, heard Edward's laugh and her 
Mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing 
the fall, ran up stairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her 
off to Ellen's home; and after some fruitless attempts on her 
part toward a reconciliation with her Mother, she was married 
to him. — And here the third part of the Tale begins. 

I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to 
tragic, much less to monstrous events (tlioush at the time that 
I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve years ago, 
I was less averse to such subjects than at present), but from 
finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagi- 
nation, from an idea viidenlly and suddenly impressed on it. I 
had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effect of the 
Ob]/ Witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and 
Hearne's deeply interesting Anecdotes of similar workings on 
the imagination of the Copper Indians (those of my readers who 
have it in their power will be well reimid for the trouble of re- 
ferring to those works for the passages alluded t<0, and I con- 
ceived the design of showing that instances of this kind are not 
pe;uliar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of illustrating the 
mode in which the mind is afiected in these cases, and the pro- 
gress and symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the 
beginning. 

[The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old Se.xton, in a 
country churchyard, to a Traveller whose curiosity had been 
awakened by the appearance of three graves, close by each 
other, to two only of winch there wore grave-stones. On the 
first of these were the name, and dates, as usual : on the second, 
no name, but only a date, and the words. The Mercy of God is 
mfimte.^ 



The grapes upon the vicar's wall 
Were ripe as ripe rotild be; 

And yellow loaves in sun nnd wind 
Were falling from ihe tree. 



Oti ilio licdcc elms in the narrow lane 
8iill swiitig ilic Sjiikes of eorn : 

Dear Lord I it seems but yesterday^ 
Young Edward's luarriage-morn. 

Up through that wood behind the church. 
There loads from Edward's door 

A mossy track, all over-liougli'd 
For lialf a mile or more. 

And from iheir house-door by that track 
The Bride and Bridegroom went ; 

Sweet Maty, though she was not gay, 
Seem'il cheerful and content. 

But when they to Iho chtircli-yard came, 

I've heard poor Rhiry say. 
As soon as she stcpp'd into ihc sun. 

Her heart it died away. 

And when the vicar join'd their hands, 
Her limbs did creep and freeze ; 

But when they pray'd, she thought she saw 
Her mother on her knees. 

And o'er the church-path they retum'd — 

I saw poor Mary's back, 
Just as she slepp'd beneath the boughs 

into the mossy track. 

Her feet upon tlie messy track 

The married maiden set: 
That moment — I have heard her say — 

She wish'd she could forget. 

The shade o'erflush'd her limbs with hea* - 

Then came a chill like deaih : 
And when the merry bells rang out. 

They seem'd to slop her breath. 

Beneath the fiHilest Mother's curse 

No child could ever thrive : 
A Mother is a Mother still. 

The holiest thing alive. 

So five month's nass'd : the Mother still 

Would never heal (he strife ; 
But Edward was a loving man, 

And Mary a fond wife. 

" My sister may not visit us, 
My mother says her nay : 

Edward ! you are all to me, 

1 wish for your sake I could be 

More lifesome and more gay. 

" I 'm dull and sad ! indeed, indeed 

I know I have no reason! 
Perhaps I am not well in health. 

And 't is a gloomy season." 

'Twas a drizzly time — no ice, no enow! 

And on the few fine days 
She stirr'd not out, lest she might meet 

Her Mother in her ways. 

But Ellen, spite of miry ways 

And weather dark and dreary, 
Trtidiicd ever)' day to Edwards house. 

And made them all more cheerv. 
55 



46 



COLERIDCJE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Oh! Ellen was a faithful Friend, 

More dear than any Sister! 
As cheerful too as singing lark ; 
And she ne'er left them till 'twas dark, 

And then they always miss'd her. 

And now Ash-Wednesday came — that day 

But few to church repair : 
For on that day you know we read 

The Commination prayer. 

Our late old vicar, a kind man. 

Once, Sir, he said to me. 
He wish'd that service was clean out 

Of our good Litiu-gy. 

The Mother walk'd into the church — 

To Ellen's seat she went ; 
Though Ellen always kept her church, 

All church-days during Lent. 

And gentle Ellen welcomed her 

With courteous looks and mild. 
Thought she " what if her heart should melt 

And all be reconciled ! " 

The day was scarcely like a day — 
The clouds were black outright : 

And many a night, with half a Moon, 
I 've seen the church more light. 

The wind was wild ; against the glass 

The rain did beat and bicker ; 
The church-tower swinging overhead. 

You scarce could hear the vicar ! 

And then and there the Mother Imelt, 

And audibly she cried — 
" Oh ! may a clinging curse consume 

This woman by my side I 

" O hear me, hear me, Lord in Heaven, 
Although you take ray life — 

curse this woman, at whose house 
Young Edward woo'd his wife. 

" By night and day, in bed and bower, 

O let her cursed be ! ! !" 
So having pray'd, steady and slow. 

She rose up from her knee ! 
And left the church, nor e'er again 

The church-door enter'd she. 

1 saw poor Ellen kneeling still. 

So pale ! I guess 'd not why : 
When she stood up, there plainly was 
A trouble in her eye. 

And when the prayers were done, we all 
Came round and ask'd her why : 

Giddy she seem'd, and sure there was 
A trouble in her eye. 

But ere she from the church-door stepp'd, 

She smiled and told us why ; 
• It was a wicked woman's curse," 

Quoth she, "and what, care I?" 



She smiled, and smiled, and pass'd it off 
Ere from the door she stept — 

But all agree it would have been 
Much better had she wept. 

And if her heart was not at ease, 

This was her constant cry — 
" It was a wicked woman's curse^ 

God 's good, and what care I ? " 

There was a hurry in her looks. 

Her struggles she redoubled : 
" It was a wicked woman's curse. 

And why should I be troubled ? " 

These tears will come — I dandled her 
When 'twas the merest fairy — 

Good creature ! and she hid it all : 
She told it not to Mary, 

But Mary heard the tale : her arms 
Round Ellen's neck she threw ; 

" Ellen, Ellen, she cursed me, 
And now she hath cursed you I " 

1 saw young Edward by himself 

Stalk fasi adown the lea. 
He snalch'd a stick from every fence, 

A twig from every tree. 

He snapp'd them still with hand or knee 

And then away they flew ! 
As if with his uJieasy limbs 

He knew not what to do ! 

You see, good Sir ! that single hill ? 

His farm lies underneath : 
He heard it there, he heard it all 

And only gnash'd his teeth. 

Now Ellen was a darling love 

In ail his joys and cares : 
And Ellen's name and Mary's name 
Fast link'd they both together came, 

Whene'er he said his prayers. 

And in the moment of his prayers 

He loved them both alike : 
Yea, both sweet names wth one sweet joy 

Upon his heart did strike ! 

He reach'd his home, and by his looks 

They saw his inward strife : 
And they clung round him with their arms 

Both Ellen and his wife. 

And Mary could not check her tears, 

So on his breast she bow'd ; 
Then Frenzy melted into Grief, 

And Edward wept aloud. 

Dear Ellen did not weep at all. 

But closelier did she cling, 
And turn'd her face, and look'd as if 

She saw some frightful tlung. 
56 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



47 





And once licr both arms suddenly 


PART IV. 


Hound ^hll•y's neck she Hung, 




And her heart panted, and she felt 


To see a man tread over graves 
I holtl it no good mark; 


The words upon her tongue. 


Tis wicked in the sun and moon, 




And bad luck in the dark ! 


She felt them coming, but no power 




Had she the words to smother; 


You see that grave ? The Lord he gives, 
The Ix)rd, ho takes away : 


And with a kind of shriek she cried, 
" Oh Christ ! you 're like your Mother ! 


Sir! the child of my old age 




Lies tliere as cold as clay. 


So gentle Ellen now no more 




Could make this sad house cheery ; 


Except tliat grave, you scarce see one 


And Mary's melancholy ways 


Tliat was not dug by me : 


Drove Edward wild and weary 


I 'd rather dance ujx)n 'em all 




Than tread upon these three! 


Lingering he raised his latch at eve 




Though tired in heart and limb ■ 


" Ay, Sexton ! 't is a touching tale," 


He loved no other place, and yet 


You, Sir ! are but a lad ; 


Home was no home to him. 


This month 1 'm in my seventieth year, 




And still it makes me sad. 


One evening he took up a book, 




And nothing in it read ; 


And Mary's sister told it me. 


Then flung it down, and groaning, cned 


For three good hours and more ; 


" Oh ! Heaven ! that I were dead 


Though I had heard it, in the main, 




From Edward's self, before. 


Mary look'd up into his face, 




And nothing to him said ; 


Well ! it pass'd ofT! the gentle Ellen 


She tried to smile, and on his arm 


Did well nigh dote on Mary ; 


Mournfully lean'd her head. 


And she went oftencr than before. 




And Mary loved her more and more : 


And he buret into tears, and fell 


She managed all the dairy. 


Upon his knees in prayer : 




" Her heart is broke ! God ! my gnef 


To market she on market-days. 


It is too great to bear ! " 


To church on Sundays came ; 




All seem'd the same : all seem'd so, Sir ! 


'Twas such a foggy time as makes 


But all was not the same ! 


Old Sextons, Sir! like me. 




Rest on their spades to cough ; the sprini 


Had Ellen lost her mirth? Oh ! no ! 


Was late uncommonly. 


But she was seldom cheerful ; 




And Edward look'd as if he thought 


And then the hot days, all at once. 


That Ellen's mirth was fearful. 


They came, we know not how : 




You look'd about for shade, when scarce 


^Tien by herself, she to herself 


A leaf was on a bough. 


Must sing some merry rhyme ; 




She could not now be glad for hours, 


It happen'd then ('twas in the bower 


Yet silent all the time. 


A furlong up the wood ; 




Perhaps you know the place, and yet 


Aiid when she soothed her friend, through all 


I scarce know how you should). 


Her soothing words 't was plain 




She had a sore grief of her own, 


No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh 


A haunting iji her brain. 


To any pasture-plot ; 




Butcluster'd near the chattering broot 


And oft she said, I'm not grown thin! 


Lone holUes mark'd the spot. 


And then her wrist she spann'd ; 




And once, when Mary was downcast, 


Those hollies of themselves a shape 


She took her by the hand. 


As of an arbor took. 


Anil gazed upon her, and at first 


A close, round arbor ; and it stands 


She gently press'd her hand ; 


Not three strides from a brook. 


Then harder, till her grasp at length 


Within this arbor, which was still 


Did gripe like a convulsion ! 


With scarlet beiries hung, 


Alas! said she, we ne'er can be 


Were these three friends, one Simday mom, 


Made happy by compulsion ! 


Just as the first bell rung. 

57 



48 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet 

To hear the Sabbath-bell, 
'T is sweet to hear them both at once, 

Deep in a woody dell. 



His limbs along the moss, his head 

Upon a mossy heap. 
With shut-up senses, Edward lay: 
That brook e'en on a working day 

Might chatter one to sleep. 

And he had pass'd a, restless night, 

And was not well in health ; 
The women sat down by his side. 

And talk'd as 'twere by stealth. 

" Tlie sun peeps through the close thick leaves, 

See, dearest Ellen ! see ! 
T is in the leaves, a little sun, 

iS'o bigger tlian your e'e ; 



" A tiny sun, and it has got 

A perfect glory too ; 
Ten thousand threads and hairs of light, 
Make up a glory, gay and bright. 

Round that small orb, so blue.' 



And then they argued of those rays, 

■WTiat color they might be : 
Says this, " they 're mostly green ;" says that, 

" They're amber-like to me." 



So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts 
Were troubling Edward's rest ; 

But soon they heard his hard quick pants. 
And the thumping in his breast. 



" A Mother too ! " these self-same words 

Did Edward mutter plain; 
His face was drawn back on itself. 

With horror and huge pain. 

Both groan'd at once, for both Imew Vi^ell 
What thoughts were in his mind ; 

When he waked up, and stared like one 
That hath been just struck blind. 

lie sat upright ; and ere the dream 

Had had time to depart, 
' God forgive me ! (he exclaim'd) 

I have torn out her heart." 



Then Ellen shriek'd, and forthwith burst 

Into ungentle laughter ; 
And Mary shiver'd, where she sat. 

And never she smiled after. 



Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To-morrow 
and To-morrow ! and To-raorrow !— 



DEJECTION; 

AN ODE. 



Late, late yestreen, I saw the new Moon, 
With the old Moon in lier arms ; 
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear ! 
We shall have a deadly storm. 

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spejis. 



I. 

Well ! if the Bard was weather-wise, who made 
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, 
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence 
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade 
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 
Or the dull sobbing draught, that moans and rakes 
Upon the strings of this .^Eolian lute, 
VVhich better far were mute. 
For lo ! the New-moon winter-bright ! 
And overspread with phantom light, 
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread 
But rimm'd and circled by a silver thread) 
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling 

The coming on of rain and squally blast. 
And oh ! that even now the gust were swelling. 

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast 
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilsl 
they awed, 
And sent my soul abroad. 
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give. 
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and 
live ! 

II. 
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, 
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassion'd grief. 
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief. 
In word, or sigh, or tear — 

Lady ! in this wan and heartless mood. 
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd, 

All this long eve, so balmy and serene, 
Have I been gazing on the western sky. 

And its peculiar tint of yellow green : 
And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye ! 
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars. 
That give away their motion to the stars ; 
Those stars, that glide behind thein or between. 
Now sparlding, now bedimm'd, but always seen • 
Yon crescent Moon, as fix'd as if it grew 
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue ; 

1 see them all so excellently fair, 

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are ! 

III. 

My genial spirits fail, 

And what can these avail 
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? 

It were a vain endeavor. 

Though I should gaze for ever. 
On that green light that lingers in the west : 
I may not hope from outward forms to win 
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within 

IV. 

Lady ! we receive but what we give, 
And in our life alone does nature live : 

58 



SIBYLUNE LEAVES. 



49 



Ours is licr wccldiug-garinenl, ours her shrouii ! 

And wimlil we aiiglit heliolil, of liiglier worlh, 
Than that inaiiinmte cold world allow'd 
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, 

Ah 1 from ihe soul itself nuisl issue Ibrth, 
A light, a glory, a fair huninous cloud 

lOnveloping the l-jirth — 
And fi-oni ihe soul itself must there bo sent 

A sweet and potent voice, of iis ow n hirlh. 
Of all sw eel sounds the life and clement I 

V. 

pure of heart ! thou necd'st not ask of mo 
Wiiat lliis strong music in the soul may be I 
What, and w'herein it dolh exist. 

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, 
This beautiful and beauty-making power. 

Joy, virtuous Lady ■' Joy that ne'er was given. 
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour. 
Life, and Life's Ellluence, Cloud at once and 

Shower, 
Joy, Ludy ! is the spirit and the power. 
Which wedding Nature to us gives hi dower 

A new Earth and new Heaven, 
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud — 
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud — 

We in ourselves rejoice ! 
And thence flows all that charms or car or sight. 

All melodies the echoes of that voice, 
All colors a suBusion from that light 

VI. 
There was a time when, though my path was 
rough. 

This joy within me dallied with distress. 
And all misfortunes were but as the sluff 
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness : 
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine. 
And Iruits, and foliage, not my own, secm'd mine. 
But now afflictions bow me down to earth : 
?vor care I that they rob me of my mirlh. 

But oh I each visitation 
Sus|)ends what nature gave me at my birth, 

JMy shaping spirit of Imagination. 
For not to think of what I needs must feel, 

But to he siill and patient, all I can ; 
And haply by abstruse research to steal 

From my own nature all ihc natural Man — 

This was my sole resource, my only plan : 
Till that which suits a part infects the whole. 
And now is almost grown the habit of my Soul. 

VII. 

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, 
ReaUty's dark dream ! 

1 turn from you, and listen to the wind. 

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream 
Of agony by torture lengthen'd out 
That lute sent forth I Thou Wind, that ravest 
without. 

Bare crag, or mountain-taim,* or blasted tree, 
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb. 
Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, 

Methinks were litter instruments for thee. 
Mad Lutanist I who in this month of showers. 
Of dark-browTi gardens, and of peeping flowers, 

• Tairn is a small lake, generally, if not always, applied to 

the lakes up In the mountnins, and which arc the feiMlers of 

those in tlie valleys. This address to the Storm-wind will not 

appear extravaeanl to those who have heard it at night, and 

. in a Rioun'ainous country. 

5 F2 



Makcst Devils' yidc, with worse than wintry .•ong, 
The blossoms, buds, and timorous haves among. 

Thou Aclor, perfect in all tragic sounds I 
Thou mighly I'oet, e'en to P'rcnzy Ijold 1 
What lell'st thou now about ! 
'T is of ihe Hushing of an Host in rout. 
With groans of trampled men, with smarting 
wounds — 
At once thov groan with pain, and shudder with the 

cold ! 
But liush I there is a pause of deepest silence ! 

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd. 
With groans, and tremulous shudderings — all ia 
over — [loud ! 

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and 
A tale of less allrighl. 
And temper'd with delight. 
As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 
'T is of a little child . 

Uiwn a lonesome wild. 
Not far from home, but she hath lost her way. 
And now moans low in biiicr grief and fear. 
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother 
hear. 

VIII. 
'T is midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: 
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! 
Visit her, gentle Sleep ! with wings of healing, 
And may this slorm be but a mountain-birth, 
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling. 
Silent as though they vvatch'd the sleeping F.arth. 
With light licarl may she rise. 
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, 
Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice : 
To her may all things live, from Pole to Pole 
Their life the eddying of her living soul ! 

O simple spirit, guided from above, 
Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice. 
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice. 



ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF 
DEVONSHIRE, 

0\ THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER " PASSAG* 
OVER MOUNT GOTIIARD." 



And Imil the Chapel ! hail the PliUform wild ! 

Where Tell directed Ihe avenKing Dart, 
With well-strung arm, that first preserved his Child 

Then aim'd the arrow at the Tyrant's heart. 



Splendor's fondly foster'd child ! 
And did you hail the Platform wild, 

Wliere once the Austrian fell 

Beneath the shaft of Toll ? 
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure ! 
Whence learnt you that heroic measure ? 

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran. 
From all that leaches Brotherhood to Man ; 
Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear! 
Enchanting music hdl'd your infant ear. 
Obeisance, prai-scs soothed your infant heart : 

Emblazonments and old ancestral crests. 
With many a bright obtrusive form of art, 

Dclain'd your eye from nature • stalely ve»«Ji 



50 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, 
Rich viands, and the pleasurable wine, 
Were yours unearn'd by toil ; nor could you see 
The unenjoying toiler's misery. 
And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, 
You haii'd the Chapel and the Platform wild, 
Where once the Austrian fell 
Beneath the shaft of Tell ! 

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure ! 

Wlience learnt you that heroic measure ? 

There crowd your finely-fibred frame, 

All living faculties of bliss ; 
And Genius to your cradle came, 
His forehead wreathed with lambent flame. 
And bending low, with godlike kiss 
Breathed in a more celestial life ; 
But boasts not many a fair compeer 

A heart as sensitive to joy and fear ? 
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, 
Some few, to nobler being wrought, 
Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought. 
Yet these delight to celebrate 
J^aurell'd War and plumy State ; 
Or in verse and music dress 
Tales of rustic happiness — 
Pernicious Tales ! insidious Strains ! 
That steel the rich man's breast, 
And mock the lot unblest. 
The sordid vices and the abject pains, 
Which evermore must be 
The doom of Ignorance and Penury ! 
Bui ytju, free Nature's uncorrupted child, 
You haii'd the Chapel and the Platform wild, 
Where onCe tlie Austrian fell 
Beneath the shaft of Tell ! 
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure ! 
Where learnt you that heroic measure ? 



You were a Mother ! That most holy name. 
Which Heaven and Nature bless, 
I may not vilely prostitute to those 

Whose Infants owe them less 
Tiian the poor Caterpillar owes 
Its gaudy Parent Fly. 
You were a Mother ! at your bosom fed 

Tlie Babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, 
Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read. 
Which you yourself created. Oh ! delight ! 
A second lime to be a Mother, 

Without the Mother's bitter groans : 
Another thought, and yet another. 
By touch, or taste, by looks or tones 
O er the growing Sense to roll, 
The Mother of your infant's Soul ! 
The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides 

His chariot-planet round the goal of day, 
All trembling gazes on the Eye of God, 

A moment turn'd his avirful face away ; 
And as he view'd you, from his aspect sweet 

New influences in your being rose, 
Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet 

With living Nature, in her joys and woes ! 
Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see 
The shrine of social Liberty ! 
O beautiful ! O Nature's child ! 
'Twas thence you haii'd ?he Platform wild, 



Where once the Austrian fell 
Beneath the shaft of Tell ! 

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure ! 

Thence learnt you that heroic measure. 



ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. 

Tranquillity ! thou better name 

Than all the family of Fame ! 

Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age 

To low intrigue, or factious rage ; 

For oh ! dear child of thoughtful Truth, 

To tliee I gave my early youth, 
And left the bark, and blest the stedfast shore. 
Ere yet the Tempest rose and scared me with its roar 

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, 
On him but seldom, power divine. 
Thy spirit rests ! Satiety 
And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, 
Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope 
And dire Remembrance interlope. 
To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind : 
The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind. 

But me thy gentle hand will lead 
At morning through tlie accusrom'd mead ; 
And in the sultry summer's heat 
Will build me up a mossy seat ; 
And when the gust of Autumn crowds 
And breaks the l)usy moonlight clouds. 
Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune 
Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding Moon 

The feeling heart, the searching soul. 
To thee I dedicate the whole ! 
And while within myself I trace 
The greatness of some future race. 
Aloof with hermit-eye I scan 
The present works of present man — 
A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, 
Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile ! 



TO A YOUNG FRIEND, 

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE 
AUTHOR. 

COMPOSED IN 179G. 

A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep. 

But a green mountain variously up-piled, 
Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep, 
Or color'd lichens with slow oozing weep ; 

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild ; 
And 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash 
Dance brighten'd the red clusters of the ash ; 

Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds be 
gulled, 
Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep ; 

Till haply startled by some fleecy dam. 
That rustling on the bushy clift above, 
With melancholy bleat of aiixious love. 

Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb 
60 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



51 



Such a green mouinain 'twere most sweet to climb, 
E'en wliile ilic Iwsom aclicd with loneliness — 
How more than sweet, il' some dear friend should 
bless 

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime 
Now lead, now follow : the glad landscape round. 
Wide and more wide, increasing without bound ! 

O then 't were loveliest sympathy, to mark 
11\e berries of llie hall-uprooied ash 
Dripping and bright ; and list the torrent's dash, — 

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark, 
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock ; 
In social silence now, and now to unlock 
The treasured heart ; arm link'd in friendly arm, 
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm 
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag ; 

Till high o'erhcad his beckoning friend appears, 
And from the forehead of the topmost crag 

Shouts eagerly : for haply (here uprears 
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs. 

Which latest shall detain the enaniour'd sight 
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims. 

Tinged yellow with the rich dejiarling light; 

And haply, basin'd in some unsunu'd cleft, 
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears. 
Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale! 

Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left, 
Stretch'd on the crag, and shadovv'd by the pine, 

And bending o'er the clear delicious fount, 
Ah ! dearest youth ! it were a lot divine 
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood. 
While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd : 

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the 
mount. 
To some lone mansion, in some woody dale. 
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss 
Gives this the Husband's, thai the Brother's kiss ! 

Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore, 
The Hill of Knowledge 1 essay'd to trace ; 
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place. 
And many a stream, whose warWing waters pour 

To glad and fertilize the subject plains ; 
That hill with secret springs, and nooks unlrod, 
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod. 

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains 
Low murmuring, lay ; and starting from the rocks 
Stiff" evergreeiLs, whose spreading foliage mocks 
Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age, 
And Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage ! 

O meek retiring spirit ! we will climb, 
Cheering and cheer'd, this lovely hill sublime ; 

And from the stirring world uplifted high 
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind, 
To quiet musings shall attune the nil i id, 

And oft the melancholy lltcme supi)ly). 

There, while the prospect through the gazing eye 

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul. 
We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame. 
Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same. 

As neiglkfeoring fountains image, each the whole : 
Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth. 

We'll discipline the heart to pure delight. 
Rekindling sober Joy's domestic flame. 
They whom I love shall love ihee. Honor'd youth ! 

Mow may Heaven realize this vision bright! 



LLNES TO W. L. ESQ. 

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC. 

While my young check retains its healthful hues, 

And I have many friends who hold rtie dear ; 

L ! methinks, I would not often hear 

Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose 
All memorj' of the wrongs and sore distress. 

For which my miseral)lc brethren weep ! 

But should uncomlbrtcd niisibrtuncs steep 
My daily bread in tears and biltcrness ; 
And if at death's dread moment I should lie 

With no beloved fiice at my bed-side, 
To fix the last glance of my closing eye, 

INIetliiiiks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guide 
Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, 

Mi.K with the blest, nor know that 1 had died ! 



ADDHESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE 

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND 

CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY. 

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe, 
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear ! 

To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go. 
Go, and some hunger-bitten Infant hear 
Moan haply in a dying Mother's ear : 

Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood 

O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves 
strew'd. 

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part 
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs 

The flocking flesh-birds scream'd ! Then, while thy 
heart 
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, 

Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) 

What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! 
O abject! if, to sickly dreams rcsign'd. 

All effortless thou leave life's commonweal 

A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind. 



SONNET TO THE PvIVER OTTER. 

Dear native Brook I wild Streamlet of the West ! 

IIow many various-fiited years have past. 

What happy, and what mournful hours, since last 
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast, 
Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest 
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes 

I never shut amid the sunny ray. 
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise. 

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray. 
And bedded sand tliat vein'd with various dyes 
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my 
way, 

Visions of childhood ! off have ye beguiled 
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs : 

Ah ! that once more I were a careless child ! 



SONNET. 

COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD ; THE AUTHOR 
HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH 
OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796. 

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll 
Which makes ihc jireseni (wliile the flash doth last) 
9 61 



52 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, 
Mix'd with such feeUngs, as perplex the soul 
Self-question'd in her sleep ; and some have said* 

We lived, ere yet this robe of Flesh we wore. 

O my sweet baby ! when I reach my door, 
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead 
(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear), 
I think that I should struggle to believe 

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere 
Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve ; 
Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick 
reprieve. 

While we w ept idly o'er thy little bier ! 



SONNET. 



TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHE^ THE 
NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME. 

Charles ! my slow heart was only sad, when first 
I scann'd that face of feeble infancy : 

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst 
All I had been, and all my child might be ! 

But when I saw it on its Mother's arm, 
And hanging at her bosom (she the while 
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) 

Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm 

Impress'd a Father's kiss : and all beguiled 
Of dark remembrance and presagelul fear, 
I seem'd to see an angel-form appear — 

'T was even thine, beloved woman mild ! 
So for the Mother's sake the Child was dear, 

And dearer was the Mother lor the Child. 



THE VIRGIN'S CRADLEHYMIV. 

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A CATHOLIC 
VILLAGE IN GERMANY. 

DoRMi, Jesu ! Mater ridet, 
Quse tam dulcem somnum videt, 

Dormi, Jesu ! blandule I 
Si non dormis. Mater plorat. 
Inter fila cantans orat 

Blande, veni, somnule. 



Sleep, sweet babe ! roy cares beguiling 
Mother sits beside thee smiling : 

Sleep, my darling, tenderly ! 
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, 
Singing as her wheel she turneth : 

Come, soft slumber, balmily ! 



ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD. 

This day among the faithful placed 

And fed with fontal manna ; 
O with maternal title graced 

Dear Anna's dearest Anna ! 



* Hv irov rijiuiv r/ ^pv^ri npiv £V TOiSe ro) av6pu)Zivo) 
si^ei ytvcadai. 

Plat, in P/ixedon 



Wliile others wish thee wise and fair, 

A maid of spotless fame, 
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer— 

Mayst thou deserve thy name ! 

Thy Mother's name, a potent spell, 

That bids the Virtues hie' 
From mystic grove and living cell 

Confest to Fancy's eye ; 

Meek Quietness, without offence ; 

Content, in homespun kirtle ,• 
True Love ; and True Love's Innocence, 

White Blossom of the Myrtle ! 

Associates of thy name, sweet Child ! 

These Virtues mayst thou win ; 
With Face as eloquently mild 

To say, they lodge within. 

So when, her tale of days all flown, 
Thy Mother shall be miss'd here ; 

When Heaven at length shall claim its own. 
And Angels snatch their Sister ; 

Some hoary-headed Friend, perchance, 

May gaze with stifled breath ; 
And oft, in momentary trance, 

Forget the waste of death. 

Ev'n thus a lovely rose I view'd 

In summer-swelling pride ; 
Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude 

Peep'd at the Rose's side. 

It chanced, I pass'd again that way 

In Autumn's latest hour, 
And wond'ring saw the self-same spray 

Rich with the self-same flower. 

Ah fond deceit ! the rude green bud 

Alike in shape, place, name. 
Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud 

Another and the same ! 



EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. 

Its balmy lips the Infant blest 
Relaxing from its Mother's breast, 
How sweet it heaves the happy sigh 
Of innocent Satiety I 

And such my Infant's latest sigh ! 
O tell, rude stone ! the passer-by. 
That here the pretty babe doth lie, 
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby. 



MELANCHOLY. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Stretch'd on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest w».' 
Where ruining ivies propp'd the ruins steep — 

Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall. 
Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep. 

62 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



53 



Tlio fern was press'd beneath her hair, 
The ilark-groen Adder's Tongue* was lliere ; 
And slill as past the llaggmg sea-gale weak, 
riie long lank leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek. 

rhat pallid cheek was flush'd : her eager look 

Beam'd eloquent in slumber ! Inly w rought, 

Inipt^riect sounds her moving lips forsook, 

And her bent forehead work'd with troubled 

thought. 

Strancte was the dream 



TELLS BIRTH-PLACE. 

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. 

Mark this holy chapel well ! 
The Birth-place, this, of WilUam Tell. 
Here, where stands God's altar dread, 
Stood his parents' marriage-bed. 

Here first, an infant to her breast, 
Him his loving mother prest ; 
And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day. 
And pray'd as mothers use to pray : 

" Vouchsafe him health, God, and give 
The Child thy servant still to live ! " 
But God has destined to do more 
Through him, than through an armed power. 

God gave him reverence of laws, 

Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause — 

A spirit to his rocks akin, 

The eye of the Hawk, and the fire therein ! 

To Nature and to Holy writ 
Alone did God the boy commit : 
Where flash'd and roar'd the torrent, oft 
His soul found wings, and soar'd aloft ! 

The straining oar and chamois chase 
Had form'd his limbs to strength and grace: 
On wave and wind the boy would toss, 
Was great, nor knew how great he was ! 

He knew not that his chosen hand. 
Made strong by God, his native land 
Would rescue from the shameful yoke 
Of Slavery the which he broke ! 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

The Shepherds went their hasty way, 

And found the lowly stable-shed 
Where the Virgin-Mother lay : 

And now they check'd their eager tread, 
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung, 
A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung. 

They told her how a glorious light. 

Streaming from a heavenly throng. 
Around them shone, suspending night .' 
Wiile, sweeter than a Alother's song, 
Blest Angels heralded the Savior's birth, 
Glory to God on high ! and peace on Earth. 



• A botaniral ncbtake. The plant which the poet here de- 
Kribes b called tlie Hart's Tonjtue. 



She listcn'd to Iho tale divine, 

And closer still the Babe she press'd ; 
And while she cried, the Babe is mine! 
The milk rush'd faster to her breast : 
Joy rose within her, like a summer's mom ; 
Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is bom. 

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, 

Poor, simple, and of low estate I 
That Strife should vanish. Battle cease, 
O why should this thy soul elate ? 

Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's storj', 

Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of Fame and Glory ? 

And is not War a youthful King, 

A stately Hero clad in mail I 
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring ; 
Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail 
Their Friend, their Play-mate! and his bold bright eye 
Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh 

" Tell this in .some more courtly scene. 

To maids and youths in robes of state ! 
I am a woman poor and mean. 
And therefore is my Soul elate. 
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled. 
That from the aged Father tears his Child ! 

" A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, 

lie kills the Sire and starves the Son ; 
The Husband kills, and from her board 
Steals all his Widow's toil had won ; 
Plunders God's w'orld of beauty ; rends away 
All safety from the Niglit, all comfort from the Day 

" Then wisely is my soul elate, 

That Strife should vanish. Battle cease : 
I 'm poor and of a low estate. 

The Mother of the Prince of Peace. 
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn : 
Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is bom! " 



HUMAN LIFE, 

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY 

If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom 

Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare 
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, 

Whose sound and motion not alone declare, 
But are their whole of being ! If the Breath 

Be Life itself, and not its task and tent. 
If even a soul like Milton's can know death , 

O Man ! thou vessel, purjwseless, unmeant. 
Yet drone-hive strange of piiantom purposes ! 

Surplus of Nature's dread activity, 
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase. 
Retreating slow, with meditative pause. 

She form'd with restless hands unconsciously ! 
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! 

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state. 
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy Hopes, tliy Fears, 
The cxjunter-weights ! — Thy Laughter and thy Tears 

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create, 
f)3 



54 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



And to repay the other ! Why rejoices 

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good ? 

Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, 
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices. 

Image of image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf, 
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold ! 
Yet what and whence thy gain if thou withhold 

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? 
Be sad ! be glad I be neither ! seek, or shun ! 
Thou hast no reason why ! Thou canst have none : 
Thy being's being is contradiction. 



THE VISIT OF THE GODS. 

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. 

Never, believe me, 
Appear the Immortals, 
Never alone : 
Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, 
lacchus ! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler ; 
Lo ! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne ! 
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all ! 
With Divinities fills my 
Terrestrial Hall ! 

How shall I yield you 
Due entertainment, 
Celestial Quire ? 
Me rather, bright guests ! with your wings of up- 

buoyance 
Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance. 
That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre ! 
Ha ! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my Soul .' 

O give me the Nectar ! 
O fill me the Bowl ! 
Give him the Nectar! 
Pour out for the Poet, 
Hebe ! pour free ! 
Quicken his eyes with celestial dew. 
That Styx the detested no more he may view, 
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be ! 
Thanks, Hebe ! I quaff it! lo Psan, I cry! 
The Wine of the Immortals 
Forbids me to die ! 



ELEGY, 

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE 
INSCRIPTIONS. 

Near the lone pile with ivy overspread, 

Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, 

MHiere " sleeps the moonlight " on yon verdant bed — 
O humbly press that consecrated ground ! 

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain ! 

And there his spirit most delights to rove : 
Young Edmund ! famed for each harmonious strain. 

And the sore wounds of ill-requited love. 

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide. 
And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume, 

His manhood blossom'd : till the faithless pride 
Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb. 



But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue ! 

Where'er with wilder'd steps she wander'd pale, 
Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view. 

Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale. 

With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms, 
Amid the pomp of affluence she pined : 

Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arms 
Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind. 

Go, Traveller ! tell the tale with sorrow fraught 
Some tearful maid, perchance, or blooming youth 

May hold it in remembrance ; and be taught 
That Riches cannot pay for Love or Truth. 



KUBLA KHAN; 

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. 



[The following fragment is here published at the request of a 
poet of great and deserved celebrity, and. as far as the Author's 
own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, 
than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits. 

In the summer of tlie year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, 
had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, 
on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In con- 
sequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been pre- 
scribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at 
the moment that he was reading the following sentence, oi 
words of the same substance, in Purchas's " Pilgrimage :" — 
" Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a 
stately garden thereunto ; and thus ten miles of fertile ground 
were inclosed with a wall." The author continued for abou* 
three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, 
during which time he has the most vivid confidence that he could 
not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines ; if 
that indeed can be called composition in which all the images 
rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the 
correspondent expressions, without any sensation, or conscious- 
ness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a 
distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and 
paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here 
preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by 
a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above 
an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small 
surprise and mortification, that though he .still retained some' 
vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, 
yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and 
images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the 
surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas ! 
without the after restoration of the latter. 

Then all the charm 
Is broken — all that phantom-world so fair 
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread. 
And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile, 
Poor youth ! who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes— 
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon 
The visions will return ! And lo, he stays, 
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms 
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more 
The pool becomes a mirror. 
Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Autho 
has frequently purposed to finish for himself what ha4 beeta 
originally, as it were, given to him. Xajitpov a&icv acro)- 
but the to-morrow is yet to come. 

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a 
very different character, describing with equal fidelity th« 
dream of pain and disease. — J\rote to the first Edition, 1316.] 



In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree ; 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to rnan, 
Down to a sunless sea. 

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SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



55 



So twice five miles of fertile ground 
Witli walls aiid towers were girdled round ; 
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 
Where hlossom'd many nn incense-bearing tree ; 
And here were Ibrests ancient as the hills, 
Lilblding sunny spots of greenery. 

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! 
And from this cha^ra, with ceaseless turmoil seeth- 
ing, 
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 
A mighty founlain momently was forced : 
Amid whoso swift half-intcrmilted burst 
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 
Or chaify grain beneath the thresher's flail : 
\nd 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 
ft flung up momently the sacred river. 
Five miles, meandering with a mayy motion, 
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, 
And sank in tumult to a lileless ocean : 
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 
Ancestral voices prophesying war! 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves ; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 
A simny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw : 

It was an Abyssinian maid, 

And on her dulcimer she play'd, 

Singing of Mount A bora. 

Could I revive within me 

Her symphony and song, 

To such a deep delight 'twould win me, 
That with music loud and long, 
' would build that dome in air, 
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
And all who heard should see them there, 
And all should crj-, Beware ! Beware ! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
Weave a circle round him thrice. 
And close your eyes with holy dread. 
For he on honey-dew hath fed 
And drank the milk of Paradise. 



THE PAINS OF SLEEP. 

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, 

It haih not been my use to pray 

With moving lips or bended knees ; 

But silently, by slow degrees. 

My spirit I to Love compose, 

In humble Trust mine eye-lids close. 

With reverential resignation, 

No wish conceived, no thought express'd ! 

Only a sense of supplication, 

A sense o'er all my soul imprest 

That I am weak, yet not luiblest, 



Since in me, round me, everywhere. 
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are. 

But yester-night I pray'd aloud 

In anguish and in agony, 

Up-starting from the fiendish crowd 

Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me : 

A lurid light, a trampling throng, 

Sense of intolerable wrong, 

And whom 1 scorn 'd, those only strong! 

Thirst of revenge, the jxiwcrless will 

Still bafl'led, and yet burning still ! 

Desire with lothing strangely mix'd, 

On wild or hateful objects fix'd. 

Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl ! 

And shame and terror over all I 

Deeds to be liid which were not hid, 

Which all confused 1 could not know, 

Wliether I suifcr'd, or I did : 

For all seem'd guilt, remorse, or woe. 

My own or others', still the same 

Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. 

So two nights pass'd : the night's dismay 
Sadden'd and stunn'd the coining day. 
Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me 
Distemper's worst calamity. 
The third night, when my own loud scream 
Had waked me from the fiendi.sh dream, 
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, 
I wept as I had been a child ; 
And having thus by tears subdued 
My anguish to a milder mood. 
Such punishments, I said, were due 
To natures deepliest stain'd with sin • 
For aye entem posting anew 
The unfathomable hell within. 
The horror of their deeds to viewi. 
To know and lotlie, yet v\ish and do ! 
Such griefs with such men well agree, 
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ? 
To be beloved is all I need. 
And whom I love, I love indeed. 



APPENDIX. 



APOLOGETIC PREFACE 

TO "FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER." 

[See page 26] 

At the house of a gentleman, who by the principles 
and corresponding virtues of a sincere Christian con- 
secrates a cultivated genius and the favorable acci- 
dents of birth, opulence, and splendid connexions, it 
was my good fortune to meet, in a dirmor-party, with 
more men of celebrity in science or polite literature, 
than are commonly found collected round the same 
table. In the course of conversation, one of the par- 
ty rcmiiulcd nn illustrious Poet, then present, of some 
verses which he had recited that morning, and vvhich 
had appeared in a newspaper under the name of a 
War-Eclogue, in which Fire, Famine, and Slaughter 
were introduced as the speakers. The gentleman so 
addressed rephed, that he was rather surprised that 
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COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



none of us should have noticed or heard of the poem, 
as it had been, at the time, a good deal talked of in 
Scotland. It may be easily supposed, that my feel- 
ings were at this moment not of the most comforta- 
ble kind. Of all present, one only knew or suspect- 
ed me to be the author : a man wlio would have 
established himself in the first rank of England's 
living Poets, if the Genius of our country had not 
decreed that he should rather be the first in the first 
rank of its Philosophers and scientific Benefactors. 
It appeared the general wish to hear the lines. As my 
friend chose to remain silent, I chose to follow his 
example, and Mr. ***** recited the Poem. This he 
could do with the better grace, being luiown to have 
ever been not only a firm and active Anti-Jacobin and 
Anti-Gallican, but likewise a zealous admirer of Mr. 
Pitt, both as a good man and a great Statesman. As 
a Poet exclusively, he had been amused with the 
Eclogue ; as a Poet, he recited it ; and in a spirit, 
which made it evident, that he would have read and 
repeated it with the same pleasure, had his own 
name been attached to the imaginary object or agent. 

After the recitation, our amiable host observed, 
that in his opinion Mr. ***** had overrated the merits 
of the poetry ; but had they been tenfold greater, 
they could not have compensated for that malignity 
of heart, which could alone have prompted senti- 
ments so atrocious. I perceived that my illustrious 
friend became greatly distressed on my account; but 
fortunately I was able to preserve fortitude and pres- 
ence of mind enough to take up the subject without 
exciting even a suspicion how nearly and painfully 
it interested me. 

What follows, is substantially the same as I then 
replied, but dilated and in language less colloquial. 
It was not my intention, I said, to justify the publi- 
cation, whatever its author's feelings might have 
been at the time of composing if. Tliat they are 
calculated to call forth so severe a reprobation from 
a good man, is not the worst feature of such poems. 
Their moral deformity is aggravated in proportion to 
the pleasure which they are capable of affording 
to vindictive, turbulent, and unprincipled readers. 
Could it be supposed, though for a moment, that the 
author seriously wished what he had thus wildly im- 
agined, even the -"ttempt to palliate an inhumanity so 
monstrous would oe an insult to the hearers. But it 
seemed to me worthy of consideration, whether the 
mood of mind, and the general state of sensations, 
in which a Poet produces such vivid and fantastic 
images, is likely to coexist, or is even compatible, 
with that gloomy and deliberate ferocity which a 
serious wish to realize them would presuppose. It 
had been often observed, and all my experience 
tended to confirm the observation, that prospects of 
pain and evil toothers, and, in general, all deep feel 
ings of revenge, are commonly expressed in a few 
words, ironically tame, and mild. The mind under 
so direful and fiend-like an influence seems to take a 
morbid pleasure in contrasting the intensity of its 
wishes and feelings, with the slightness or levity of 
the expressions by which they are hinted ; and in- 
deed feelings so intense and .solitary, if they were 
not precluded (as in almost all cases they would be) 
by a constitutional activity of fancy and association, 
and by the specific joyousness combined with it, 
would assuredly themselves preclude such activity. 
Passion, in its own quality, is ihe antagonist of ac- 
tion : thoueh in an ordinarv and natural degree the 
fi)rmer alternates with the latter, and thereby revives 



and strengthens it But the more intense and insane 
the passion is, the fewer and the more fixed are the 
correspondent forms and notions. A rooted hatred, 
an inveterate thirst of revenge, is a sort of madness, 
and still eddies round its favorite object, and exer- 
cises as it were a perpetual tautology of mind in 
thoughts and words, which admit of no adequate 
substitutes. Like a fish in a globe of glass, it moves 
restlessly round and round the scanty circumference, 
which it cannot leave without losing its vital ele- 
ment. 

There is a second character of such imaginary 
representations as spring from a real and earnest de- 
sire of evil to another, which we often see Jn real 
life, and might even anticipate from the nature of 
the mind. The images, I mean, that a vindictive 
man places before his imagination, will most often be 
taken from the realities of life : they will be images 
of pain and suffering which he has himself seen in- 
fhcted on other men, and which he can fancy him- 
self as inflicting on the object of his hatred. I will 
suppose that we had heard at different times two 
common sailors, each speaking of some one who had 
wronged or o.Tended him : that the first with appa- 
rent violence had devoted every part of his adversa- 
ry's body and soul to all the horrid phantoms and 
fantastic places that ever Quevedo dreamt of, and 
this in a rapid flow of those outre and wildly-com- 
bined execrations, which loo often with our lower 
classes serve for escape-valves to carry off the excess 
of their passions, as so much superfluous steam that 
would endanger the vessel if it were retained. The 
other, on the contrary, with that sort of calmness of 
tone which is to the ear what the paleness of anger 
is to the eye, shall simply say, " If I chance to be 
made boatswain, as I hope I soon shall, and can but 
once get that fellow under my hand (and I shall be 
upon the watch for him), I'll tickle his pretty skin! 

I wont hurt him ! oh no ! I '11 only cut the to 

the liver.'" 1 dare appeal to all present, which of the 
two they would regard as the least deceptive symp- 
tom of deliberate malignity ? nay, whether it would 
surprise them to see the first fellow, an hour or two 
afterward, cordially shaking hands v\-ilh the very 
man, the fractional parts of whose body and soul he 
had been so charitably disposing of; or even perhaps 
risking his life for him. What language Shakspeare 
considered characteristic of malignant disposition, we 
see in the speech of the good-natured Gratiano, who 
spoke "an infinite deal of nothing more tlian any 
man in all Venice ;" 

Too wild, too rude and bold of voice ! 

the skipping spirit, whose thoughts and words recip 
rocally ran away with each other ; 

O be thou damnM, inexorable dog ' 

And for thy life let justice be accused! 

and the wild fancies that follow, contrasted with Shy- 
lock's tranquil " / stand here for law." 

Or, to take a case more analogous to the present 
subject, should we hold it either fair or charitable to 
believe it to have been Dante's serious wish, that all 
the persons mentioned by him, (many recently de- 
parted, and some even alive at the time), should ac- 
tually suffer the fantastic and horrible punishments, 
to which he has sentenced them in his Hell and 
Purgalorij? Or what shall we say of the passages 
in which Bishop Jeremy Taylor anticipates the state 
of those who, vicious themselves, have been iha 
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SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



57 



cause of vice and misery to their fcUow-croatiires ? 
Could we endure for a nioinont to tliiniv liiat a spirit, 
like Bishop Taylor's, burning with t'iiristiau love ; 
that a man constitutionally ovcrllovving with plea- 
surable kindliness ; who scarcely even in a casual 
illustration introduces the image of woman, child, or 
bird, but ho embalms tjie thought with so rich a 
tenderness, as makes the very words seeuj beauties 
and fragments of poetry from a Euripides or Simo- 
nides ; — can we endure to think, tliat a man so na- 
tured and so disciplined, did at ihc time of composing 
this horrible picture, attac^h a sober feeling of reality 
lo the phrases ! or that he would iiave described in 
the same tone of justification, in the same luxuriant 
flow of phrases, the tortures about to be inflicted on 
a living individual by a verdict of the Star-Cliamber? 
or the still more atrocious sentences executed on the 
Scotch anli-prelatists and schismatics, at the com- 
mand, and in some instances under the very eye of 
the Duke of Lauderdale, and of that wretched bigot 
who afterwards dishonored and ibrleited ihe tlironc 
of Great Britain ? Or do we not rather feel and un- 
derstand, that these violent words were mere bubbles, 
flashes and electrical apparitions, from the magic 
caldron of a fervid and ebullient fancy, consiaiiily 
fuelled by an unexampled opulence of language ? 

Were I now' to have read by myself ibr the first 
time the Poem in question, my conclusion, I fully 
believe, would be, that the writer must have been 
some man of warm feelings and active fancy ; that 
he had painted to himself the circumstances that ac- 
company war in so many vivid and yet fantastic 
forms, as proved that neither the images nor the 
feelings were the result of observation, or in any 
way derived from realities. I should judge, that they 
were the product of his own seething imagination, 
and therefore impregnated with that pleasurable ex- 
ultation which is experienced in all energetic exer- 
tion of intellectual jx)wer ; that in the same mood 
he had generaUzed the causes of the war, and then 
personified the abstract, and chrislened it by the 
name which he had been accustomed to hear most 
often associated with its management and measures. 
1 should guess that the minister was in the author's 
mind at the moment of composition, as completely 
aiTa^rji, dvatfioaapnoi, as Anacreon's grasshopper, and 
that he had as little notion of a real person of flesh 
ond blood, ^ 

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, 

as Milton had in the grim and terrible phantoms (half 
person, half allegory) which he has placed at the 
gates of Hell. I concluded by observing, that the 
Poem was not calculated to excile passion in am/ 
mind, or to make any impression except on poelic 
readers ; and that from the culpable lovily, betrayed 
at the close of the Eclogue by the grotesque union 
of epigrammatic wit with allegoric personification, 
in the allusion to the most fearful of thoughts, I 
should conjecture that the " ranlin' Bardie," instead 
of really believing, much less wishing, the fate spo- 
ken of in the last line, in application to any human 
individual, would shrink from pa.-sing the verdict 
even on the Devil himself, and exclaim with poor 
Bums, 

But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben ! 

Oil ! wad ye tak a tliouiiht an' meo'! 

Ye aiblins might — I clinna ken — 

Still hae a stake— 



1 'm wac to tliink upon yon den, 

Ev'n lor your sake! 

I need not say that these thoughts, w Inch arc here 
dilaleil, were in such a company only rapidly sug- 
gested. Our kind host smiled, and with a courteous 
conipliinent observed, that Ihe defence was too good 
for the cause. My voice faltered a little, for 1 was 
somewhat agitated ; though not so much on my own 
accoinit as for the luicasiness that so kind and 
friendly a man would feel from the thought that he 
had been the occasion of disiressing me. At length 
I brought out these words : " 1 nuist now confess, 
Sir! tiiat I am author of that Poem. It was written 
some years ago. I do not attempt to justify my past 
self, young as I then was ; but as little as 1 would 
now wriie a similar poem, so far was I even then 
from imagining, that the lines would be taken as 
more or less than a sport of fancy. At all events, if 
I know my own heart, there was never a moment 
in my existence in which I should have been more 
ready, had Mr. Pjtt's person been in hazard, to inter- 
pose my own body, and defend his life at the risk of 
my own." 

I have prefaced the Poem with tliis anecdote, be- 
cause to have prinled it without any remark might 
well have been understood as implying an uncondi- 
tional approl)at!on on my part, and this after many 
years' consideration. But if it be asked why I re- 
published it at all ? I answer, that the Poem had 
been attributed at different times to different other 
persons ; and wha* I had dared beget, I thought it 
neither manly nor honorable not to dare father. 
From the same motives 1 should have p\iblished 
perfect copies of two Poems, the one entitled The 
Devil's Thoughts, and the other The. Two Round 
Spaces on the TomhStone, but that the three first 
stanzas of the former, which were worth all the rest 
of the poern, and the best stanza of the remainder, 
were written by a friend of deserved celebrity; and 
because there are pas.sagcs in both, which might 
have given offence to the religious feelings of certain 
readers. I myself indeed see no reason why vulgar 
superstitions, and absurd conceptions that detbrm the 
pure faith of a Christian, should possess a greater 
immunity from ridicule than stories of witches, or 
the fables of Greece and Rome. But there are 
those who deem it profaneness and irreverence to 
call an ape an ape, if it but wear a monk's cowl on 
its head ; and I would rather reason with this weak- 
ness than offend it. 

The passage from Jeremy Taylor to which I re- 
ferred, is found in his second Sermon on Christ's 
Advent to Judgment; which is likewise the second 
in his year's course of sermons. Among many re 
markable passages of the same cliaracler in those 
discourses, I have selected this as the most so. "But 
\^hen this Lion of the tribe of Judah shall appear, 
then Justice shall strike and Mercy shall not hold 
her hands; she shall strike sore strokes, and Pity 
shall not break the blow As there are treasures of 
good things, so hath God a treasure of wrath and 
fury, and scourges and scorpions ; and then shall be 
[)roduced the shame of Lust and the malice of Envy, 
and the groans of the oppressed and Ihe persecutions 
of the saints, and the cares of Covetousness and the 
troubles of Ambition, and the indolence of traitors 
and the violences of rebels, and the rage of anger and 
the uneasiness of impatience, and the restlessness of 
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58 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



unlawful desires ; and b}^ this time the monsters and 
diseases will be numerous and intolerable, when 
God's heavy hand shall press the sanies and the in- 
tolerableness, the obliquity and the unreasonableness, 
the amazement and the disorder, the smart and the 
sorrow, the guilt and tlie punishment, out from all 
our sins, and pour them into one chalice, and mingle 
them with an infinite wrath, and make the wicked 
drink of all the vengeance, and force it down their 
unwilling throats with the violence of devils and 
accursed spirits." 

That this Tartarean drench displays the imagina- 
tion rather than the discretion of the compounder ; 
that, in short, this passage and others of the kind 
are in a bad tasle, few will deny at the present day. 
It would doubtless have more behoved the good 
bishop not to be wise beyond what is written, on a 
subject in which Eternity is opposed to Time, and a 
death threatened, not the negative, but the positive 
Oppositive of Life; a subject, therefore, which must 
of necessity be indescribable to the human under- 
standing in our present state. But I can neither find 
nor believe, that it ever occurred to any reader to 
ground on such passages a charge against Bishop 
Taylor's humanity, or goodness of heart. I was 
not a little surprised therefore to find, in the Pur- 
suits of Literature and other works, so horrible a 
sentence passed on Milton's moral character, for a 
passage in his prose-writings, as nearly parallel to 
this of Taylor's as two passages can well be con- 
ceived to be. All his merits, as gi poet forsooth — all 
the glory of having written the PAR.-iDisE Lost, are 
light in the scale, nay, kick the beam, compared 
with the atrocious malignity of heart expressed in 
the offensive paragraph. I remembered, in general, 
that iVlilton had concluded one of his works on Re- 
formation, written in the fervor of his youthful im- 
agination, in a high poetic strain, that wanted metre 
only to become a lyrical poem. I remembered that 
in the former part he had formed to himself a perfect 
ideal of human virtue, a character of heroic, disin- 
terested zeal and devotion for Truth, Religion, and 
public Liberty, in Act and in Suffering, in the day 
of Triumph and in the hour of Martyrdom. Such 
spirits, as more excellent than others, he describes 
as having a more excellent reward, and as distin- 
guished by a transcendent glory : and this reward 
and this glory he displays and particularizes with an 
energy and brilliance that announced the Paradise 
Lost as plainly as ever the bright purple clouds in 
the east announced the coming of tlie sun. Milton 
then passes to the gloomy contrast, to such men as 
from motives of selfish ambition and the lust of per- 
sonal aggrandizement should, against their own light, 
persecute truth and the true religion, and wilfully 
abuse the powers and gifts intrusted to them, to 
bring vice, blindness, misery and slavery, on their 
native country, on the very country that had trusted, 
enriched and honored them. Such beings, after that 
speedy and appropriate removal from their sphere of 
mischief which all good and humane men must of 
course desire, will, he takes for granted by parity of 
reason, meet with a punishment, an ignominy, and a 
retahation, as much severer than other wicked men 
as their guilt and its consequences were more enor 
mous. His description of this imaginary punishment 
presents more distinct piclares to the fiincy than the 
extract from Jeremy Taylor; but the Ihoughts in the 
latter are incomparably more exaggerated and hor- 
rific. All this I knew ; but I neither remembered; 



nor by reference and careful re-perusal could dis 
cover, any other meaning, either in Milton or Taylor 
but that good men will be rewarded, and the impen- 
itent wicked punished, in proportion to their disposi- 
tions and intentional acts in this life ; and that if the 
punishment of the least wicked be fearful beyond 
conception, all words and descriptions must be so far 
true, that they must fall short of the punishment that 
awaits the transcendently wicked. Had Milton stated 
either his ideal of virtue, or of depravity, as an indi- 
vidual or individuals actually existing? Certainly not 
Is this representation worded historically, or only hy- 
potherically ? Assuredly the latter ! Does he express 
it as his own wish, that after death they should suffer 
these tortures ? or as a general consequence, deduced 
from reason and revelation, that such will be their 
fate ? Again, the latter only I His w'ish is expressly con- 
fined to a speedy stop being put by Providence to 
their power of inflicting misery on others ! But did he 
name or refer to any persons, living or dead? No! 
But the calumniators of Rlilton dare saj/ (for what 
will calumny not dare say >.) that he had Laud and 
Stafford in his mind, while writing of remorseless 
persecution, and the enslavement of a free country, 
from motives of selfish ambition. Now, what if a 
stern anti-prelatist should dare say, that in speaking 
of the insolencies of traitors and the violences of rebels. 
Bishop Taylor must have individualized in his mind, 
Hampden, Hollis, Pvm, Fairfax, Ireton, and Mil- 
ton ? And what if he should take the liberty of con- 
cluding, that, in the after description, the Bishop was 
feeding and feasting his party-hatred, and with those 
individuals before the eyes of his imagination enjoy- 
ing, trait by trait, horror after horror, the picture of 
their intolerable agonies ? Yet this bigot would have 
an equal right thus to criminate the one good and 
great man, as these men have to criminate the other. 
Milton has said, and 1 doubt not but that Taylor with 
equal truth could have said it, " that in his whole 
life he never spake against a man even that his skin 
should be grazed." He asserted this when one of liis 
opponents (either Bishop Hall or his nephew) had 
called upon the women and children in the streets 
to take up stones and stone him (Milton). It is 
Icnown that Milton repeatedly used his interest to 
protect the royalists ; but even at a time when all 
lies would have been meritorious against him, no 
charge was made, no story pretended, that he had 
ever directly or indirectly engaged or assisted in 
their persecution. Oh ! methinks there are other and 
far better feelings, which should be acquired by the 
perusal of our great elder writers. When I have 
before me on the same table, the works of Hammond 
and Baxter : when I reflect with what joy and dear- 
ness their blessed spirits are now loving each other • 
it seems a mournful thing that their names should 
be perverted to an occasion of bitterness among us, 
who are enjoying that happy mean which the huvian 
too-mucii on both sides was perhaps necessary to 
produce. " The tangle of delusions which stifled and 
distorted the growing tree of our well-being has bee 
torn away ! the parasite weeds that fed on its ve. 
roots have been plucked up with a salutary violenc 
To us there remain only quiet duties, the constant 
care, the gradual improvement, the cautious un- 
hazardous labors of the industrious though contented 
gardener — to prune, to strengthen, to engraft, and 
one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh 
shoots the slug and the caterpillar. But far be 
it from us to undervalue with light and senseless 
68 



SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 



59 



detraction the conscientious hardihood of our prede- 
cessors, or even to condemn in ihcni that vehemence, 
to which the blessings it won lor us leave us now 
neither temiilation or pretext. We antedate the 
feelings, in order to criminuie the ttuiJwr.^, of our pres- 
ent Libert)', Light and Toleration." (The Friend, 
p. 54.) 

If ever two great men might seem, during their 
vvlto'e lives, to have moved in direct opposition, though 
neither of them has at any time introduced the 
name of the other, Milton and Jeremy Taylor were 
they. The former commenced his career by attack- 
ing the Church-Liturgy and all set forms of prayer. 
The latter, but far more successfully, by defending 
both. Milton's next work was then against the Pre- 
lacy and the then existing Church-Government — 
Taylor's in vindication and support of them. Milton 
became more and more a stern republican, or rather 
an advocate for that religious and moral aristocracy 
which, in his day, was called republicanism, and 
which, even more than royalism itself, is the direct 
anli|X)deof modern jacobinism. Taylor, as more and 
more sceptical concerning the fitness of men in general 
fi)r power, became more and more attached to the 
prerogatives of monarchy. From Calvinism, with a 
still decreasing respwct for Fathers, Councils, and for 
Churrh-Anriquity in general, Milton seems to have 
ended in an indifference, if not a dislike, to all forms 
of ecclesiastic government, and to have retreated 
wholly into the inward and spiritual church-commu- 
nion of his own spirit with the Light, tliat lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world. Taylor, with 
a growing reverence for authority, an increasing 
sense of the insufficiency of the Scriptures without 
tlio aids of tradition and the consent of authorized 
interpretei-s, advanced as far in his approaches (not 
indewi to Popery, but) to Catholicism, as a conscien- 
tious minister of the English Churcli could well ven- 
t\.re. Milton would be, and would utter the same, 
to all, on all occasions: he would tell the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Taylor 
would become all things to all men, if by any 
means he might benefit any; hence he availed him- 
self, in his popular writings, of opinions and repre- 
sentations which stand often in striking contrast with 
the doubts and convictions expressed in his more 
philosophical works. He appears, indeed, not too 
Severely to have blamed that management of truth 
(islam fahitalem dispensativam) authorized and ex- 
emplified by almost all the fathers : Integrum omnino 
Doc.lorihus et coetiis Chrisliani anlisfilms esse, ut dolos 
veiffent, falsa veris intermisceant el imprimis religionis 
hostes fallant, dummodo verilads commodis et utililaii 
inserviani. 

Tlie same antithesis might be carried on with the 
elements of their several intellectual powers. Mil- 
ton, austere, condensed, imaginative, supporting his 
truth by direct enunciations of lofty moral senti- 
ment and by distinct visual representations, and in 
the same spirit overwhelming w'hat he deemed false- 
hood by moral denunciation and a succession of pic- 
tures appalling or repulsive. In his pro^e, so many 
metaphors, so many allegorical miniatures. Taylor, 
eminently discursive, accumulative, and (to use one 
of his own words) agglomeralive ; still more rich in 
images than Milton himself, but images of Fancy, 
and presented to the common and passive eye, rather 
than to the eye of the imagination. Whether sup- 
|X)rting or a.ssailing, he makes his way either by ar- 
gument or by appeals to the affections, luisurpassed 



even by the Schoolmen in subtlety, agility and logic 
wit, and unrivalled by the most rhetorical of the 
fathers in the copiousness and vividness of his ex- 
pressions and illustralions. Here words that con- 
vey feelings, and w ords that flash images, and words 
of abstract notion, flow together, and at once whirl 
and rush onward like a stream, at once rapid and 
full of eddies; and yet still interfused here and Uiere 
wo see a tongue or isle of smooth water, with some 
picture in it of earth or sky, landscape or living 
group of quiet beauty. 

DilFering, then, so widely, and almost contrariant- 
ly, wherein did these great men agree? wherein 
did they resemble each other? In Genius, in 
Learning, in unfeigned Piety, in blameless Purity 
of Life, and in benevolent aspirations and purposes 
for the moral and temporal improvement of their fel- 
low-creatures I Both of them wrote a Latin Acci- 
dence, to render education more easy and less pain- 
ful to children; both of them composed hymns and 
psalms proportioned to the capacity of common con- 
gregations ; both, nearly at the same time, set the 
glorious example of publicly recommending and sup- 
iwrting general Toleration, anil the Liberty both of 
the Pulpit and the Press ! In the writings of neither 
shall we find a single sentence, like those meek 
deliverances to God's mercy, with which Laud ac- 
companied his votes for the mutilations and lothe- 
some dungeoning of Leighton and others ! — nowhere 
such a pious pra3'er as wo find in Bishop Hall's 
memoranda of his own Life, concemuig the subtle 
and witiy Atheist that so grievously perplexed and 
gravelled him at Sir Robert Drury's, till he prayed to 
the Lord to remove him, and behold ! his prayers 
were heard; for shortly afterward this Philistine 
combatant went to London, and there perished of 
the plague in great misery ! In short, nowhere shall 
we find the least approach, in the lives and writings 
of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to that guarded 
gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with which 
the holy Brethren of the Inquisition deliver over a 
condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, recom- 
mending liim to mercy, and hojnng that the magis- 
trate will treat the erring brother with all possible 
mildness ! — the magistrate, who too well knows what 
would be his own fate, if he dared offend tliem by 
acting on their recommendation. 

The opportunity of diverting the reader from my- 
self to characters more worthy of his attention, has 
led me far beyond my first intention ; but it is not 
unimportant to expose the false zeal which has occa- 
sioned these attacks on our elder patriots. It has 
been too much the fashion, first to personify the 
Church of England, and then to speak of different 
individuals, who in different ages have been rulers 
in that church, as if in some strange way they con- 
stituted its personal identity. Why should a clergj'- 
man of the present day feel interested in the defence 
of Laud or Sheldon ? Surely it is sufllcient for the 
warmest partisan of our establishment, that he can 
assert with truth, — when our Church persecuted, it 
was on mistaken principles held in common by all 
Christendom ; and, at all events, far less culpable 
was this intolerance in the Bishops, who were main- 
taining the existing laws, than the persecuting spirit 
afterwards showTi by their successful opponents, who 
had no such excuse, and who should have been 
taught mercy by their own suflerings, and wisdom by 
the utter failure of the experiment in their own case. 
We can say, that our Church, apostolical in its faith, 
10 69 



60 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical 
forms; that our Church, which has kindled and dis- 
played more bright and burning lights of Genius and 
Learning, than all other Protestant churches since 
the Reformation, was (with the single exception of 
the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, 
when all Christians unhappily deemed a species of 
intolerance their religious duty ; that Bishops of our 
church were among the first that contended against 
this error; and finally, that since the Reformation, 
when tolerance became a fashion, the Church of 



England, in a tolerating age, has shown herself emi 
nently tolerant, and far more so, both in Spirit and in 
fact, that many of her most bitter opponents, who 
profess to deem toleration itself an insult on the 
rights of mankind ! As to myself, who not only know 
the Church-Establishment to be tolerant, but who 
see in it the greatest, if not the sole safe bulwark of 
Toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or pal- 
liating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order 
to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, esto pfi 

PETUA ! 



mit %limt of tilt ^ntmxt ^avinn\ 

IN SEVEN PARTS. 



Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles qiiam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horiim omnium 
farailiam qiiis nobis enarrabit ? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singiilorum munera? Cluid 
ai'unt? qiiiB loca habitant ? Haruin rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingeniiun hiimanum, nunquam 
attigit. Jiivat, inteiea, non difRteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, niajnris et melioris mundi 
imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiei na; vitie minutiis se coutiabat nlmis, et tota subsidat 
in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab 
incertis, diem anocte, distinguamus. — T. Burnet: Archccol. Phil. p. C8. 



An ancient Mari- 
ner meetelh tbree 
gallants bidden to 
a wedding- feast, 
and detaincth 
one. 



PART I. 

It is an ancient Mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of three : 
" By thy long gray beard and glitter- 
ing eye. 
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 

" The Bridegroom's doors are open'd 

W'ide, 
And I am next of kin ; 
The guests are met, the feast is set : 
Mayst hear the merry din." 

He holds him with his skinny hand : 

" There was a ship," quoth he. 

" Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard 

loon I " 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 

He holdshim with his glittering eye — 
The Wedding-Guest stood still. 
And listens like a three-years' child ; 
The Mariner hath his will. 

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone, 
He cannot choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed mariner. 

The ship was cheer'd, the harbor 

clear'd, 
Merrily did we drop 
Below the kirk, below the hill, 
Below the light-house top. 

The Mariner tells The Sun came up upon the left, 

how the ship sail- Out of the sea came he ! 

ed souUiward p^^^ j^^ ^j^^^^^g j^j.- j^f ^^^ pj^ jj^g ^^^ 

with a good wind ,-.,.- ° 

and fair «-eather. Went down into tne sea. 

!iti It reached the ^^. , , , . , , 

line Higher and higher every day, 

Till over the mast at noon 

The Wedding-Guest here beat his 

breast. 
For he heard the loud bassoon. 



The wedding- 
guest is spell- 
bound by the eye 
of the old seafar- 
ing man, and con- 
strained to hear 
his tale. 



The bride hath paced into the hall, The wedding- 
Red as a rose is she ; f "7' *"'".«'*' *''« 
AT jj- II J V /- i_ bridal music; but 
Nodding their heads before her goes (i,e Mariner con- 
The merry minstrelsy. tinueth his tale. 
The Wedding-Guest he beat his 

breast. 
Yet he cannot choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner. 

And now the storm-blast came, and The ship drawn 
he by a storm toward 

Was tyrannous and strong : 'he south pole 

He struck with his o'erlaking wings, 
And chased us south along. 

With sloping masts and dripping prow, 
As who pursued with yell and blow 
Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
And forward bends his head. 
The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the 

blast, 
And southward aye we fled. 

And now there came both mist and 

snow, 
Aud it grew wondrous cold; 
And ice, mast-high, came floating by. 
As green as emerald. 

And through the drifts the snowy clifts The land of ice, 
Did send a dismal sheen : '^"^ °^ fearful 

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we 

ken — 
The ice was all between. 

The ice was here, the ice was there. 

The ice was all around : 

It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd anti 

howl'd. 
Like noises in a swound I 

At length did cross an Albatross : 
Thorough the fog it came ; 
As if it had been a Christian soul. 
We hail'd it in God's name. 

70 



sounds, where ne 
living thing was 
to be seen. 



Till a ereat sea- 
bird, called the 
Albatross, came 
through the snow 
fo?, and was re- 
ceived with great 
joy and hospitai 
itjr 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



61 



Anil lu ! the Al- 
balrosa provcth 
a bird ul' gooil 
unien, nml liillow- 
cth tlie ship us it 
reluniuil uurlli- 
ward lliruugli fug 
and flouting ice- 



It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it (lew. 
The ice did spht with a thunder-fit ; 
The hehnsinan steer'd us through ! 

And a good south-wind sprung up 

behind ; 
The Albatross did follow, 
And every day, for footi or play, 
Came to the mariner's hollo ! 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud. 
It pcrch'd lor vespers nine ; 
Wiiiles all the night, through fog- 
smoke white, 
Glimmer'd the wliite moon-shine. 



The ancient Mari- " God save thee, ancient Mariner ! 
ner inhospitably From the fiends, that plague thee 
killeth the pious thu'J ' 

bird^of good ^yj^y j^-.^j j^^^^ so?"— With my 
cross-bow 
I shot the Albatross. 

PART II. 
The Snn now rose upon the right : 
Out of tlie sea came he, 
Siill liid in mist, and on the left 
Went dowTi into the sea. 

And the good south-wind still blew 

behind. 
But no sweet bird did follow, 
Nor any day for food or i)lay 
Came to the mariner's hollo ! 

His shipmates cry And I had done an hellish thing, 



Day after day, day after day. 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion j 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Water, water, everywhere, 
\nd all liie boards did shrink : 
Waier, water, everywhere, 
iVor any drop to drink. 

The very deep did rot : O Christ ! 
That ever this should be ! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 

About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night ; 
The water, like a witch's oils. 
Burnt green, and blue and white. 



out against the 
aacii'nt Mariner, 
for killini; the bird 
of good-luck. 



And it would work 'em woe : 
For all avcrr'd, I had Idll'd the bird 
That made the breeze to blow. 
Ah Avretch ! said they, the bird to 

slay. 
That made the breeze to blow ! 



But when the fog Nor dim nor red, like God's own 
cleared otf, they head 

rd"L?rake' Th<^ glorious Sun uprist : 
themselves ac- Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird 
complices in the That brought the fog and mist. 
"i"^«- 'T was right, said they, such birds to 

slay 
That bring the fog and mist. 



And the Alba- 
tross begins to be 
avenged. 



A spirit had fol- 
lowed them : one 
of the invisible in- 



And some in dreams assured were 
Of the spirit that plagued us so ; 
Nine fathom deep he had follovv'd us habitants of this 
Frotn the land of mist and snow. £r.'e7"si''.r 

nor angels ; con- 
cerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic 
Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They 
are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without 
one or more. 

And every tongue, through utter 

drought, 
Was willier'd at the root ; 
We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot. 



The fair breeze The fair breeze blew, the white foam 

continues ; the flew 

ship enters the mi. /• ' rn .j /■ 

Pacific Ocean and The furrow follow d free ; 

sails northward. We were the first that ever burst 

even till it reach- j^to that silent sea. 
us the Line. 

The ship haih Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt 

been suddenly do\Ml, 

huca.med. 't was sad as sad could be ; 

And we did speak only to break 
The silence of the sea ! 

All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody Sun, at noon. 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
I\'o bigger than the Moon. 
GSi 



Ah ! well-a-day ! what evil looks 
Had I from old and young ! 
Instead of tlie cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung. 



PART III 



The shipmates, in 
their sore distress 
would fain throw 
the whole guilt on 
the ancient Mar- 
iner : — in sign 
whereof they 
hang the dead 
sea-bird round 
his neck. 



Each 



The ancient Ma- 
riner beholdeth a 
Bi{!n in the ele- 
ment afar off 



There pass'd a weary time 

throat 
Was parch'd, and glazed each eye. 
A weary time ! a weary time I 
How glazed each weary eye, 
When looking westward, I beheld 
A something in the sky. 

At first it seem'd a little speck. 
And then it seem'd a mist; 
It moved and moved, and took at last 
A certain shape, I wisL 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! 
And still it near'd and near'd : 
As if it dodged a water-sprite, 
It plunged and tack'd and veer'd. 



With throats unslaked, with black At its nearer ai>- 

lips baked, p?''!^!'' '' »f ™- 

,,, ,j , , ., eth him to be a 

We could nor laugh nor wail ; ^hip ; and at a 

Through utter drought all dtimb we dear ransom he 

stood ; freelh his speech 

I bit my arm, 1 suck'd the blood. [™[^j|''« ''""''' "' 
And cried, A sail '. a sail ! 

71 



62 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



A flash of joy. 



And horror fol- 
.ows: for can it be 
a ship, that cornea 
onward without 
wind or tide 1 



It eeetneth him 
but the skeleton 
of a ship. 



And its ribs are 
seen as bars on 
the face of the 
setting Sun. 

The spectre- 
woman and her 
death-mate, and 
no other on board 
theskeleton-ahip. 
Like vessel, like 
crew ! 



Death, and Life- 
in-Dcath have 
diced for the 
ship's crew, and 
she (the latterl 
winneth the an- 
cient Mariner. 

No twilight 
within the courts 
of the sun. 



At the rising of 
.he moon. 



With throats unslaked, with black 

lips baked, 
Agape they heard me call ; 
Gramercy ! ihey for joy did grin. 
And all at once their breath drew in. 
As they were drinking all. 

See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more ! 
Hither to work us weal ; 
Without a breeze, without a tide, 
She steadies with upright keel ! 

The western wave was all a flame, 
The day was well-nigh done, 
Almost upon the western wave 
Rested the broad bright Sun ; 
When that strange shape drove sud- 
denly 
Betwixt us and the Sim. 

And straight the Sun was fleck'd 

with bars, 
(Heaven's Mother send us grace !) 
As if through a dungeon-grate he 

peer'd 
With broad and burning face. 

Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat 

loud) 
How fast she nears and nears ! 
Are those her sails that glance in the 

Sun, 
Like restless gossameres ? 

Are those her ribs through which the 

Sun 
Did peer, as through a grate ; 
And is that woman all her crew ? 
Is that a Death, and are there two ? 
Is Death that woman's mate ? 

Her lips were red, her loolis were 

free. 
Her locks were yellow as gold : 
Her skin was as white as leprosy, 
The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was 

she. 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 

The naked hulk alongside came. 
And the twain were casting dice ; 
" The game is done ! I 've won, I 've 

won ! " 
Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 

The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush 

out : 
At one stride comes the Dark ; 
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea 
Off shot the spectre-bark. 

We listen'd and look'd sideways up ! 
Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 
My life-blood seem'd to sip ! 
The stars were dim, and thick the 

night. 
The steersman's face by his lamp 

gleam'd white ; 
From the sails the dew did drip — 
Till clomb above the eastern bar 



One after one, by the star-dogged One after an 
Moon, «>^''«'' 

Too quick for groan or sigh. 

Each turn'd his face with a ghastly 
pang, 

And cursed me with his eye. 



Four times fifty living men 
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan). 
With heavy thump, a Ufeless lump. 
They dropp'd down one by one. 

The souls did from their bodies fly,— 
They fled to bliss or woe ! 
And every soul, it pass'd me by 
Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! 



His shipmates 
drop down dead 



But Life-in- 
Death begins her 
work on the an- 
cient Mariner. 



PART IV. 

" I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! 

I fear thy sldnny hand ! 

And thou art long, and lank, and to him ; 

brown. 
As is the ribb'd sea-sand.* 



The wedding- 
guest feareth that 
a spirit is talking 



But the ancient 
Mariner assureth 
him of his bodily 
life, and proceed- 
eih to relate his 
horrible penance. 



He despiseth the 
creatures of the 
calm. 



And envieth that 
they should live, 
and so many lie 
dead. 



" I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
And tliy skinny hand so brown." — 
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding- 
Guest ! 
This body dropt not down. 

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
Alone on a wide wide sea ! 
And never a saint took pity on 
My soul in agony. 

The many men, so beautiful ! 

And they all dead did lie : 

And a thousand thousand slimy 

things 
Lived on ; and so did I. 

I look'd upon the rotting sea. 
And drew my eyes away ; 
I look'd upon the rolling deck. 
And there the dead men lay. 

I look'd to Heaven, and tried to pray ; 
But or ever a prayer had gush'd, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 
My heart as dry as dust. 

I closed my lids, and kept them close. 

And the balls like ptdses beat ; 

For the sky and the sea, and the sea 

and the sky. 
Lay like a load on my weary eye 
And the dead were at my i'eet. 

The cold sweat melted from their But the curse liv 

limbs, ^"''""f'lr!,"'!!'' 

i»T ^ 1 vj ^1 r eye of the dead 

Nor rot nor reek did they ; [me ^g„ 

The look with which they look'd on 

Had never pass'd away. 

An orphan's curse would drag to Hell 
A spirit from on high ; 



. * For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. 
The horned Moon, with one bright vVoidsworlh. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey 
star to Dulverton, with him and liis sister, in the Autumn of 1797 

Within the nether tip. I that lliis Poem was planned, and in part composed. 

72 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



6» 



But oh I more horrible than that 
Is a curse iu a dead man's eye ! 
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that 

curse. 
And yet I could not die. 

-" h's lonpliness T),e moving Moon went up the sky, 
and fixcciiu'sa he , , i i- i i ■ i 

ycarneth towards ^^"^' nowhere did abide . 
the journeying Soltly slie was going up, 
Moon, and the And a star or two beside — 
Etars that still so- 
journ, yet still move onward ; and everywhere the blue sky 
belongs to thimi, and is their appointed rest, and their native 
country and tlieir own natural homes, which they enter unan- 
nounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is 
a silent joy at their arrival. 

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main. 

Like April hoar-frost spread ; 

But where the ship's huge shadow 

lay. 
The charmed water burnt alway 
A still and awful red. 



By the light of 
tlie Moon he be- 
holdeth God's 
creatures of the 
great calm. 



Beyond the shadow of the ship 

I wateh'd the water-snakes : 

They moved in tracks of shining 

white, 

And when they rear'd, the elfish light 
Fell off in hoary flakes. 

Within the shadow of the ship 
1 wateh'd their rich attire : 
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black. 
They coil'd and swam ; and every 

track 
Was a flash of golden fire. 

Their oeauty and O happy living things ! no tongue 
their happmess. -j^gj, jj^^^y ^^^^^^ declare : 

A spring of love gush'd from my 
heart, 
He b'esseth them And I bless'd them unaware : 
ui IS eait. gyj.g jj^y j.jj^j g^-j^j j^j^ pj^ ^^ ^^^ 

And I bless'd them unaware. 

The spell begins The self-same moment I could prav ; 
to break. a j /- i /• t' j i 

And Irom my neck so free 

The Albatross fell oflfi and sank 

Like lead into the sea. 

PART V. 
Oh Sleep ! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole ! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given! 
She sent the gentle sleep from 

Heaven, 
That slid into my soul. 

By grace of the The silly buckets on the deck, 

anllm^'A^i^er ^h^^ ^ad so long remained, [dew ; 

is refreshed with ^ dreamt that Ihcy were fill'd with 

'«in. And when I awoke, it rain'd. 

My lips were wet, my throat was cold. 
My garments all were dank ; 
Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 
And still my body drank. 



limbs 

1 was so light — almost 
1 thought that I had died in sleep 
And was a blessed ghost. 



And soon I heard a roaring wind : 
It did not come ancar; 



He hcartth 
sounds and secth 
r. , ... ■. I ■ 1 1 .!_ .1 strange sights 

But with Its sound It shook the sails, „„j commotion 
That were so lliin and sere. in the sky and 

the element. 
The upper air burst into life ! 
And a hundred fire-flags sheen. 
To and fro they wore hurried about! 
And to and fro, and in and out, 
Tlie wan stars danced between. 

And the coming wind did roar more 

loud. 
And the sails di<] sigh like sedge; 
And the rain pour'd down from one 

black cloud ; 
The Moon was at its edge. 

The thick black cloud was cleft, and 

still 
Tlie Moon was at its side : 
Like waters shot from some high crag, 
The lightning fell with never a jag, 
A river steep and wide. 

The loud wind never reach'd the The bodies of the 
ship, ship's crew are 

Yet now the ship moved on ! '"':^'"^^' ''"'^ "* 

r. 1, ,-i- >, .. ship moves on • 

Beneath the lightning and the Moon 

The dead men gave a groan. 

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all 

uprose, 
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; 
It liad been strange, even in a dream, 
To have seen those dead men rise. 

The helmsman steer'd, ' the ship 

moved on , 
Yet never a breeze up blew ; 
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes. 
Where they were wont to do ; 
They raised their limbs like lifeless 

tools 
— We were a ghastly crew. 

The body of my brother's son 
Stood by me, knee to knee : 
The body and I puU'd at one rope. 
But he said nought to me. 



" I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! " 

Be calm, thou Wedding-guest ! 

'T was not those souls that fled in 

pain, 
Which to their corses came again, 
But a troop of spirits blest : 

For when it dawTi'd — they dropp'd 

their arras. 
And cluster'd round the mast ; 
Sweet sounds rose slowly through 

their mouths, 
And from their bodies pass'd. 



But not by the 
Bouls of the men. 
nor by daemons of 
earth or middlo 
air, but by a 
blessed troop of 
angelic spirits. 
Bent down by the 
invocation of tlie 
guardian saint. 



I moved and could not feel my Ground, around, flew each sweet 



sound. 

Then darted to the Sun ; 
Slowly the sounds came back again. 
Now mi.x'd, now one by one. 



64 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky, 
I heard the sky-lark sing ; 
Sometimes all little birds that are. 
How they seem'd to fill the sea and 

air, 
With their sweet jargoning ! 

And now 't was like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute ; 
And now it is an angel's song, 
That makes the Heavens be mute. 

It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon, 

A noise like of a hidden brook 

In the leafy month of June, 

That to the sleeping woods all night 

Singeth a quiet tune. 

Till noon we quietly sailed on. 
Yet never a breeze did bi-eathe : 
Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
Moved onward from beneath. 

Th: 'oneson/e Under the keel nine fathom deep, 
spirit from the From the land of mist and snow, 
south-po!e carries rj,^^ ■^■^^ ^^-^ . j j j^ 

on the ship as far ,„i ^ j .. ,• . 

as the line, in I "at made the ship to go. 

obedience to the The sails at noon left off their tune, 
angelic troop, but And the ship stood still also. 
Btill rcquireth 
vengeance. 

The Sun, right up above the mast, 

Had fix'd her to the ocean : 
But in a minute she 'gan stir. 
With a short uneasy motion — 
Backwards and forwards half her 

length 
With a short uneasy motion. 

Then like a pawing horse let go, 
She made a sudden bound : 
It flung the blood into my head, 
And I fell down in a swound. 



ThePolarSpirit'3 
fellow dasmons, 
the invisible in- 
habitants of the 
element, take part 
in his wrong ; 
and two of them 
relate, one to the 
other, that pen- 
ance long and 
heavy for the an- 
cient Mariner 
hath been accord- 
ed to tlie Polar 
Spirit, who re- 
tumeth south- 
ward. 



How long in that same fit I lay, 
I have not to declare ; 
But ere my living life retum'd, 
I heard and in my soul discern'd 
Two VOICES in the air. 

" Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the 

man? 
By liira who died on cross. 
With his cruel bow he laid full low 
The harmless Albatross. 

" The spirit who bideth by himself 

In the land of mist and snow. 

He loved the bird that loved the 

man 
Who shot him with his bow." 

The other was a softer voice, 

\s soft as honey-dew : 

Quoth he, " The man hath penance 

done. 
And penance more will do." 



The Mariner hath 
been cast into a 
trance ; for the 
angelic power 
causeth the ves- 
sel to drive north 
ward faster than 
human life coula 
endure 



PART VI. 

FIRST VOICE. 

But tell me, tell me ! speak again. 
Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so 

fast? 
What is the ocean doing ? 

SECOND VOICE. 

Still as a slave before his lord, 
The OCEAN hath no blast ; 
His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the Moon is cast — 

If he may know which way to go ; 
For she guides him smooth or grim. 
See, brother, see ! how graciously 
She looketh down on him. 

FIRST VOICE. 

But why drives on that ship so fast, 
Without or wave or wind ? 

SECOND VOICE. 

The air is cut away before, 
And closes from behind. 

Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more 

high! 
Or we shall be belated : 
For slow and slow that ship will go. 
When the Mariner's trance is abated. 



I woke, and we were sailing on The supematura. 

As in a gentle weather : motion is retard- 

'T was night, calm night, the Moon "^ ' f''® M"'"" 
° . ' ° awakes, and his 

was high ; penance begins 

The dead men stood together. anew. 

All stood together on the deck. 
For a charnel-dungeon fitter : 
All fix'd on me their stony eyes, 
That in the Moon did glitter. 

The pang, the curse, with which thev 

died. 
Had never pass'd away : 
I could not draw my eyes from theirs. 
Nor turn them up to pray. 

And now this spell was snapt : once The curse ia fi 

more "ally expiated. 

I view'd the ocean green. 
And look'd far forth, yet little saw 
Of what had else been seen — 

Like one, that on a lonesome road 

Doth walk in fear and dread. 

And having once turn'd round walks 

on. 
And turns no more his head ; 
Because he knows, a frightful fient*. 
Doth close behind him tread. 



But soon there breathed a wind on me, 
Nor sound nor motion made : 
Its path was not upon the sea, 
In ripple or in shade. 

74 



I 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



65 



It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek 
Like a moinlovv-gnlo of spring — 
It niiii>;lcil strangely \viili my Icai^, 
Yet it I'eli like a welcoming. 

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 
Yet she siiil'd softly too: 
Sivectly. sweeily blew the breeze — 
On me alone it blew. 

And ih(> nnciont Oh ! dream of joy .' is this indeed 
Mariiior iH'hi.ld- T|,(> light-house "top I see ? 

couoirv"""'" Is '•'■'''"•« '"11 ? '» ''"* ">« ^'^ ^ 
Is this mine own comitree ? 

We drifted o'er the harlwr bar. 
And I with sobs did jiray — 
O let me he awake, my God ! 
Or let me sleep alway. 



The harhor-bay was clear as glass, 
So smoothly it was strewn ! 
And on the i)ay the moonlight lay. 
And the shadow of the moon. 

The rock shone bright, the kirk no 

less 
That stands above the rock : 
The moonlight sleep'd in silentness 
The steady weathercock. 

And the bay was white with silent 

light, 
Till, rising from the same. 
Full many shapes that shadows were, 
In crimsoa colors came. 

A little distance fittm the prow 
Those crimson shadows were : 
I turn'd my eyes upon the deck — 
Oh, Christ ' what saw I there ! 

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat ; 
And, by the holy rood ! 
A man all light, a seraph-man, 
On every corse there stood. 

This seraph band, each waved his 

hand : 
It was a heavenly sight ! 
They stood as signals lo the land 
Each one a lovely light ; 

This seraph band, each waved his 

hand. 
No voice did they impart — 
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 
Like music on my heart. 

But soon I heard the dash of oars, 
I heard the Pilot's cheer ; 
My head was turn'd perforce away, 
And I saw a boat appear. 

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, 
I heard them coming fast : 
Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy 
The dead men could not blast. 

I saw a third — I heard his voice : 
It is the Hermit good I 



The angelic spir- 
its leave the 
dead bodies, 

And appear in 
the't own forma 
or liglit. 



lie siiigoth loud his godly hymns 

That he makes in the wood. 

He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash 

away 
The Albatross's blood. 

P.ART VII. 

This Hermit good lives in that wood The Uo'mi' rf 
Which slopes down to tlie sea ""> Wood, 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears! 
He loves to talk with marineres 
That come from a far countree. 

He kneels at morn, and noon, and 

eve — 
He hath a cu.shion plump : 
It is the moss that wholly hides 
Tlie rotted old oak-stump. 

The skiflhboat near'd : I heard them 

talk, 
" Why this is strange, I trow ! 
Where are those lights so many and 

fair, 
Tliat signal made but now ?" 

"Strange, by my faith I" the Hermit Approachetn tne 
said Eh'P w>t^> wonder 

" And they answer not our cheer! 

The planks look warp'd ! and see 
those sails, 

How thin they are and sere ! 

I never saw aught like to them. 

Unless perchance it were 

" Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 
My forest-brook along ; 
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow. 
And the owlet whoops to the wolf 

below. 
That cats the she-wolf's young." 

" Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look — 
(The Pilot made reply,) 
I am a-fear'd " — " Push on, push on ! " 
Said the Hermit cheerily. 

Tlie boat came closer to the ship. 
But I nor spake nor stirr'd ; 
The boat came close beneath the ship, 
And straight a sound was heard. 

Under the water it rumbled on, The ship suddenly 

Still louder and more dread : sinketh 

It reach'd the ship, it split the bay; 
The ship went down like lead. 

Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful The ancient Ma 
sound ""^' '' saved in 

Which sky' and ocean smote, '^^ ^"°''' '^" 

Like one that hath been seven days 
drown'd 

My body lay afloat ; 

But swift as dream.s, myself I (bund 

Within the Pilot's boat. 

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship. 
The boat spun round and round ; 
And all wa-s still, save that the hill 
Was telling of the sound. 

7 . 



66 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The ancient Ma- 
■ner earnestly en- 
aeateth the Her- 
mit to shrive him ; 
and the penance 
of life falls on 
liim. 



And ever and 
anon throughout 
his future life an 
agony constrain- 
eth him to travel 
from land to land, 



I moved my lips — the Pilot shriek'd, 
And fell down in a fit ; 
The holy Hermit raised his eyes, 
And pray'd where he did sit. 

I took the oars : the Pilot's boy. 

Who now doth crazy go, 

Laugh'd loud and long, and all the 

while 
His eyes went to and fro. 
" Ha ! ha ! " quoth he, " full plain I see. 
The Devil knows how to row." 

And now, all in my own countr^e, 

I stood on the firm land ! 

The Hermit stepp'd forth from the 

boat. 
And scarcely he could stand. 

" shrive me, shrive me, holy man ! " 

The Hermit cross'd his brow. 

" Say quick," quoth he, " I bid thee 

say 
— ^What manner of man art thou ? " 

Forthwith this frame of mine was 

wrench'd 
With a woful agony. 
Which forced me to begin my tale ; 
And then it left me free. 

Since then, at an uncertain hour. 
That agony returns : 
And till my ghastly tale is told. 
This heart within me burns. 

I pass, like night, from land to land ; 
I have strange power of speech ; 
That moment that his face I see, 
I know the man that must hear me : 
To him my tale I teach. 

What loud uproar bursts from that 

door! 
The wedding-guests are there : 



But in the garden-bower the bride 
And bride-maids singing are : 
And hark ! the little vesper-bell. 
Which biddeth me to prayer. 

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been 
Alone on a wide wide sea : 
So lonely 't was, that God himself 
Scarce seemed there to be. 

O sweeter than the marriage-feast, 
'Tis sweeter far to me. 
To walk together to the kirk, 
With a goodly company ! — 

To walk together to the kirk, 
And all together pray. 
While each to his great Father bends. 
Old men, and babes, and loving 

friends, 
And youths and maidens gay ! 

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest ! 
He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

He prayeth best, who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who lovelli us, 
He made and loveth all. 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 
Whose beard with age is hoar. 
Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest 
Turn'd from the bridegroom's door. 

He went like one that hath been 

stunn'd, 
And is of sense forlorn, 
A sadder and a wiser man 
He rose the morrow morn. 



And to teach, by 
his own example, 
love and rever- 
ence to all things 
that God made 
and lovelh. 



dJIirCfiitatjeL 



PREFACE* 



The first part of the following poem was written in 
the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
seven, at Stowey in the county of Somerset. The 
second part, after my return from Germany, in the 
year one thousand eight hundred, at Keswick, Cum- 
berland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers 
liave been, till very lately, in a state of suspended 
animation. But as, in my very first conception of the 
tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the 
wholeness, no less than with the loveliness of a 
vision, I trust that I shall yet be able to embody in 
verse the three parts yet to come. 

It is probable, that if the poem had been finished 



• To the edition of 1816. 



at either of the former periods, or if even the first 
and second part had been pubhshed m the year 1 800, 
the impression of its originality would have been 
much greater than I dare at present expect. Bui 
for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. 
The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose 
of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imi- 
tation from myself For there is amongst us a set of 
critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought 
and image is traditional ; who have no notion that there 
are such things as fountains in the world, small as 
well as great; and who would therefore charitably 
derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perfora- 
tion made in some other man's lank. I am con.ldent, 
however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, 
the celebrated poets whose writings I might be sus- 
pected of having imitated, either in particular pas- 
sages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole 
would be among the first to vindicate me from th 
76 



CIIRISTABEL. 



67 



charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would 
permit nio to adtlress llieni in this doggrel version of 
two monkisli Latin hexameters. 

'T is mine and it is likewise yours ; 
But nn' if this will nut do, 
Lot it be mine, good friend ! for I 
Am the poorer of the two. 

I have only to add that the metre of the Christa- 
bel is not, properly si)cakin5^, irregular, though it 
may seem so from its being founded on a new prin- 
ciple : namely, that of counting in each line the ac- 
cents, not the syliahles. Though the latter may vary 
from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents 
will be found to be only four. Kcverlheless this oc- 
casional variation in number of syllables is not in- 
troduced wanloidy, or for the mere ends of conveni- 
ence, but in corres(iondence with some transition, in 
the nature of the imagery or passion. 



CHRISTABEL. 



PART I. 



'T IS the middle of night by the castle clock. 
And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock 

Tu-whit ! Tu-whoo ! 

And hark, again.' the crowing cock, 
How drowsily it crew. 

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich. 

Hath a toothless mastiff, which 

From her kennel beneath the rock 

Maketh answer to the clock. 

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 

Kver and aye, by shine and shower, 

Sixteen short howls, not over-loud ; 

Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. 

Is the night chilly and dark? 
The night is chilly, but not dark. 
The thin gray cloud is spread on high. 
It covers but not hides the sky. 
The moon is behind, and at the full ; 
And yet she looks both small and dull. 
The night is cliill, the cloud is gray : 
'Tis a month before the month of May, 
And tlie Spring comes slowly up this way. 

The lovely lady, Christabel, 

Whom her father loves so well. 

What makes her in the wood so late, 

A furlong from tlie castle gate ? 

She had dreams all yesternight 

Of her own betrothed knight ; 

And she in the midnight wood will pray 

For the weal of her lover that 's far away 

She stole along, she nothing spoke, 

The sighs she heaved were soft and low. 

And naught was green upon the oak, 

But moss and rarest mislctoe : 

She kneels beneath the huge oak-tree, 

And in silence prayeth she. 



The lady sprang up suddenly, 

The lovely lady, Christabel ' 

It nioan'd as near, as near can be. 

But what it is, she caimot tell. — 

On the oihcr .<ide it seems to be. 

Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak-tree. 

Tlio night is chill; the forest bare; 

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 

Tliere is not wind enough in the air 

To move away the ringlet curl 

From the lovely lady's cheek — 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of its clan. 

That dances as often as dance it can. 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high. 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! 
Jesii, Maria, shield her well ! 
She folded her arms beneath her cloak. 
And stole to the other side of the oak. 
What sees she there ? 

There she sees a damsel bright, 
Brest in a silken robe of white, 
That shadov\y in the moonlight shone : 
The neck that made that white robe wan, 
Her stately neck, and arms, were bare ; 
Her blue-vein'd feet unsandall'd were, 
And wildly glitter'd here and there 
The gems entangled in her hair. 
I guess, 't was frightful there to see 
A lady so richly clad as she — 
Beautiful exceedingly ! 

Mary mother, save me now ! 

(Said Christabel), And who art thou ? 

The lady strange made answer meet. 

And her voice was faint and sweet : — 

Have pity on my sore distress, 

I scarce can speak for weariness : 

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear ! 

Said Chri.stabel, How earnest thou here ? 

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweel. 

Did thus pursue her answer meet : — 



My sire is of a noble line. 
And my name is Geraldine : 
Five warriors seized me yestermom. 
Me, even me, a maid forlorn : 
They choked my cries with force and fright. 
And tied me on a palfrey white. 
The palfrey was as fleet as wind. 
And they rode furiously behind. 
They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white; 
And once we cross 'd the shade of night. 
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, 
I have no thought what men they be ; 
Nor do I know how long it is 
(For I have lain entranced I wis) 
Since one, the tallest of the five, 
Took me from the palfrey's back, 
A weary woman, scarce alive. 
Some mutter'd words his comrades spoke 
He placed me underneath tliis oak, 
11 77 



68 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



He swore they would return with haste : 
VVhither they went I cannot tell — 
I thought I heard, some minutes past, 
Sounds as of a castle-bell. 
Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she), 
And help a wretched maid to flee. 

Then Christabel stretch'd forth her hand, 

And comforted fair Geraldine : 

O well, bright dame ! may you command 

The service of Sir Leoline ; 

And gladly our stout chivalry 

Will he send forth and friends withal. 

To guide and guard you safe and free 

Home to your noble father's hall. 

She rose ; and forth with steps they pass'd 

That strove to be, and were not, fast. 

Her gracious stars the lady blest. 

And thus spake on sweet Christabel : 

All our household are at rest. 

The hall as silent as the cell ; 

Sir Leoline is weak in health, 

And may not well awaken'd be. 

But we will move as if in stealth ; 

And I beseech your courtesy, 

Tliis night, to share your couch with me. 

They cross'd the moat, and Christabel 

Took the key that fitted well ; 

A little door slie open'd straight. 

All in the middle of the gate ; 

The gate that was iron'd within and without, 

Wliere an army in battle array had march'd oui 

The lady sank, belike through pain. 

And Christabel with might and main 

Lifted her up, a weary weight. 

Over the threshold of the gate : 

Then the lady rose again. 

And moved, as she were not in pain. 

So free from danger, free from fear. 

They cross'd the court : right glad they w <e. 

And Christabel devoutly cried 

To the lady by her side. 

Praise we the Virgin all divine 

Who hath rescued tliee from thy distress ! 

Alas, alas ! said Geraldine, 

I cannot speak for weariness. 

So free from danger, free from fear, 

They cross'd the court : right glad they .vere. 

Outside her kennel, the masrifT old 
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. 
The mastiff old did not awake. 
Yet she an angry moan did make ! 
And what can ail the mastiff bitch ? 
Never till now she utter'd yell 
Beneath the eye of Christabel. 
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch: 
For what can ail the mastiff bitch ? 

They pass'd the hall, that echoes still, 
Pass as lightly as you will ! 
The brands were flat, the brands were dying. 
Amid iheif own white ashes lying : 



But when the lady pass'd, there came 

A tongue of light, a fit of flame ; 

And Christabel saw the lady's eye. 

And notliing else saw she thereby. 

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, 

Wliich hung in a nuirky old niche in the wall. 

O softly tread ! said Christabel, 

My father seldom sleepeth well. 

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare ; 
And, jealous of tlie listening air, 
They steal their way from stair to stair : 
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom — 
And now they pass the Baron's room. 
As still as death with stifled breath! 
And now have reach'd her chamber-door ; 
And now doth Geraldine press down 
The rushea of the chamber floor. 

The moon shines dim in the open air, 
And not a moonbeam enters here. 
But they without its light can see 
The chamber carved so curiously, 
Carved with figures strange and sweet, 
All made out of the carver's brain, 
For a lady's chamber meet : 
The lamp with twofold silver chain 
Is fasten'd to an angel's feet. 

The silver lamp burns dead and dim ; 

But Christabel the lamp will trim. 

She trimm'd the lamp, and made it bright. 

And left it swinging to and fro. 

While Geraldine, in wretched plight 

Sank dowii upon the floor below. 

weary lady, Geraldine, 

1 pray you, drink this cordial wine '. 
It is a wine of virtuous powers ; 
My mother made it of wild flowers 

And will your mother pity me, 
Wlio am a maiden most forlorn ? 
Christabel answer'd — Woe is me ! 
She died the hour that I was bom. 
I have heard the gray-hair'd friar tell. 
How on her death-bed she did say, 
That she should hear the castle-bell 
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. 

mother dear ! that thou wert here ! 

1 would, said Geraldine, she were ! 

But soon, with alter'd voice, said she — 
" Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine ! 
I have power to bid thee flee. " 
Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ? 
Why stares she with unsettled eye ? 
Can she the bodiless dead espy ? 
And why with hollow voice cries she, 
" Off woman, off! this hour is mine — 
Though thou her guardian spirit be, 
Ofl^ woman, off! 'tis given to me." 

Tlien Christabel knelt by the lady's side. 
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — 
Alas ! said she, this ghastly ride — 
Dear lady! it hath wilder'd you! 
78 



CHRISTABEL. 



The lady wipeJ lier moist cold brow, 
And faintly said, " 'T is over now ! " 

Again the wild-flower wine she drank : 
Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright. 
And Irom the floor whereon she sank, 
The lofty lady stood upright ; 
She was most beautiful to see. 
Like a lady of a far countree. 

And thus the lofty lady spake — 
All they, who hve in the upper sky. 
Do love you, holy Christabel ! 
And you love them, and for their sake 
And for the good which nie befell, 
Even 1 in my degree will try, 
Fair maiden ! to requite you well. 
But now unrobe yourself; for I 
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie. 

Quoth Christabel, So let it be ! 
And as the lady bade, did she. 
Her gentle limbs did she undress. 
And lay down in her loveliness. 

But through her brain of weal and woe 
So many thoughts moved to and fro. 
That vain it were her lids to close ; 
So half-way from the bed she rose, 
And on her elbow did recline 
To look at the Lady Geraldine. 

Beneath the lamp the lady bow'd. 
And slowly roll'd her eyes around ,• 
Then drawing in her breath aloud, 
Like one that shudder'd, she unbound 
The cincture from, beneath her breast : 
Her silken robn, and inner vest, 
Dropt to her feet, and full in view. 

Behold ! her bosom and half her side 

A sight to dream of, not to tell ! 

O shield her ! shield sweet Christabel 

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs ; 
Ah ! what a stricken look was hers ! 
Deep from within she seems half-way 
To lift some weight with sick assay, 
And eyes the maid and seeks delay ; 
Then suddenly as one defied 
Collects herself in scorn and pride. 
And lay down by the Maiden's side ! — 
And in her arms the maid she took, 

Ah well-a-day ! 
And with low voice and doleful look 
These words did say 
In the touch of this bosom tliere workelh a spell. 
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel ! 
TIiou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow 
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ; 
But vainly thou warrest. 

For this is alone in 
Thy power to declare. 

That in the dim forest 
Thou heardest a low moaning, 
H 



\n(l foundest a bright lady, surpassingly fair: 

And didst bring her home with Uiee in love and in 

charily, 
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air. 

THE CONCLUSION TO PART I. 

It was a lovely sight to see 
The lady Christabel, when she 
Was praying at the old oak-tree. 

Amid the jagged shadows 

Of mossy leafless boughs, 

Kneeling in the moonhght, 

To make her gentle vows ; 
Her slender palms together prest. 
Heaving sometimes on her breast ; 
Her face resign'd to bliss or bale — 
Her face, O call it fair, not pale ! 
And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 
Each about to have a tear. 



With open eyes (ah woe is me !) 
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully. 
Fearfully dreaming, yet I wis. 
Dreaming that alone, which is — 
O sorrow and shame ! Can this be she, 
The lady, who knelt at the old oak-tree ? 
And lo ! the worker of these harms. 
That holds the maiden in her arms. 
Seems to slumber still and mild. 
As a mother with her child. 

A star hath set, a star hath risen, 
O Geraldine ! since arms of thine 
Have been the lovely lady's prison. 
O Geraldine ! one hour was thine — 
Thou 'st had thy will ! By tairn and rill. 
The night-birds all that hour were still. 
But now they are jubilant anew. 
From cliflT and tower, tu-whoo ! tu-whoo ! 
Tu-whoo ! tu-whoo ! from wood and fell ! 



And see ! the lady Christabel 
Gathers herself from out her trance ; 
Her limbs relax, her countenance 
Grows sad and soft ; the smooth thin lids 
Close o'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds- 
Large tears that leave the lashes bright ! 
And oft the while she seems to smile 
As infants at a sudden light! 



Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weejv 
Like a youthful hermitess, 
Beauteous in a wilderness. 
Who, praying alw'ays, prays in sleep. 
And, if she move unquietly, 
Perchance, 't is but the blood so free, 
Comes back and tingles in her feet 
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet : 
What if her guardian spirit 't were. 
What if she knew her mother near ? 
But this she knows, in joys and woes, 
That saints will aid if men will call : 
For the blue sky bends over all ! 
79 



70 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



PART II. 

Each matin-bell, the Baron saith, 
Knells us back to a world of death. 
These words Sir Leoline first said, 
When he rose and found his lady dead : 
These words Sir Leoline will say, 
Many a morn to his dying day ! 

And hence the custom and law began, 
That still at dawn the sacristan, 
Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 
Five-and-forty beads must tell 
Between each stroke — a warning knell. 
Which not a soul can choose but hear 
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere. 

Saith Bracy the bard, So let it Imell ! 
And let the drowsy sacristan 
Still count as slowly as he can ! 
There is no lack of such, I ween, 
As well fill up the space between. 
In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair 
And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent. 
With ropes of rock and bells of air 
Three sinful sextons' ghost-s are pent, 
Who all give back, one after t' other. 
The death-note to their living brother ; 
And ofl too, by the knell offended. 
Just as their one ! two ! three I is ended. 
The devil mocks the doleful tale 
With a merry peal from Borrowdale. 

The air is still ! through mist and cloud 
That merry peal comes ringing loud ; 
And Geraldine shakes off her dread, 
And rises lightly from the bed ; 
Puts on her silken vestments white, 
And tricks her hair in lovely plight, 
And, nothing doubting of her spell, 
Awakens the lady Christabel. 
" Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel ? 
I trust that you have rested well." 

And Christabel awoke and spied 

The same who lay down by her side — 

O rather say, the same whom she 

Raised up beneath the old oak-tree ! 

Nay, fairer yet ! and yet more fair ! 

For she belike hath drunken deep 

Of all the blessedness of sleep ! 

And while she spake, her loolis, her air 

Such gentle thankfulness declare, 

That (so it seem'd) her girded vests 

Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 

" Sure I have sinn'd," said Christabel, 

" Now Heaven be praised if all be well ! ' 

And in low faltering tones, yet sweet. 

Did she the lofty lady greet 

With such perplexity of mind 

As dreams too lively leave behind. 

So quickly she rose, and quickly array 'd 
Her maiden limbs, and having pray'd 
That He, who on the cross did groan, 
Might wash away her sins unknown. 



She forthwith led fair Geraldine 
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline. 

The lovely maid and the lady tall 
Are pacing both into the hall. 
And, pacing on through page and groc-m 
Enter the Baron's presence-room. 

The Baron rose, and while he prest 
His gentle daughter to his breast. 
With cheerful wonder in his eyes 
The lady Geraldine espies. 
And gave such welcome to the same. 
As might beseem so bright a dame ! 

But when he heard the lady's tale. 
And when she told her father's name, 
Why wax'd Sir Leoline so pale. 
Murmuring o'er the name again, 
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ? 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth , 
And constancy lives in realms above. 
And life is thorny ; and youth is vain : 
And to be wroth with one we love. 
Doth work like madness in the brain. 
And thus it chanced, as I divine, 
With Roland and Sir Leoline. 
Each spake words of high disdain 
And insult to his heart's best brother : 
They parted — ne'er to meet again .' 
But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining — 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining. 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 
A dreary sea now flows between. 
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 
Shall wholly do away„ I ween. 
The marks of that which once hath been 
Sir Leoline, a moment's space. 
Stood gazing on the damsel's face ; 
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine 
Came back upon his heart again. 

then the Baron forgot his age ! 

His noble heart swell'd high with rage ; 

He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side, 

He would proclaim it far and wide 

With trump and solemn heraldry. 

That they, who thus had wrong'd the dame 

Were base as spotted infamy ! 

" And if they dare deny the same. 

My herald shall appoint a week. 

And let the recreant traitors seek 

My tourney court — that there and then 

1 may dislodge their reptile souls 
From the bodies and forms of men ! " 
He spake : his eye in lightning rolls ! 

For the lady was ruthlessly seized ; and he keiui i 
In the beautiful lady the cliild of his friend ! 

And now the tears were on his face. 
And fondly in his arms he took 
Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace, 
Prolonging it with joyous look. 

80 



CIIRISTABEL. 



71 



%\Tiich when she view'd, a vision fell 

Upon the soul of Christabcl, 

The vision of fear, ihe lourh and pain ! 

She shrunk and shiiddcr'd, and saw again — 

(Ah, woe is me ! Was it for thee, 

Thou gentle maid ! such sights to see ?) 

Again she saw that bosom old, 

Again she felt that bosom cold. 

And drew in her breath wiih a hissing sound : 

Whereat the knight turn'd wildly round, 

And nothing saw but his own sweet maid 

Witli eyes upraised, as one that pray'd. 

The touch, the sight, had pass'd away. 
And in its stead that vision blest, 
Which comforted her afier-rcst. 
While in the lady's arms she lay, 
Had put a rapture in her breast, 
And on her lips and o'er her eyes 
Spread smiles like light ! 

With now surprise, 
" What ails then my beloved child ?" 
The Baron said — His daughter mild 
Made answer, " All will yet be well ! " 
I ween, she had no power to tell 
Aught else : so mighty was the spell. 

Yet he, who saw this Geraldine, 
Had deem'd her sure a thing divine. 
Such sorrow with such grace she blended, 
As if she fear'd she had offended 
Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid ! 
And with such lowly tones she pray'd, 
She might be sent without delay 
Home to her father's mansion. 

" Nay ! 
Nay, by my soul ! " said Leoline. 
•' Ho ! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine : 
Go thou, with music sweet and loud. 
And take two steeds with trappings proud. 
And take the youth whom tliou lovest best 
To bear thy harp, and learn thy song, 
And clothe you both in solemn vest. 
And over the mountains haste along. 
Lest wandering folk, that are abroad. 
Detain you on the valley road. 
And when he has cross'd the Irthing flood. 
My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes 
Up Knorren Moor, through Halcgarlh wood. 
And reaches soon that caslle good 
Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes. 

"* Bard Bracy, bard Bracy ! your horses are fleet, 

Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet. 

More loud than your horses' echoing feet ! 

And loud and loud to Lord Rol.ind call. 

Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall ! 

Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free — 

Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me. 

He bids thee come without delay 

With all thy numerous array ; 

\nd take thy lovely daughter home : 

And he will meet thee on the way 



With all his numerous array, 
White with their panting palfreys' foam ; 
And by mine honor ! I will say, 
That 1 repent me of the day 
When I spake words of high disdain 
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ! 
— For since that evil hour hath flown. 
Many a summer's sun halh shone ; 
Yet ne'er found I a friend again 
Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine." 

The Lady fell, and elasp'd his knees, 
Her face upraised, her eyes o'ertiowing ; 
And Bracy replied, wilh faltering voice. 
Her gracious hail on all bestowing ; — 
Thy words, thou sire of Christabel, 
Are sweeter than my harp can tell ; 
Yet might I gain a boon of thee. 
This day my journey should not be. 
So strange a dream hath come to me , 
That I had vow'd with music loud 
To clear yon wood from thing unblest, 
Warn'd by a vision in my rest ! 
For in my sleep I saw that dove. 
That gentle bird, whom thou dost love. 
And call'st by thy own daughter's name^ 
Sir Leoline ! 1 saw the same. 
Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan. 
Among the green herbs in the forest alone. 
Wliich when I saw and when I heard, 
I wonder'd what might ail the bird : 
For nothing near it could I see. 
Save the grass and green herbs imderneath the 
old tree. 

And in my dream, mclhought, I went 
To search out what might there be found; 
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant 
That thus lay fluttering on the ground. 
I went and peer'd, and could descry 
No cause for her distressful cry ; 
But yet for her dear lady's sake 
I stoop'd, methought, the dove to take. 
When lo ! I saw a bright green snake 
Coil'd around its wings and neck. 
Green as the herbs on which it couch'd, 
Close by the dove's its head it crouch'd ! 
And with the dove it heaves and stirs. 
Swelling its neck as she svvell'd hers ! 
I woke ; it was tlie midnight hour. 
The clock was echoing in the tower; 
But though my slumber was gone by, 
This dream it would not pass away — 
It seems to live upon my eye ! 
And thence I vow'd this self-same day. 
With music strong and saintly song 
To wander through the forest bare. 
Lest aught imholy loiter there. 

Thus Bracy said : the Baron, the while, 
Half-listening heard him wilh a smile ; 
Then turn'd to Lady Geraldine, 
HLis eyes made up of wonder and love ; 
And said in courtly accents fine. 
Sweet Maid ! Lord Roland's beauteous dove. 
With arms more strong than harp or song, 
81 



72 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Thy sire and I will crush the snake ! 
He kiss'd her forehead as he spake, 
And Geraldine in maiden wise, 
Casting down her large bright eyes, 
With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 
She turn'd her from Sir Leoline ; 
Softly gathering up her train, 
That o'er her right arm fell again ; 
And folded her arms across her chest, 
And couch'd her head upon her breast, 

And look'd askance at Christabel 

Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! 

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy. 

And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, 

Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye. 

And with somewhat of malice and more of dread. 

At Christabel she look'd askance : — 

One moment — and the sight was fled ! 

But Christabel, in dizzy trance 

Stumbling on the unsteady ground, 

Shudder'd aloud, with a hissing sound ; 

And Geraldine again turn'd round. 

And like a thing, that sought relief, 

Full of wonder and full of grief, 

She roll'd her large bright eyes divine 

Wildly on Sir Leoline. 

The maid, alas ! her thoughts are gone, 
Slie nothing sees — no sight but one ! 
The maid, devoid of guile and sin, 
I know not how, in fearful wise 
So deeply had she drunken in 
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, 
That all her features were resign'd 
To this sole image in her mind : 
And passively did imitate 
That look of dull and treacherous hate ! 
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance, 
Still picturing that look askance 
With forced, unconscious sympathy 

Full before her father's view 

As far as such a look could be, 
In eyes so innocent and blue. 
And when the trance was o'er, the maid 
Paused awhile, and inly pray'd : 
Then falling at the Baron's feet, 
" By my mother's soul do I entreat 
That thou this woman send away ! " 
She said : and more she could not say ; 
For what she knew she could not tell, 
O'ermaster'd by the mighty spell. 

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, 
Sir Leoline ? Thy only child 
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride. 
So fair, so innocent, so mild ( 



The same, for whom thy lady died. 

by the pangs of her dear mother. 
Think thou no evil of thy child ! 
For her, and thee, and for no other, 
She pray'd the moment ere she died ; 
Pray'd that the babe for whom she died 
Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride ! 

That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled. 

Sir Leoline ! 
And wouldst thou wrong thy only child. 

Her child and thine ? 

Within the Baron's heart and brain 

If thoughts like these had any share. 

They only swell'd his rage and pain. 

And did but work confusion there. 

His heart was cleft witli pain and rage, 

His cheeks they quiver'd, his eyes were wild, 

Dishonor'd thus in his old age ; 

Dishonor'd by his only child, 

And all his hospilality 

To the insulted daughter of his friend 

By more than woman's jealousy 

Brought thus to a disgraceful end — 

He roll'd his eye with stern regard 

Upon the gentle minstrel bard, 

And said in tones abrupt, austere, 

Why, Bracy ! dost thou loiter here ? 

1 bade thee hence ! The Bard obey'd ; 
And, turning from his own sweet maid. 
The aged knight. Sir Leoline, 

Led forth the lady Geraldine ! 

THE CONCLUSION TO PART II. 

A LITTLE child, a limber elf, 

Singing, dancing to itself, 

A fairy thing with red round cheeks 

That always finds and never seeks, 

Makes such a vision to the sight 

As fills a father's eyes with light ; 

And pleasures flow in so tliick and fast 

Upon his heart, that he at last 

Must needs express his love's excess 

With words of unmeant bitterness. 

Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together 

Thoughts so all unlike each other ; 

To mutter and mock a broken cliarm. 

To dally with wrong that does no harm. 

Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty 

At each wild word to feel within 

A sweet recoil of love and pity. 

And what, if in a world of sin 

(O sorrow and shame should this be true) ! 

Such giddiness of heart and brain 

Comes seldom save from rage and pain, 

So talks as it 's most used to do. 

82 



REMORSE. 



73 



A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS. 



DRAMATIS PERSONyE. 



Marquis Valdez, Father to the two brollters, and 

Dontia Terc.ta's Guardian. 
Don Alvar, the eldest son. 
Don Ordonio, th^' ynuticrext son. 
MoNViEDRO, a Dominican and Imptlsilor. 
ZULIMGZ, the faithful attendant on Ahar. 
Isidore, a Moresco Chieftain, ostensibly a Christian. 
Familiars of the Inquisition. 
Naomi. 

Moors, Servants, etc. 
DoxNA Teresa, an Orphan Heiress. 
Alhadra, Wife to Isidore. 

TinK. The reign of Philip II., just at the close of 
the ci\il wars against the Mooi-s, and iluring the 
heat of the persecution which raged against them, 
shortly after the edict which forbade the wearing 
of Moresco apparel under pain of death. 



REMORSE. 



ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

77(6 Sea Shore on the Coast of Granada. 

Don Alvar, wrapt iw a Boat-cloak, and Zulimez 
(a Moresco), both as just landed 

ZULIMEZ. 

No sound, no face of joy to welcome us ! 

alvar. 
My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment 
Let me forget my anguish and their crimes. 
If aught on earth demand an unmix'd feeling, 
'Tis surely this — after long years of exile, 
To step forth on firm land, and gazing round us. 
To hail at once oiu- country, and our birth-place. 
Hail, Spain! Granada, hail! once more I press 
Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers ! 

ZULIMEZ. 

Tlien claim your rights in ii! O, revered Don Alvar, 

Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose. 

Il is too hazardous ! reveal yourself. 

And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt ! 

alvar. 
Remember, Zulimez! I am liis brother: 
Injured, indeed ! O deeply injured ! yet 
Ordonio's brother. 

ZULIMEZ. 

Nobly-minded Alvar! 
This sure but gives liis guilt a blacker dye. 

alvar. 
The more behoves it, I should rouse within him 
Remorse ! that I should save him from himselC 
U2 



zulimez. 
Remorse is as tlie heart Ln whidi it grows : 
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews 
Of true ropenlance ; but if proud and gloomy. 
It is a poison-tree that, pierced to the inmost. 
Weeps only tears of poison. 

ALVAR. 

And of a brother. 
Dare I hold this, unpmved ? nor make one effort. 
To save him ? — Hear me, friend ! I have yet to tell thea 
That this same life, which he conspired to take, 
Himself once rescued fnim the angry flood, 
And at the imminent hazard of liis own. 
Add too my oath — 

ZULIMEZ. 

You have thrice told already 
The years of absence and of secrecy. 
To wliicli a forced oath bound yo;i : if in truth 
A sulx)rn'd murderer have tlie pov^cr to dictate 
A binding oath — 

ALVATt. 

My long captivity 
Left nie no choice : i!:e very W'isJi too languish'd 
With the fond Hope that nursed it ; the sick babe 
Droop'd at the bosom of its famish'd mother 
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy ; 
The assassin's strong a.ssurance, when no interest. 
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood: 
In the first pangs of liis awaken'd conscience, 
Ulien with abhorrence of his own black purpose 
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast, 
Fell from his palsied hand — 

ZULIMEZ. 

Heavy presumption! 

ALVAR. 

It weigh'd not with me — Hark ! I will tell thee all : 
As we pass'd by, I bade thee mark the base 
Of yonder clifl^^ — 

ZULIMEZ. 

Tliat rocky seat you mean, 
Shaped by the billows ? — 

ALVAR. 

There Teresa met me, 
The morning of the day of my departure. 
We were alone : the purple hue of dawn 
Fell from the kindling cast aslant upon us, 
And, blending with the blushes on her cheek, 
Suffused the tear-drops there with rosy light 
There seem'd a glory round us, and Teresa 
The angel of the vision ! [Then with agitation 

Hadst thou seen 
How in each motion her most innocent soul 
Beam'd forth and brighten'd, lliou thyself wouldst 

tell me. 
Guilt is a thing impossible in her ! 
She must be innocent ! 

ZULIMEZ (,imth a sigh). 

Proceed, my Lord ! 
83 



74 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



ALVAR. 

A portrait wliich she had procured by stealth 

(For ever then it seems her heart foreboded 

Or knew Ordonio's moody rivalry), 

A portrait of herself with thrilling hand 

She tied around my neck, conjuring me 

With earnest prayers, tlial I would keep it sacred 

To my own knowledge : nor did she desist. 

Till she had won a solemn promise from me. 

That (save my own) no eye should e'er behold it 

Till my return. Yet this the assassin luiew. 

Knew that which none but she could have disclosed. 

ZULIMEZ. 

A damning proof! 

ALVAR. 

My ovkai life wearied me ! 
And but for the imperative Voice within. 
With mine o\\'n hand I had thrown off the burthen. 
That Voice, which quell'd me, calm'd me: and I 

sought 
The Belgic slates : there join'd the better cause ; 
And there too fought as one that courted death! 
Wounded, I fell among the dead and dying. 
In death-hke trance : a long imprisonment follow'd. 
The fullness of my anguish by degrees 
Waned to a meditative melancholy ; 
And still, the more I mused, my soul became 
More doubtful, more perplex'd ; and still Teresa, 
Night after night, she visited my sleep, 
JVow as a saintly siifTerer, wan and tearful, 
Now as a saint in glory beckoning to me ! 
Yes, still, a-s in contempt of proof and reason, 
I cherish the fond faith that she is guiltless ! 
Hear then my fix'd resolve : I '11 linger here 
In the disguise of a Moresco cliieflain. — 
The Moorish robes ? — 

ZULIMEZ. 

All, all are in the sea-cave, 
Some furlong hence. I bade our mariners 
Secrete the boat there. 

ALVAR. 

Above all, the picture 
Of the assassination — 

ZULIMEZ. 

Be assured 
That it remains uninjured. 

ALVAR. 

Thus disguised, 
I will first seek to meet Ordonio's — wife! 
If possible, alone too. This was her wonted walk. 
And this the hour ; her words, her very loolis 
Will acquit her or convict. 

ZULIMEZ. 

Will they not know you' 

ALVAR. 

With your aid, friend, I shall unfearingly 
Trust the disguise ; and as to my complexion, 
My long imprisonment, the scanty food. 
This scar, — and toil beneath a burning sun, 
Have done already half tlie business for us. 
Add too my youth, when last we saw each other. 
Manhood has swoln my chest, and taught my voice 
A hoarser note — Besides, they think me dead : 
And what the mind believes impossible, 
The bodily sense is slow to recognize. 

ZULIMEZ. 

'T is yours, Sir, to command ; mine to obey. 



Now to the cave beneath the vaulted rock. 
Where having shaped you to a Moorish chieftain, 
I will seek our mariners ; and in the dusk 
Transport whate'er we need to the small dell 
In the Alpuxarras — there where Zagri lived. 

ALVAR. 

I know it well : it is tlie obscm-est haunt 

Of all the mountains — [Both stand Ustenivg 

Voices at a distance ! 
Let us away ! [Exeunt. 



SCENE n. 



Enter Teresa and Valdez. 

TERESA. 

I hold Ordonio dear ; he is your son 
And Alvar's brother. 

VALDEZ. 

Love him for himself, 
Nor make the living wretched for the dead. 

TERESA. 

I mourn that you should plead in vain. Lord Valdez; 
But heaven hath heard my vow, and I remain 
Faithful to Alvar, be he dead or living. 

VALDEZ. 

Heaven knows with what deliglit I saw your loves, 
And could my heart's blood give him back to thee, 
I would die smiling. But these are idle thoughts ; 
Thy dying father comes upon my soul 
With that same look, with which he gave thee to me, 
I held thee in my arms a powerless babe, 
^Vllile thy poor mother with a mule entreaty 
Fix'd her faint eyes on mine. Ah not for this. 
That I should let thee feed thy soul with gloom, 
And with slovi' anguish wear away thy life, 
The victim of a useless constancy. 
I must not see thee wretched. 

TERESA. 

There are woes 
Ill-barter'd for the garishness of joy ! 
If it be wretclied with an untired eye 
To watch those sldey tint.s, and this green ocean; 
Or in the sultry hour beneath some rock. 
My hair dishevell'd by the pleasant sea-breeze. 
To shape sweet visions, and live o'er again 
All past hours of delight ! If it be wretched 
To watch some bark, and fancy Alvar there. 
To go through each minutest circumstance 
Of the blest meeting, and to frame adventures 
Most terrible and strange, and hear him tell them ; 
* (As once I knew a crazy Moorish maid 
Who drest her in her buried lover's clothes. 
And o'er the smooth spring in tlie mountain cleft 
Hung with her lute, and play'd the sclf-same time 
He used to play, and listen'd to the shadow 
Herself had made) — if this be wretchedness, 
And if indeed it be a wretched thing 
To trick out mine own death-bed, and imagine 
That I had died, died just ere his'retuiTi ! 
Then see him listening to my constancy, 
Or hover round, as he at midnight oft 



* Here Valdez bendg back, and smiles at her wildness, 
which Teresa noticing, checks her enthusiasm, and in a sooth- 
ing hall-playful tone and manner, apologizes for her fancy 
by the little tale in the parenthesis. 

84 



REMORSE. 



75 



Sits on my grave and gazes at the inoun ; 

Or hajily, in some more fantastic mood, 

To l)e in Paradise, and willi choice (lowers 

Build up a l)o\vcr where ho and I might dwell. 

And tliere to wait liis coming ! O ray sire ! 

My Alvar's sire! if this be wretchedness 

That eats away the life, wliat were it, tliink you. 

If in a most assured reahly 

lie sliould roluni, and see a brother's infant 

Smile at liini from my arms^ 

Oh, what a thought I [Clasping her /oreJiead. 

VALDEZ. 

A thought ? even so ! mere thought ! an empty thought. 

The very week he promised his return 

TERESA {abruptly). 
Was it not then a busy joy ? to see him. 
After those three years' travels! w'e had no fears — 
The frequent tidings, the ne'er-failing letter, 
Almost endear'd his absence ! Yet the gladness, 
The tumult of our joy ! What then if now 

VAI-DEZ. 

power of youth to feed on pleasant thoughts. 
Spite of conviction ! I am old and heartless ! 
Yes, I am old — I have no pleasant fancies — 
Hectic and unrefresh'd with rest — 

TERESA (with great te/iderncss) 

My father ! 

VALDEZ. 

The sober truth is all too much for me ! 

1 see no sail which brings not to my mind 

The home-boimd bark in w hieh my son wna captured 
By the Algerine — to perish with his captors ! 

TERESA. 

Oh no ! he did not ! 

VALDEZ. 

Captured in sight of land ! 
From yon hill point, nay, from our castle watch-tower 
We might have seen 

TERESA. 

His capture, not his death. 

VALDEZ. 

Ala-s ! how aptly thou forgett'st a tale 

Thou ne'er didst wish to learn ! my brave Ordonio 

Saw Ixjth the pirate and his jjrize go down. 

In the same storm that baffled his own valor, 

And thus twice snatch'd a brother from his hopes : 

Gallant Ordonio ! {pauses ; then tenderly). O beloved 

Teresa I 
W'ouldst thou best prove thy faith to generous Alvar, 
And most delight his spirit, go, make thou 
His brother happj', make his aged father 
Sink to the grave in joy. 

TERESA. 

For mercy's sake, 
Press me no more ! I have no power to love him. 
His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow, 
Chill me like dew damps of the unwholesome night : 
My love, a timorous and tender flower, 
Closes beneath his touch. 

VALDEZ. 

You wrong him, maiden ! 
You WTong him, by my soul ! Nor was it well 
To character by such unkindly phrases 
The stir and workings of that love for you 
WTiich he has toil'd to smother, 'Twaa not well. 
Nor is it grateful in you to forget 



I lis wounds and perilous voyages, and how 

With an litroic iearlessness of danger 

lie roatn'd liie coiust of Afric for your Alvar. 

It was not well — You have moved me even to tears. 

TERESA. 

Oh pardon me. Lord Valdez ! j)ardon me ! 

It was a foolish and ungrateful speech, 

A most ungrateful speech! But I am hurried 

Beyond myself, if I but hear of one 

Who aims to rival Alvar. Were we not 

Born in one day, like twins of the same parent? 

Nursed in one cradle? Pardon me, my father! 

A six years' absence is a heavy tiling. 

Yet still the hope survives 

VALDEZ (looking foruHird). 
Hush! 'tis Monviedro. 

TERESA 

The Inquisitor ! on what new scent of blood ? 

Enter Monviedro with Alhadra. 

MOiNviEDRO {having first made his obeisance to 
Valdez and Teresa). 

Peace and the truth be with you ! Good my Lord, 
My present need is with your son. 

[Looking forward. 
We have hit the time. Here comes he ! Yes, 'tis he. 

Enter from the opposite side Don Ordonio. 

My Lord Ordonio, this Moresco woman 
(Alhadra is her name) asks audience of you. 

ORDONIO. 

Hail, reverend father! what may be the business? 

MONVIEDRO. 

My Lord, on strong suspicion of relapse 

To his false creed, so recently abjured, 

The secret servants of the inquisition 

Have seized her husband, and at my command 

To the supreme tribunal would have led him. 

But that he made appeal to you, my Lord, 

As surety for his soundness in the faith. 

Though lessen'd by experience what small trust 

The asseverations of these Moors deserve, 

Yet still the deference to Ordonio 's name, 

Nor less the wish to prove, with what high honor 

The Holy Church regards her faithful soldiers. 

Thus far prevail'd with me that 

ORDONIO. 

Reverend father, 
I am much beholden to your high opinion. 
Which so o'erprizes my light services. 

[Then to Alhadra 
I would that I could serve you ; but hi truth 
Your face is new to me. 

MONVIEDRO. 

My mind foretold me, 
Tliat such would be the event. In truth, Lord Valdez, 
'Twas little probable, that Don Ordonio, 
That your illustrious son, who fought so bravely 
Some four years since to quell these rebel Moors, 
Should prove the patron of this infidel ! 
The guarantee of a Moresco's faith ! 
Now I return. 

ALHADRA. 

My Lord, my husband's name 
Is Isidore. (Ordomo starts.) — You may remember it 
12 85 



76 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Three years ago, three years this very week, 
You left liim at Alraeria. 

MONVIEDRO. 

Palpably false ! 
This very week, three years ago, my Lord 
(You needs must" recollect it by your wound), 
You were at sea, and there engaged the pirates, 
The murderers doubtless of your brother Alvar ! 

[Teresa looks at Monviedro with disgust and 
horror. Ordomo's appearance to be collected 
from what follows. 
MONVIEDRO {to Valdez, and pointing at Ordonio). 
What ! is he ill, my Lord \ how strange he looks ! 

VALDEZ {angrily). 
You press'd upon him too abruptly, father, 
The fate of one, on whom, you know, he doted. 

ORDONIO {starting as in sudden agitation). 

Heavens ! / ? I — doted ? {then recovering himself). 

Yes ! I doted on him. 
[Ordonio walks to the end of the stage, 
Valdez follows, soothing him. 
TERESA {her eye following Ordonio). 

1 do not, can not, love him. Is my heart hard ? 
Is my heart hard ? that even now the thought 
Should force itself upon me ? — Yet I feel it ! 

MONVIEDRO. 

The drops did start and stand upon his forehead ! 
I will return. In very truth, I grieve 
To have been the occasion. Ho ! attend me, woman ! 
alhadra {to Teres.\). 

gentle lady ! make the father stay. 
Until my Lord recover. I am sure. 

That he will say he is my husband's friend. 

TERESA. 

Stay, father ! stay ! my Lord will soon recover. 

ORDONIO {as they return, to Valdez). 
Strange, that this Monviedro 
Should have the power so to distemper me ! 

VALDEZ. 

Nay, 't was an amiable wealmess, son ! 

MONVIEDRO. 

My Lord, I truly grieve 

ORDONIO. 

Tut ! name it not. 
A sudden seizure, father ! think not of it. 
As to this woman's husband, I do know him. 

1 know him well, and that he is a Christian. 

MONVIEDRO. 

I hope, my Lord, your merely human pity 
Doth not prevail 

ORDONIO. 

'Tis certain that he vns a Catholic ; 

What changes may have happen'd in three years, 

I cannot say ; but grant me this, good father : 

Myself I '11 sift him : if I find him sound, 

You '11 grant me your authority and name 

To liberate his house. 

MONVIEDRO. 

Your zeal, my Lord, 
And your late merits in this holy warfare, 
Would authorize an ampler trust — you have it 

ORDONIO. 

I will attend you home within an hour. 

VALDEZ. 

Meantime, return with us and take refreshment. 



ALHADRA. 

Not till my husband 's free ! I may not do it 
I will stay here. 

TERESA {aside). 
Who is this Isidore? 

VALDEZ. 

Daughter ! 

TERESA. 

With your permission, my dear Lord, 

I '11 loiter yet awhile t' enjoy the sea breeze. 

[Exeunt Valdez, Monviedro, and Ordonio 

ALHADRA. 

Hah ! there he goes ! a bitter cui-se go with him, 
A scathing curse ! 

{Then as if recollecting herself, and with a timid look) 
You hate him, don't you, lady ? 
TERESA {perceiving that Alhadra is conscious she has 

spoken imprudently). 
Oh fear not me ! my heart is sad for you. 

ALHADRA. 

These fell inquisitors ! these sons of blood ! 
As I came on, his face so madden'd me. 
That ever and anon I clutch'd my dagger 
And half unsheathed it 

TERESA. 

Be more calm, I pray you 

ALHADRA. 

And as he wallced along the narrow path 

Close by the mountain's edge, my soul grew eager; 

'Twas with hard toil I made myseli" remember 

That his Familiars held my babes and husband. 

To have leapt upon him with a tiger's plunge. 

And hurl'd him down the rugged precipice, 

O, it had been most sweet ! 

TERESA. 

Hush ! hush for shame ! 
Where is your woman's heart ? 

ALHADRA. 

O gentle lady ! 
You have no skill to guess my many wrongs. 
Many and strange ! Besides {ironically), I am a Chris- 
tian, 
And Christians never pardon — 'tis their faith! 

TERESA. 

Shame fall on those who so have shown it to thee ! 

ALHADRA. 

I know that man; 'tis well he knows not me. 
Five years ago (and he was the prime agent), 
Five years ago the holy bretliren seized me. 

TERESA. 

What might your crime be ? 

ALHADRA. 

I was a Moresco! 
They cast me, then a young and nursing mother 
Into a dungeon of their prison-house. 
Where was no bed, no fire, no ray of light. 
No touch, no sound of comfort ! "The black air, 
It was a tpil to breathe it ! when the door, 
Slow opening at the appointed hour, disclosed 
One human countenance, the lamp's red flame 
Cower'd as it enter'd, and at once sunk down. 
Oh miserable ! by that lamp to see 
My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread 
Brought daily : for the little WTeteh was sickly — 
My rage had dried away its natural food 
In darkness I remam'd — the dull bell counting, 
86 



REMORSE. 



77 



Wliich haply told me, that all the all-checring Sun 

Was rising on our garden. \Vheii I dozed, 

My infant's moanings mingled with my slumbers 

And waked me. — If you were a mother, Lady, 

I should scarce dare to toll you, that il.s noises 

And peovisli cries so fretted on my brain 

That I have struck the innocent babe in anger. 

TERESA. 

Heaven I it is too horrible to hear. 

AI-HADRA. 

Wliat was it then to suffer ? 'T is most right 
That such as you should hear it. — Know you not, 
What Nature makes you mourn, she bids you heal ? 
Great L'vils ask great Passions to redress them, 
And ^Vhi^lwinds fitliest scatter Pestilence. 

TERESA. 

V'ou were at length released ? 

ALHADRA. 

Yes, at length 

1 saw the blessed arch of the whole heaven ! 
'Twas the first time my infant smiled. No more — 
For if I dwell upoTi that moment, Lady, 

A trance comes on which makes me o'er again 
All I then was — my loiees hang loose and drag. 
And my hp falls with such an idiot laugh, 
That you would start and shudder ! 

TERESA. 

But your husband — 

ALHADRA. 

A month's imprisonment would lull him, Lady. 

TERESA. 

Alas, poor man ! 

ALHADRA. 

He hath a lion's courage. 
Fearless in act, but focble in endurance; 
Unfit for Iwisterous times, with gentle heart 
He worships Nature in the hill ana valley. 
Not knowing what he loves, but loves it all — 

Enter Alvar. disguised as a Moresco, and in Moorish 
garments. 

TERESA. 

Know you that stately Moor? 

ALHADRA. 

I know him not 
But doubt not he is some Moresco chiefiain, 
VVho hides himself among the Alpuxarras. 

TERESA. 

The Alpuxarras ? Does he know his danger. 
So near this seat ? 

ALHADRA. 

He wears the Moori.sh robes too. 
As in defiance of the royal edict. 

[Alhadra adcanres to Alvar, v>hn has vxtlhcd to 
the back of t/ie stage near the rocks. Teresa 
drops her veil. 

ALHADRA 

Gallant Moresco ! An inquisitor, 

Monviedro, of known hatred to our race 

ALVAR {interrupting her). 
Yon have mistaken ine. I am a Christian. 

ALHADRA. 

He deems, that we are plotting to ensnare him : 
Speak to him. Lady — none can hear you speak, 
And not believe you innocent of guile. 



TERESA. 

If aught enforce you to concealment. Sir 

ALHADRA. 

He trembles strangely. 

[Alvar sinks down and hides his face in his roi<. 

TERESA. 

See, we have disturb'd him. 

[Approaches nearer to him, 
I pray you think us friends — uncowl your face. 
For you seem faint, and iho night breeze blows healing 
I pray you think us iriends I 

AL\AR {raisi?ig his head). 

Calm, very calm ! 
'Tis all too tranquil for re.alily! 
And she spoke lo nic with her innocent voice, 
That voice, that innocent voice ! She is no traitress . 

TERESA. 

Let us retire. {Haughtily to Alhadra). 

[They advance to the front of the Stage. 
ALHADRA {icilh scom). 
He is indeed a Chi'istian. 

ALVAR {aside). 
She deems me dead, yet wears no mourning garment! 
Why should my brother's — wife — wear motuning 
garments ? 

[To Teresa, 
Your pardon, noble dame ! that I disturb'd you : 
I had just started from a frightful dream. 

TERESA. 

Dreams tell but of ihc Past, and yet, 'tis said, 
They prophesy — 

ALVAR. 

The Past lives o'er again 
In its effects, and to the guilty spirit 
The ever-frowning Present is its image. 

TERESA. 

Traitress! {Then aside). 

What sudden spell o'ermasters me ? 
Why seeks he me, shunning the Moorish woman? 
[Teresa looks round uneasily, but gradindly be 

comes attentive as Alvar proceeds in the 

next speech. 

ALVAR. 

I dreamt I had a friend, on whom I leant 
With blindest trust, and a betrothed maid. 
Whom I was wont to call not mine, but me : 
For mine own self seem'd nothing, lacldng her. 
This maid so idolized that trusted friend 
Dishonor'd in my absence, soul and body ! 
Fear, following guilt, tempted to blacker guilt. 
And murderers wore snbom'd against my life. 
But by my looks, and most impassion'd words, 
I roused the virtues that are dead in no man 
Even in the assassins' hearts! they made their terms 
And thank'd me for redeeming them from murder. 

ALHADRA. 

You are lost in thought : hear him no more, sweet Lady ' 

TERESA. 

From mom to night I am myself a dreamer. 
And slight things bring on me the idle mood ! 
Well, Sir, what happen'd tlien ? 

ALVAR. 

On a rude rock, 
A rock, methought, fast by a grove of firs, 
Wliose thready leaves to the low breathing gal«» 
Made a soft soimd most like the distant ocean, 

87 



78 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



I stay'd as though tlie hour of death were pass'd, 
And I were sitting in tlie world of spirits — 
For all things seem'd unreal ! There I sate — 
The dews fell clanuiiy, and the night descended, 
Black, sultry, close ! and ere the midnight hour, 
A storm came on, mingling all sounds of fear, 
Tliat woods, and sky, and mountams, seem'd one 

havoc. 
The second flash of lightning show'd a tree 
Hard by me, newly scathed. I rose tumultuous : 
My sold work'd high, I bared my head to the storm, 
And, with loud voice and clamorous agony. 
Kneeling I pray'd to the great Spirit that made me, 
Pray'd that Remorse might fasten on their hearts, 
And chng with poisonous tooth, inextricable 
As the gored lion's bite ! 

TERESA {shuddering). 

A fearful cm"se ! 
ALHADRA {fiercelij). 
But dreamt you not that you return'd and kill'd them? 
Dreamt you of no revenge ? 

ALVAR Qiis voice trembling, and in tones of deep distress). 

She would have died, 
Died in her guilt — perchance by her own hands ! 
And bending o'er her self-inflicted wounds, 
I might have met the evil glance of frenzy. 
And leapt myself into an unblest grave ! 
I pray'd for the punishment that cleanses hearts: 
For still I loved her ! 

ALHADRA. 

And you dreamt all lliis ? 

TERESA. 

My soul is full of visions all as wild ! 

ALHADRA. 

There is no room in this heart for puling love-tales. 
TERESA (lifts up her veil, and advances to Alvar). 
Stranger, farewell ! I guess not who you are, 
JVor why you so address'd your tale to nie. 
Your mien is noble, and, I own, perplex'd me 
With obscure memory of something past. 
Which still escaped my efforts, or presented 
Tricks of a fancy pamper'd with long wishing. 
If, as it sometimes happens, our rude startling 
Wliilst your full heart was shaping out its dream. 
Drove you to this, your not ungentle wildness — 
You have my sympathy, and so farewell ' 
But if some undiscover'd WTongs oppress you. 
And you need strength to drag them into light. 
The generous Valdez, and my Lord Ordonio, 
Have arm and will to aid a noble sufferer ; 
Nor shall you want my favorable pleading. 

[Exeunt Teresa arid Alhadra. 

ALVAR {alone). 
'T is strange ! It cannot be ! my Lord Ordonio ! 
Her Lord Ordonio ! Kay, I will not do it I 
1 cursed him once — and one curse is enough ! 
How bad she look'd, and pale ! but not like guilt — 
And her calm tones — sweet as a song of mercy I 
If the bad spirit relain'd his angel's voice. 
Hell scarce were Hell. And why not innocent? 
Wlio meant to murder me, might well cheat her ? 
But ere she married him, he had stain'd her honor ; 
Ah ! there I am hamper'd. What if this were a lie 
Framed by the assassin ? Who should tell it him, 
If it were truth ? Ordonio would not tell him. 
Yet why one lie ? all else, I know, was truth. 



No start, no jealousy of stirring conscience ! 
And she referr'd to me — fondly, methought ! 
Could she walk here if she had been a traitress ? 
Here, where we play'd together in our childhood? 
Here, where w"e plighted vows? where her cold 

cheek 
Received my last kiss, when with suppress'd feelings 
She had fainted in my arms? It cannot be! 
'Tis not in Nature! I will die, believing 
That I shall meci her where no evil is. 
No treachery, no cup dash'd from the lips. 
I '11 haunt this scene no more ! live she in peace ! 
Her husband — ay, her husband ! May tliis angel 
New mould his canker'd heart ! Assist me. Heaven, 
That I may pray for my poor guilty brother! {Exit. 



ACT IL 

SCENE I. 

A wild and mountainous Country. Ordomo and Isi- 
dore are discovered, supposed at a little distance 
from Isidore's house. 

ORDONIO. 

Here we may stop : your house distinct in view. 
Yet we secured from listeners. 

ISIDORE. 

Now indeed 
My house I and it looks cheerful as the clusters 
Basking in sunshine on yon vine-clad rock. 
That over-brows it ! Patron ! Friend ! Preserver ! 
Thrice have you saved my life. Once in the battle 
You gave it me : next rescued me from suicide, 
When for my follies I was made to wander. 
With mouths to feed, and not a morsel for them 
Now, but for you, a dungeon's slimy stones 
Had been my bed and pillow. 

ORDONIO. 

Good Isidore! 
Why this to me ? It is enough, you know it 

ISIDORE. 

A common trick of Gratitude, my Lord, 
Seeldng to ease her own full heart 

ORDONIO. 

Enough 
A debt repaid ceases to be a debt. 
You have it in your power to serve me greatly. 

ISIDORE. 

And how, my Lord ? I pray you to name the thing. 
I would climb up an ice-glaz'd precipice 
To pluck a weed you fancied ! 

ORDONIO {with embarrassment and hesitation). 

Why — that— Lady^ 

ISIDORE. 

'Tis now three years, my Lord, since last I saw you 
Have you a son, my Lord ? 

ORDONIO. 

O miserable — [Aside 
Isidore ! you are a man, and know manldnd. 
I told you what I wish'd — now for the truth I — 
She lov'd the man you Idll'd. 

ISIDORE {looking as suddenly alarmed). 

You jest, my Lord ? 

ORDONIO. 

And till his death is proved, she will not wed me. 



REMORSE. 



79 



ISIDORE. 

You sport wth me, my Lord ? 

ORDONIO. 

Come, come ! this foolery 
Lives only in thy looks : thy heart disowns it ! 

ISIDORE. 

I can bear this, and any thing more grievous 

From you, my Lord — but how can I serve you here ? 

ORDOMO. 

Wiy, you can utter witli a solemn gesture 

Oracular sentences of deep no-meaning. 

Wear a quaint garment, make mysterious antics — 

ISIDORE. 

I am dull, my Lord ! I do not comprehend you. 

ORDONIO. 

In blunt terms, you can play the sorcerer. 
She hath no faith in Holy Church, 't is true : 
Her lover school'd her in some newer nonsense ! 
Yet still a tale of spirits works upon her. 
She is a lone enthusiast, sensitive. 
Shivers, and cannot keep the tears in her eye : 
And such do love the marvellous too well 
Not to believe it. We will wind up her fancy 
With a strange music, that she knows not oi^ — 
With fumes of frankincense, and mummery, 
Then leave, as one sure token of his death, 
That portrait, which from off the dead man's neck 
I bade thee take, the trophy of thy conquest. 

ISIDORE. 

Will tliat be a sure sign ? 

ORDONIO. 

Beyond suspicion. 
Fondly caressing him, her favor'd lover 
(By some base spell he had bewitch'd her senses), 
She whisper'd such dark fears of me, forsooth. 
As made this heart pour gall into my veins. 
And as she coyly bound it round his neck. 
She made him promise silence ; and now holds 
The secret of the existence of this portrait, 
ICnovvn oidy to her lover and herself. 
But I had traced her, stolen unnoticed on them, 
And unsuspected saw and heard the whole. 

ISIDORE. 

But now I should have cursed the man who told me 
You could ask aught, my Lord, and I refuse — 
But this I cannot do. 

ORDONIO. 

Wliere lies your scruple ? 

ISIDORE {with slammering). 

Why — why, my Lord ! 
You know you told me tliat the lady loved you, 
Had loved you with incautious tenderness ; 
That if the young man, her betrothed husband. 
Returned, yourself, and she, and the honor of both 
Must perish. Now, though w ith no tenderer scruples 
Than those which being native to the heart, 
Than those, my Lord, which merely being a man — 
ORDONIO (aloud, though to express his contempt 
he speaJiS in the third person). 
This fellow is a Man — he kill'd for hire 
One whom he knew not, yet has tender scruples ! 

[Then turning to Isidore. 
These doubts, these fears, thy whine, thy stammer- 
ing- 
Pish, fool ! thou blunder'st through the book of guilt, 
SpeUing thy villany. 



ISIDORE. 

My Lord — my Lord, 
I can boar much — yes, very much from you ! 
But tlicre'sa point where sulferance is meanness: 
1 am no villain — never kill'd for hire — 
My gratitude 

ORDONIO. 

O ay — your gratitude ! 
'Twas a well-sounding word — what have you done 
with it ? 

ISIDORE. 

Who profilers his past favors for my virtue — 
ORDONIO {with bitter scorn). 

Virtue !— 

ISIDORE. 

Tries to o'erreach me — is a very sharper. 
And should not speak of gratitude, my Lord. 
I knew not 'twas your brother ! 

ORDONIO {alarmed). 

And who told you? 

ISIDORE. 

He himself told me. 

ORDONIO. 

Ha ! you talk'd with him ! 
And those, the two Morescoes who were with you T 

ISIDORE. 

Both fell in a night-brawl at Malaga. 
ORDONIO {in a low voice). 

My brother— 

ISIDORE. 

Yes, my Lord, I could not tell you .' 

I thrust away the thought — it drove me wild. 

But Usten to me now — I pray you listen 

ORDONIO. 

Villain ! no more ! 1 '11 hear no more of it. 

ISIDORE. 

My Lord, it much imports your future safety 
That you should hear it. 

ORDONIO {turning off from Isidore.) 
Am not 7 a Man I 
'Tis as it should be ! tut — the deed itself 
Was idle, and these after-pangs still idler ! 

ISIDORE. 

We met him in the very place you mention'd. 
Hard by a grove of firs — 

ORDONIO. 

Enough — enough — 

ISIDORE. 

He fought us valiantly, and wounded all ; 
In fine, compell'd a parley. 

ORDONIO {sighing, as if lost in thought). 
Alvar ! brother ' 

ISIDORE. 

He offer'd me his purse — 

ORDO.NIO {with eager suspicion). 
Yes? 
ISIDORE {indignantly). 

Yes — I spurn'd it. — 
He promised us I know not what — in vain .' 
Then with a look and voice that overawed me. 
He said, Wliat mean you, friends ? My Ufe is dear : 
I have a brother and a promised wife. 
Who make life dear to me — and if I fall. 
That brother will roam earth and hell for vengeance. 
There was a likeness in his face to yours • 
I ask'd his brother's name : he said — Ordono. 
89 



80 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Son of Lord Valdez ! I had well-nigh fainted. 
At length I said (if that indeed / said it, 
And that no Spirit made my tongue its organ), 
That woman is dishonor'd by that brother, 
And he the man who sent us to destroy you. 
He drove a thrust at me in rage. I told him, 
He wore her portrait round his neck. He look'd 
As he had been made of the rock that propt his 

back — 
Ay, just as you look now — only less ghastly ! 
At length, recovermg from his trance, he threw 
His sword away, and bade us take his life, 
It was not worth his keeping. 

ORDONIO. 

And you Idll'd him ? 

Oh blood-hounds! may eternal wrath flame round 
you! 

He was his Maker's Image undefaced ! [A pause. 

It seizes me — by Hell, I will go on ! 

What — wouldst thou stop, man ? thy pale looks won't 
save thee ! [A pause. 

Oh cold — cold — cold ! shot through with icy cold ! 
ISIDORE {aside). 

Were he alive, he had return'd ere now — 

The consequence the same — dead through his plot- 
ting! 

ORDONIO. 

O this unutterable dying away — here — 
This sickness of the heart ! [A pause. 

What if I went 
And lived in a hollow tomb, and fed on weeds ? 
Ay ! that 's the road to heaven ! O fool ! fool ! fool ! 

[A pause. 
What have I done but that which nature destined, 
Or the blind elements stirr'd up within me ? 
J f good were meant, why were we made these Be- 
ings? 
And if not meant — 

ISIDORE. 

You are disturb'd, my Lord ! 
ORDO.MO {starts, looJ^s at him wildly ; then, after a 

pause, during which his features are forced into 

a smile). 
A gust of the soul ! i' faith, it overset me. 

't was all folly — all ! idle as laughter ! 
Now, Isidore! I swear that thou shall aid me. 

ISIDORE {in a low voice). 

1 '11 perish first ! 

ORDONIO. 

Wliat dost thou mutter of? 

ISIDORE. 

Some of your servants know me, I am certain. 

ORDONIO. 

There 's some sense in that scruple ; but we '11 mask 
you. 

ISIDORE. 

They '11 know my gait : but stay ! last night I watch'd 
A stranger near the ruin in the wood. 
Who as it seem'd was gathering herbs and wild flow- 
ers. 
I had follow'd him at distance, seen him scale 
Its western wall, and by an easier entrance 
Stole after him unnoticed. There I mark'd. 
That, 'mid the chequer-work of light and shade. 
With curious choice he plack'd no other flowers 
But those on which the moonlight fell : and once 
I heard him muttering o'er the plant. A wizard — 
Some gaunt slave prowling here for dark employment. 



ORDONIO. 

Doubtless you question'd him ? 

ISIDORE. 

'Twas my intention 
Having first traced him homeward to his haunt. 
But lo ! the stern Dominican, whose spies 
Lurk everywhere, already (as it seem'd) 
Had given commission to his apt familiar 
To seek and sound the Moor ; who now returning 
Was by this trusty agent stopp'd midway. 
I, dreading fresh suspicion if found near him 
In that lone place, again conecal'd myself, 
Yet within hearing. So the Moor was question'd, 
And in your name, as lord of this domain. 
Proudly he answer'd, " Say to the Lord Ordonio, 
He that can bring the dead to life again ! " 

ORDONIO. 

A strange reply ! 

ISIDORE. 

Ay, all of him is strange. 
He call'd himself a Christian, yet he wears 
The Moorish robes, as if he courted death. 

ORDONIO. 

Where does this wizard live ? 

ISIDORE {pointing to the distance). 

You see that brooklet 
Trace its course backward : through a narrow opening 
It leads you to the place. 

ORDONIO. 

How shall I Imow it ? 

ISIDORE. 

You cannot err It is a small green dell 
Built all around with high off'-sloping hills, 
And from its shape our peasants aptly call it 
The Giant's Cradle. There's a lake in the midst. 
And round its banks tall wood that branches over, 
And makes a kind of faery forest grow 
Down in the water. At the further end 
A puny cataract falls on the lake ; 
And there, a curious sight ! you see its shadow 
For ever curling like a wreath of smoke. 
Up through the foliage of those faery trees. 
His cot stands opposite. You caimot miss it 

ORDONIO {in retiring stops suddenly at the edge of the 

scene, and then turning round to Isidore). 
Ha ! — Who lurks there ? Have we been overheard ? 
There, where the smooth high wall of slate-rock glit- 
ters — 

ISIDORE. 

'Neath those lall stones, which, propping each the 

other. 
Form a mock portal with their pointed arch ! 
Pardon my smiles ! 'T is a poor Idiot Boy, 
Who sits in the sun, and twirls a bough about. 
His weak eyes seethed in most unmeaning tears. 
And so he sits, swaying his cone-like head ; 
And, staring at his bough from morn to sun-se. 
See-saws his voice in inarticulate noises ! 

ORDONIO. 

'Tis well ! and now for this same Wizard's Lair. 

ISIDORE. 

Some three strides up the hill, a mountain ash 
Stretches its lower boughs and scarlet clusters 
O'er the old thatch. 

ORDONIO. 

I shall not fail to find it. 
{Exeunt Orsonio and Isidore. 
90 



REMORSE. 



81 



SCEXE II. 

The Inside of a Collafre, around which Flowers and 
Plants of various kinds are seen. Discovers Alvar, 
ZuLiMEZ, and Aliiaura, as on the point of leaving. 

ALHADRA (addressing Alvar). 
Farewell, then! and though many tlioughts perplex 

me, 
Aught evil or ij^ioWe never can I 
Suspecl of thee ! If what thou seem'st thou art. 
The oppressed brethren of thy blood have need 
Of such a leader. 

alvar. 
Noble-minded woman ! 
Long lime against oppression have I fought. 
And for the native liberly of faith 
Have bled, and suffer'd bonds. Of this be certain : 
Time, as he courses onwards, slill unrolls 
The voUmie of Concealment. In the Future, 
As in the optician's glassy cylinder. 
The indistinjiiiishable lilols and colors 
Of the dim Past collect and shape themselves, 
I'psiariing in their own completed image 
To scare or to reward. 

I sought the guilty, 
And what I sought I found : but ere the spear 
'■'lew from my hand, there rose an angel form 
Betwixt me and mj' aim. Willi baflled purpose 
To the Avenger I leave Vengeance, and depart! 

Whate'er betide, if aught my arm may aid, 
Or power protect, my word is pledged to thee : 
For many are thy wrongs, and thy soul noble. 
Once more, farewell. 

[Exit Aliiadra. 
Yes, to the Belgie states 
We will return. These robes, this stain'd complexion, 
Akin to falsehood, weigh upon my spirit 
Whate'er befall us, the heroic Maurice 
Will grant us an asylum, in remembrance 
Of our past services. 

ZULIMEZ. 

And all the wealth, power, influence which is yours. 
You let a murderer hold ? 

ALVAR. 

O faithful Zulimez ! 
Tliat my return involved Ordonio's death, 
1 trust, would give me an unmingled pang, 
Yet bearable : — but when I see my father 
Strewing his scant gray hairs, e'en on the ground, 
Which soon must be his grave, and my Teresa — 
I lor husband proved a murderer, and hrr infants. 
His infants — poor Teresa ! — all w ould perish. 
All perish — all I and I (nay bear with me) 
Could not survive the complicated ruin ! 

ZULI.MEZ (much affected). 
Nay now ! I have distress'd you — you w'ell know', 
I ne'er will quit your fortunes. True, 'tis tiresome! 
You are a painter,* one of many fancies ! 
You can call up past deeds, and make them live 
On the blank canvas! and each little herb. 
That grows on mountain bleak, or tangled forest. 
You have learnt to name 

Hark ! heard you not some footisteps ? 



Vide Appendix, Note 1 
J 



ALVAR. 

W^hat if it were my brother coming onwards ? 
I sent a most mysterious message to him. 

Enter Ordomo. 

ALVAR (starting) 
It is he ! 

ORDONio (to himself, as he enters). 
If I distinguish'd right her gait and stature, 
It was the Moorish woman, Isidore's wife. 
That pass'd me as I eriler'd. A lit taper, 
In the night air, dolh not more naturally 
.Attract the night-Hies round it, than a conjuror 
Draws round him the whole female neighborhood. 

[Addressing Alvar. 
You know my name, I guess, if not my person. 
I am Ordonio, son of the Lord Valdez. 

ALVAR (luilh deep emotion). 
The Son of Valdez! 

[Ordonio walls leisureli/ round the room, and looks 
attentively at the plants. 

ZULLMKZ (to AlVAR). 

Why, what ails you now ? 
How your hand trembles ! Alvar, speak ! what wish 
you ? 

ALVAR. 

To fall upon his neck and weep forgiveness ! 

ORDONIO (returning, and aloud). 
Pluck'd in the moonlight from a ruin'd abbey — 
Those only, which the pale rays visited ! 
O the unintelligible power of weeds, 
Whenafevvodd prayershave bccnmutter'd o'erthem; 
Then they work miracles ! I warrant you. 
There's not a leaf, but underneath it lurks 
Some serviceable imp. 

There 's one of you 
Hath sent me a strange message. 

ALVAR. 

I am he. 

ORDONIO. 

With you, then, I am to speak : 

[Haughtily waving his hand to ZuLlMEZ. 
And, mark you, alone. [Exit ZuLiMEZ. 

" lie that can bring the dead to life again !" — 
Such was your message, Sir! You are no dullard. 
But one that strips the outward rind of things ! 

ALVAR. 

'Tis fabled there are fruits with tempting rinds. 
That are all dust and rottenness within. 
Wouldst thou I should strip such? 

ORDONIO. 

Thou quibbling fool, 
\Vhat dost thou mean? Think'st thou I journey'd 

hither. 
To sport with thee ? 

ALVAR. 

O no, my Lord ! to sport 
Best suits the gaiety of innocence. 
ORDONIO (aside). 
O what a thing is man ! the wisest heart 
A I'ool ! a Fool that laughs at its own folly, 
Yet still a fool ! [Looks round the Cottage. 

You are poor ! 



What follows thence ? 



ORDONIO. 

That you would fain be ^che^ 
91 



82 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The Inquisition, too — You comprehend me ? 

You are poor, in peril. I have wealth and power, 

Can quench the flames, and cure your poverty ; 

And foi the boon I ask of you, but this, 

That you should serve me — once — for a few hours. 

ALVAR {solemvhj). 
Thou art the son of Valdez ! w ould to Heaven 
That I could truly and for ever serve thee. 

ORDONIO. 

The slave begins to soften. {Aside. 

You are my friend, 
" He that can bring the dead to life again." 
Nay, no defence to me ! The holy brethren 
BeUeve these calumnies — I knovT thee better. 

{Then with great bi(lerness). 
Thou art a man, and as a man I '11 trust thee ! 

ALVAR (aside). 
Alas ! this hollow mirth — Declare your business. 

ORDONIO. 

I love a lady, and she would love me. 
But for an idle and fantastic scruple. 
Have you no servants here, no listeners ? 

[Ordonio steps to the door. 

ALVAR. 

What, faithless too ? False to his angel wife ? 
To such a wife ? Well mightst thou look so wan, 
Ill-starr'd Teresa ! — Wretch ! my softer soul 
Is pass'd away, and I will probe his conscience ! 

ORDONIO. 

In truth this lady loved another man, 
But he has perish'd. 

ALVAR. 

What ! you kill'd him ! hey ? 

ORDONIO. 

I '11 dash thee to the earth, if thou but think'st it ! 
Insolent slave ! how daredst thou — 

[Thirns abruptly from Alvar, and then to himself. 
Why! what's this? 
Twas idiocy! I'll tie myself to an aspen, 
And wear a fool's cap — 

alvar (watching his agitation). 
Fare thee well — 
I pity thee, Ordonio, even to anguish. 

[Alvar is retiring. 

ORDONIO [having recovered himself). 
Ho ! [Calling to Alvar. 

ALVAR. 

Be brief: what wish you? 

ORDONIO. 

You are deep at bartering — You charge yourself 
At a round sum. Come, come, I spake unwisely. 

ALVAR. 

I listen to you. 

ORDONIO. 

In a sudden tempest, 
Did Alvar perish — he, I mean — the lover — 
The fellow, 

ALVAR. 

Nay, speak out! 'twill ease your heart 
To call him villain ! — Why stand'st thou aghast ! 
Men think it natural to hate their rivals. 

ORDONIO (hesitating). 
Now, till she knows him dead, she will not wed me 

ALVAR (with eager vehemence). 
Are you not wedded then? Merciful Heaven! 
Not wedded to Teresa ? 



ORDONIO. 

Why, what ails thee ? 
What, art thou mad ? why look'st thou upward so ? 
Dost pray to Lucifer, Prince of the Air ? 

ALVAR (recollecting himself). 
Proceed, I shall be silent. 
[Alvar sits, and leaning on the table, hides his face, 

ORDONIO. 

To Teresa ? 
Politic wizard ! ere you sent that message, 
You had conn'd your lesson, made yourself proficient 
In all my fortimes Hah I you prophesied 
A golden crop ! W^ell, you have not mistaken— 
Be faithful to me, and I '11 pay ihee nobly. 

alvar (lifting up his head) 
Well ! and this lady ? 

ORDONIO. 

If we could make her certain of his death. 
She needs must wed me. Ere her lover left her, 
She tied a little portrait round his neck, 
Entreating him to wear it. 

alvar (sighing). 

Yes ! he did so I 

9RD0NIO. 

WTiy no ! he was afraid of accidents. 
Of robberies, and shipwrecks, and the like. 
In secrecy he gave it me to keep, 
Till his return. 

ALVAR. 

What ! he was your friend, then ' 

ORDONIO (wounded and embarrassed). 
I was his friend. — 

Now that he gave it me 
This lady knows not. You are a mighty wizard — 
Can call the dead man up — he will not come — 
He is in heaven then — there you have no influence ■ 
Still there are tokens — and your imps may bring you 
Something he wore about him when he died. 
And when the smoke of the incense on the altar 
Is pass'd, your spiriis will have left this picture 
What say you now ? 

ALVAR (after a pause). 

Ordonio, I will do it. 

ORDONIO. 

We'll hazard no dolay. Be it to-night. 
In the early evening. Ask for the Lord Valdez. 
I will prepare him. Music too, and incense 
(For I have arranged it — Music, Altar, Incense), 
All shall be ready. Here is this same picture. 
And here, what you will value more, a purse. 
Come early for your magic ceremonies. 

ALVAR. 

I will not fail to meet you. 

ORDOMO. 

Till next we meet, farewell ! 

[Exit Ordonio 

ALVAR (alone, indignantly flings the purse away, and 
gazes passionately at the portrait). 

And I did curse thee ? 
At midnight? on my knees? and I believed 
Thee perjured, thee a traitress ! Thee dishonor'^ 
O blind and credulous fool ! O guilt of folly ! 
Should not thy inarticulate Fondnesses, 
Thy Infant Loves — should not thy Maiden Vows 
Have come upon my heart ? And this sweet Image, 
Tied round my neck with many a chaste endearment. 
92 



m\ 



REMORSE. 



83 



And thrilling hands, thatmade me weepnnd tremble — 
Ah, coward dupe ! to yield it to the miscreant, 
Who spake pollution of" ihee ! barter lor Life 
This liirewcU Pledge, which with inipassion'd Vow 
1 had sworn that I would grasp^ev'n in my dealh- 
jiang ! 

I am unworthy of thy love, Teresa, 

Of that unearthly smile upon those lips, 

Which ever smiled on me ! Yet do not scorn me — 

J lisp'd thy name, ere I had leanit my mother's. 

Dear Portrait ! rescued from a traitor's keeping, 
I will not now profane thee, holy Image, 
To a dark trick. That worst bad man shall find 
A picture, wliich will wake the hell within him, 
And rouse a fiery whirlwind in his conscience. 



ACT III. 
SCENE I. 



A Hall of ArmoTif, with an Altar at the back of the 
Stage. Soft Musk from an instrument of Glass 
or Sled. 

Valdez, Ordomo, and Alvar in a Sorcerer's robe, 
are discovered. 

ORDONIO. 

This was too melancholy, father. 

VALDEZ. 

Nay, 
My Alvar loved sad music from a child. 
Once he was lost ; and afler w^eary search 
We found him in an open place in the wood, 
To which spot he had follow'd a blind boy, 
^Vho breathed into a pipe of sycamore 
Some strangely moving notes : and these, he said. 
Were taught him in a dream. Him we first saw 
Stretch'd on the broad top of a sunny heath-bank : 
And lovv'er down poor Alvar, fast asleep, 
His head upon the blind boy's dog. It pleased me 
To mark how he had fasten 'd round the pipe 
A silver toy his grandam had late given him. 
Methinks I see him now as he then look'd — 
Even so I — He had outgrovvTi his infant dress, 
Yet still he wore it. 

ALVAR. 

My tears must not flow ! 
I must not clasp his knees, and cry, My father ! 
Enter Teresa, and Attendants. 

TERESA. 

Lord Valdez, you have ask'd my presence here. 
And I submit ; but (Heaven bear witness for me) 
My heart approves it not! 'tis mockery. 

ORDONIO. 

Believe you then no preternatural influence ? 
Beheve you not that spirits throng around us ? 

TERESA. 

Say rather that I have imagined it 
A possible thing : and it has soothed my soul 
As other fancies have ; but ne'er seduced me 
To traffic with the black and frenzied hope 
That the dead hear the voice of witch or wizard. 
(To Alvar. Stranger, I mourn and blush to see you 
here, 



On such employment ! With far other thoughts 
I left you. 

ORDONIO {aside). 
Ha ! he has been tampering with her ? 

ALVAR. 

high-soul'd maiden ! and more dear to me 
Than suits the Stranger's name ! — 

I swear to thee 

1 will uncover all concealed guilt 

Doubt, but decide not '. Stand ye from the altar. 

[Here a strain of music is heard frotn behind tha 
scene. 



With no irreverent voice or uncouth charm 
I call up the Departed ! 

Soul of Alvar ! 
Hear oiu" soft suit, and heed my milder spell: 
So may the Gates of Paradise, unbarr'd, 
Cease thy swift toils ! since haply thou art one 
Of that innumerable company 
Wlio in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow. 
Girdle this round earth in a dizzy motion, 
With noise too vast and constant to be heard: 
Fitliest unheard ! For oh, ye numberless 
And rapid travellers I Wliat ear unstunn'd. 
What sense unmaddon'd, might bear up against 
The rushing of your congregated wings ? 

[Music 
Even now your living wheel turns o'er my head ! 

[Music expressive of the movements and images 
that follow. 
Ye, as ye pass, toss liigh the desert sands, 
That roar and whiten, like a burst of waters, 
A sweet appearance, but a dread illusion 
To the parch'd caravan that roams by night ! 
And ye build upon the becalmed waves 
That whirling pillar, which from Earth to Heaven 
Stands vast, and moves in blackness ! Ye too spht 
The ice mount ! and with fragments many and huge 
Tempest the new-lhaw'd sea, whose sudden gulfs 
Suck in, perchance, some Lapland wizard skiff! 
Then round and round the whirlpool's marge ye 

dance, 
Till from the blue swoln Corse the Soul toils out 
And joins your mighty Army. 

[Here behind the scenes a voice sings the three 
words, "Hear, sweet Sj/irit." 

Soul of Alvar ! 
Hear the mild spell, and tempt no blacker Charm ! 
By sighs unquiet, and the sickly pang 
Of a half dead, yet still undying Hope, 
Pass visible before our mortal sense ! 
So shall the Church's cleansing rites be thine, 
Her knells and masses thai redeem the Dead! 



Behind the Scenes, accompanied by the same Instrti^ 

ment as before. 

Hear, sweet spirit, hear the spell. 
Lest a blacker charm compel ! 
So shall the midnight breezes swell 
With thy deep long-lingering knelL 

And at evening evermore, 
In a Chapel on the shore, 
Shall the Chanters sad and saintly. 
Yellow tapers burning faintly, 
13 -^S 



84 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Doleful Masses chant for thee, 
Miserere Doniine ! 

Hark ! the cadence dies away 
On the yellow moonlight sea : 

The boatmen rest their oars and say, 

Miserere Domine ! [A long pause. 

ORDONIO. 

The innocent obey nor charm nor spell ! 

My brother is in heaven. Thou sainted spirit. 

Burst on our sight, a passing visitant ! 

Once more to hear thy voice, once more to see thee, 

O 't were a joy to me ! 

ALVAR. 

A joy to thee ! 
What if thou heard'st him now ? What if his spirit 
Re-enter'd its cold corse, and came upon thee 
With many a stab from many a murderer's poniard ? 
What if (his stedfast Eye still beaming Pity 
And Brother's love) he turn'd his head aside, 
Lest he should look at thee, and with one look 
Hurl thee beyond all power of Penitence ? 

VALDEZ. 

These are unholy fancies ! 

ORDONIO {struggling vAih his feelings). 
Yes, my father. 
He is in Heaven ! 

ALVAR {Sfill to OrDONIO). 

But what if he had a brother. 
Who had lived even so, that at his dying hour 
The name of Heaven would have convulsed his face. 
More than the death-pang ? 

VALDEZ. 

Idly prating man ! 
Thou hast guess'd ill : Don Alvar's only brother 
Stands here before thee — a fatlier's blessing on him ! 
He is most virtuous. 

ALVAR {still to Ordonio). 

What, if his very virtues 
Had pamper'd his swoln heart and made him proud ? 
And what if Pride had duped him into guilt ? 
Yet still he stalk'd a self-created God, 
Not very bold, but exquisitely cunning ; 
And one that at his Mother's looking-glass 
Would force his features to a frowning sternness ? 
Young Lord ! I tell thee, that ihcre are such Beings — 
Yea, and it gives fierce merriment lo the damn'd. 
To see these most proud men, that lothe mankind, 
At every stir and buzz of coward conscience, 
Trick, cant, and lie, most whining hypocrites ! 
Away, away ! Now let me hear more music. 

[Music again. 

TERESA. 

T is strange, I tremble at my own conjectures ! 

But whatsoe'er it mean, I dare no longer 

Be present at these lawless mysteries. 

This dark provoking of the Hidden Powers ! 

Already I affront — if not high Heaven — 

Yet Alvar's Memory ! — Hark ! I make appeal 

Against the unholy rite, and hasten hence 

To bend before a lawful shrine, and seek 

That voice which wliispers, when the still heart 

listens, 
Coiiilort and faithful Hope ! Let us retire. 
ALVAR (to Teresa anxiously). 
O full of faith and guileless love, thy Spirit 



Still prompts thee wisely. Let the pangs of guilt 
Surprise the guilty : thou art innocent ! 

\Excunt Teresa and AtlendarU 

(Music as before). 
The spell is mutter'd — Come, thou wandering Shape 
Who own'st no Master in a human eye, 
WTiate'er be this man's doom, fair be it, or foul 
If he be dead, O come ! and bring wilh thee 
Tliat which he grasp'd in death ! but if he live, 
Some token of his obscure perilous life. 

[The whole Music clashes into a Chorus 

CHORUS. 

Wandering Demons, hear the spell! 
Lest a blacker charm compel — 

[The incense on the altar takes fire suddenly, and 
an illuminated picture of Alvar's assassina- 
tion is discovered, and having remained a 
few seconds is then hidden by ascending 
Jlames. 
ORDONIO {starling in great agitation). 
Duped ! duped ! duped ! — the traitor Isidore ! 

[At this instant the doors are forced open, MoN- 
viEDRO and the Familiars of the Inquisition, 
Servants etc. enter and fill the stage. 

MONVIEDRO. 

First seize the sorcerer ! suffer him not to speak ! 

The holy judges of the Inquisition 

Shall hear his first words. — Look you pale. Lord 

Valdez ? 
Plain evidence have we here of most foul sorcery. 
There is a dungeon underneath this castle, 
And as you hope for mild interpretation. 
Surrender instantly the keys and charge of it. 
ORDONIO {recovering himself as from stupor, to 
Servants.) 
Why haste you not ? Off with him to the dungeon ! 
[All rush out in tumuli 



SCENE n. 

Interior of a Chapel, with painted Windows 
Enter Teresa. 

TERESA. 

Wlien first I enter'd this pure spot, forelx)dings 
Press'd heavy on my heart: but as I knelt. 
Such calm unwonted bliss possess'd my spirit, 
A trance so cloudless, that those sounds, hard by. 
Of trampling uproar fell upon mine ear 
As alien and unnoticed as the rain-storm 
Beats on the roof of some fair banquet-room, 
Wliile sweetest melodies are warbling 
Enter Valdez. 

VALDEZ. 

Ye pitying saints, forgive a father's blindness, 
And extricate us from this net of peril ! 

TERESA. 

Who wakes anew my fears, and speala of peril ? 

VALDEZ. 

O best Teresa, wisely wert thou prompted ! 
Tliis was no feat of mortal agency ! 
Tliat picture — Oh, that picture fells me all ! 
With a flash of light it came, in flumes it vamsh'd 
Self-kindled, self-consumed : bright as thy Life, 
Sudden and unexpected as thy Fate, 
Alvar ! My son ! My son ! — The Inquisitor^ 

94 



REMORSE. 



85 



TERESA. 

Torture me not ! But Alvar — Oh of Alvar ? 

VALDEZ. 

How often would he plead for these Morcscoes ! 
The brood accurst ! remorseless, coward murderers ! 
TERESA {wildhj). 

So ? 80 ? — I comprehend you — lie is 

VALDEZ (with averted couniemincc). 

He is no more ! 

TERESA. 

O sorrow ! that a father's voice should say this, 
A. father's heart believe it ! 

VALDEZ. 

A worse sorrow 
Are Fancy's wild hopes to a heart despairing ! 

TERESA. 

These rays that slant in through those gorgeous 

windows, 
From yon bright orb — though color'd as they pass, 
Are they not Light ? — Even so that voice, Lord 

Valdoe ! 
VVTiich whispers to my soul, though haply varied 
By many a fancy, manj' a wishful hope. 
Speaks yet the truth : and Alvar lives for me ! 

VALDEZ. 

Yes, for three wasting years, thus and no other, 
He has lived for thee — a spirit for lliy spirit! 
My child, we must not give religious faith 
To every voice which makes the heart a listener 
To its own wish. 

TERESA. 

I breathed to the Unerring 
Permitted prayers. Must those remain unansvver'd, 
Yet impious sorcery, that holds no commune 
Save with the lying Spirit, claim belief? 

VALDEZ. 

O not to-day, not now for the first time 
Was Alvar lost to thee — 

[Turning off, aloud, but yet as to himself. 
Accurst assassins ! 
Disarm'd, o'erpower'd, despairing of defence, 
.<t his bared breast he secm'd to grasp some relict 

More dear than was his Ufe 

TERESA {with a faint shriek). 

O Heavens ! my portrait ! 
And he did grasp it in his death-pang ! 

Ofi; false Demon, 
That beat'st thy black wings close above my head ! 
[Ordonio CTiters with the keys of the dungeon 
in his hand. 
Hush ! who comes here ? The wizard Moor's em- 
ployer ! 
Moors were his murderers, you say ? Saints shield us 

From wicked thoughts 

[Valdez moves toieards the hack of the stage to 
meet Ordomo, and during the concluding 
lines of Teresa's speech appears as eagerly 
conversing with him. 

Is Alvar dead ? what then ? 
The nuptial rites and fimeral shall be one ! 
Here's no abiding-place for thee, Teresa. — 
Away! they see me not — 77io« seest me, Alvar! 
To thee I bend my course. — But first one question, 
One question lo Ordonio. — My limbs tremble — 
There I may sit unmark'd — a moment will restore me. 
[Retires out of sight. 
ORDOMO (as he advances with Valdez). 
These are the dungeon keys. Monviodro knew not 
That i too had received the wizard message, 
12 



" He that ran bring the dead to life again." 
But now he is satisfied, 1 pliirui'd tiiis scheme 
To work a full conviction on the culprit. 
And he intrusts him wholly to my keeping. 

valdez. 
'Tis well, my son! But have you yet discover'd 
Where is Teresa I what those speeches meant — 
Pride, and Hyjxjcrisy, and Guilt, and Cunning? 
'I'hen when liie wizard fix'd his eye on you. 
And you, I know not why, look'd pale and trem- 
bled— 
Why — why, what ails you now ? — 
ORDONIO (confused). 

Me ? what ails mo t 
A pricking of the blood — It might have happen'd 
At any other lime. — Why .scan you me ? 

VALDEZ 

His speech about the corse, and stabs and murderers 
Bore reference to the assassias 

ORDONIO. 

Duped ! duped ! duped 
The traitor, Isidore ! [A pause ; then wildly. 

I tell thee, my dear father ! 
I am most glad of this. 

VALDEZ (confused). 

True — Sorcery 
Merits its doom ; and this perchance may guide us 
To the discovery of tlic murderers. 
I have their statures and their several faces 
So present to me, that but once to meet them 
Would be to recognize. 

ORDONIO. 

Yes ! yes ! we recognize them 
I was benumb'd, and stagger'd up and down 
Through darloiess without light — dark — dark — dark! 
My flesh crept chill, my limbs felt manacled. 
As had a snake coil'd round them ! — Now 't is sun- 
shine. 
And the blood dances freely through its channels! 

[Turns off abruptly ; then to himself 
This is my virtuous, grateful Isidore! 

[Then mimicking Isfdore's manner and voice. 
"A common trick of gratitude, my Lord !" 
Oh Gratitude ! a dagger would dissect 
His "own full heart" — 'twere good to see its color. 

VALDEZ. 

These magic sights ! O that I ne'er had yielded, 
To your entreaties ! Neither had I yielded. 
But that in spite of your own seeming faith 
I held it for some innocent stratagem. 
Which Love had prompted, to remove the doubts 
Of wild Teresa — by fancies quelling fancies! 

ORDONIO (in a slow voice, as reasoiiing to himself.) 
Love ! Love ! and then we hate ! and what ? and 

wherefore ? 
Hatred and Love! Fancies opposed by fancies! 
What, if one reptile sting another reptile! 
Where is the crime ? The goodly face of Nature 
Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it. 
Arc we not all predestined Transiency, 
Anil cold Dislionor ? Grant it, that this hand 
Had given a morsel to the hungry worms 
Somevvhut too early — Where's the crime of thiat 
Tiiat this must needs bring on the idiocy 
Of moist-eyed Penitence — 'tis like a dream! 

VALDEZ. 

Wild talk, my son • But thy excess of feeling 

[Averting himself 



86 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Almost, I fear, it hath unhinged his brain. 

ORDOMO {now in soliloquy, and now addressing 
his father : and just after Ike speech has 
commenced, Teresa reappears and advances 
slowly). 
Say, I had laid a body in the sun ! 
Well ! in a month there swarm forth from the corse 
A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings 
In place of that one man. — Say, I had kill'd him ! 

[Teresa starts, and stops, listening. 
Yet who shall tell me, that each one and all 
Of these ten thousand lives is not as happy 
As that one life, which being push'd aside, 
Made room for these unnumber'd 

VALDEZ. 

O mere madness I 
[Teresa moves hastily forwards, and places herself 
directly before Ordonio. 
ORDONio {checM7}g the feeling of surprise, and 
forcing his tones into an expressio7i of 
playful courtesy). 
Teresa ? or the Phantom of Teresa ? 

TERESA. 

Alas! the Phantom only, if in truth 

The substance of her Being, her Life's life. 

Have ta'en its flight through Alvar's death-wound — 

(A pause.) Where — 

{Even coward Murder grants the dead a grave) 
O tell me, Valdez .' — answer me, Ordonio ! 
Where lies the corse of my betrothed husband ? 

ORDONIO. 

There, where Ordonio likewise would fain lie ! 
In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierced dark- 
ness ! 
For while we live — 
An inward day that never, never sets, 
Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing eye- 
lids ! 
Over his rocky grave the Fir-grove sighs 
A lulling ceaseless dirge ! 'T is well vviih him. 

[Strides off in agitation towards the altar, hut 
returns as Valdez is speaking. 
TERESA {recoiling with the expression appropriate to 

the passioji). 
The rock ! the fir-grove! [To Valdez. 

Didst thou hear him say it ? 
Hush ! I will ask him ! 

valdez. 
Urge him not — not now! 
This we beheld. Nor He nor I know more, 
Than what the magic imagery reveal'd. 
The assassin, who press'd foremost of the three 

ORDONIO. 

A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain, 
Whom I will strangle ! 

VALDEZ {looking with anxious disquiet at his Son, yet 
attempting to proceed with his description). 

While his two companions 

ORDONIO. 

Dead ! dead already ! what care we for the dead ? 

VALDEZ {to Teresa). 
Pity him ! soothe him ! disenchant his spirit ! 
These supernatural shows, this strange disclosure, 
And this too fond affection, which still broods 
O'er Alvar's fate, and still burns to avenge it — 
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you, 
Distemper him, and give reality 
To the creature? of liis fancy — 



ORDONIO. 

Is it so ? 
Yes ! yes ! even like a child, that, too abruptly 
Roused by a glare of light from deepest sleep, 
Starts up bewilder'd and talks idly. 

{Then mysteriously.) Father! 

What if the Moors that made my brother's grave 
Even now were digging ours ? What if the Ixilt, 
Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Valdez, 
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar I 

VALDEZ. 

Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors, — say rather, 
He was their advocate ; but you had marcli'd 
With fire and desolation through their villages. — 
Yet he by chance was captured. 

ORDONIO. 

Unknown, perhaps 
Captured, yet, as the son of Valdez, murder'd. 
Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady ? 

VALDEZ. 

What seek you now ? 

TERESA. 

A better, surer light 

To guide me 

Both VALDEZ a7id ordonio. 
Whither ? 

TERESA. 

To the only place 
Where life yet dwells for me, and ease of heart 
These walls seem threatening to fall in upon me 1 
Detain me not ! a dim Power drives me hence. 
And that will be my guide. 

VALDEZ. 

To find a lover ! 
Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty ? 

folly and shame ! Tempt not my rage, Teresa ! 

TERESA. 

Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage. 

And am I hastening to the arms O Heaven ! 

1 haste but to the grave of my beloved ! 

[Exit, Valdez following after her 

ORDONIO. 

This, then, is my reward ! and I must love her ? 
Scorn'd ! shudder'd at ! yet love her still ? yes ? 

yes ! 
By the deep feelings of Revenge and Hate 
I will still love her — woo her — win her too ! 
{A pause) Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait 
Found on the wizard — he, belike, self-poison'd 
To escape the crueller flames My soul shoufS 

triumph ! 
The mine is undermined ! Blood ! Blood ! Blood ! 
They thirst for thy blood ! thy blood, Ordonio ! 

[A pause. 
The hunt is up! and in the midnight wood. 
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek 
A timid prey : and lo ! the tiger's eye 
Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch ! i 

To Isidore I will dispatch a message. 
And lure him to the cavern! ay, that cavern! 
He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him, 
Whence he shall never, never more return ! 

[Looks through the side window 
A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea, 
And now 't is gone ! All shall be done to-night 

(Exit, 
96 



4 



REMORSE. 



87 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 

A cavern, dark, except where a gleam of moonlight is 
seen on one side at the further end of it ; supposed 
to be cast on il from a crevice in a part of the 
cavern out of sight. Isidore alone, an extinguished 
torch in his hand. 

ISIDORE. 

Faith 'twas a moving letter — very moving! 
' His life in danger, no place sate but this! 
Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude." 
4nd yet — but no! there can't be such a villain. 
ft cannot be ! 

Thanks to that little crevice, 
Which lets the moonlight in! I'll go and sit by it. 
To peep at a tree, or see a he-goat's beard, 
Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep — 
Any thing but this crash of water-drops! 
These dull abortive sounds that fret the silence 
With puny thwartings and mock opjicsition ! 
So beats the death-watch to a dead man's ear. 

\He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of 

mooidight : returns after a minute's elapse, 

in an ecstasy of fear. 
A hellish pit .' The very same I dreamt of! 
I wa.s just in — and those damn'd fingers of ice 
Which clutch'd my hair up! Ila! — what's tliat — it 

moved. 

[Isidore stands staring at another recess in 
the cavern. In the mean time Ordonio en- 
ters with a torch, and halloos to Isidore. 

ISIDORE. 

£ swear that 1 saw something moving there ! 
The moonshine came and went like a flash of light- 
ning 

[ swear, I saw it move. 

ORDONIO (goes into the recess, then returns, and with 
great scorn). 

A jutting clay stone 
Props on the long lank weed, that grows beneath : 
And the weed nods and drips. 

ISIDORE {forcing a laugh faintly). 

A jest to laugh at ! 
It was not that which scared me, good my Lord. 

ORDONIO. 

What scared you, then ? 

ISIDORE. 

You see that little rift? 
But first permit me ! 
[Lights his torch at Ordonio's, artd while lighting it. 
(A lighted torch in the hand, 
Is no unplea-sant object here — one's breath 
Floats round the flame, and makes as many colors 
As the thin clouds that travel near the moon.) 
You see that crevice there ? 
My torch extinguish 'd by these water drops. 
And marking that the moonliglit came from thence, 
I slept in to it, meaning to sit there ; 
But scarcely had I measured twenty paces — 
My Iwdy bending forward, yea, overbalanced 
Almost beyond recoil, on the dim brink 
Of a huge chasm I stept. The shadowy moonshine 
Filling the Void, so counterfeited Substance, 
N 



I'hat my foot hung aslant adown the edge. 
Was it my own fear ? 

Fear too liath iLs instincts! 
(And yet such dens as these are wildly told of, 
And yet are Beings that live, yet not lor the eye) 
An arm of frost above and from behind mo 
Pluck'd up and snatcli'd me backward. Merciful 

Heaven ! 
You smile! ala.<<, even smiles look ghastly here! 
My Lord, I pray you, go yourself and view it 

ORDONIO. 

It must have shot some pleasant feelings through you. 

ISIDORE. 

If every atom of a dead man's flesh 
Should creep, each one with a particular life, 
Yet all as cold as ever — 'twas just .so! 
Or had it drizzled needle points of frost 
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald — 
ORDONIO {interrupting him). 

Why, Isidore 
I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled, 
I grant you, even a brave man for a moment — 
But such a panic — 

ISIDORE. 

When a boy, my Lord ! 
I could have sate whole hours beside that chasm, 
Push'd in huge stones, and heard them strike and 

rattle 
Against its horrid sides: then hung my head 
Low down, and listen'd till the heavy fragments 
Sank with faint cra.sh in that still groaning well, 
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, w'hich never 
A living thing came near — unless, perchance, 
Some blind-worm battens on the ropy mould 
Close at its edge. 

ORDONIO. 

Art thou more coward now ? 

ISIDORE. 

Call him, that fears his fellow-man, a coward ! 
I fear not man — but this inhuman cavern. 
It were too bad a prison-house for golilins. 
Beside (you'll sinile, my Lord), but true it is. 
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted 
By what had pass'd between us in the morning. 

sleep of horrors ! Now run down and stared at 
By Forms so hideous that they mock remembrance — 
Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing, 

But only being afraid — stifled with Fear! 

While every goodly or familiar form 

Had a strange power of breathing terror roiuid me! 

1 saw you in a thousand fearful sliapes ; 
And, I entreat your lordship to beUeve me, 
In my last dream 

ORDONIO. 

Well ? 

ISIDORE. 

I was in the act 
Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra 
Waked me : she heard my heart beat. 

ORDONIO. 

Strange enough! 
Hmi you been here before ? 

ISIDORE. 

Never, my Lord . 
But mine eyes do not see it now more clearly, 
Than in my dream I saw — that very chasm. 
ORDONIO {.itnrtds lost in thought, then after a pause 
I loiovv not why it should Ije ! yet it is — 

97 



88 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



What is, my Lord ? 



ORDONIO. 

Abhorrent from our nature, 



To kill a man. — 



ISIDORE. 

Except in self-defence. 

ORnONIO. 

Why, that 's my case ; and yet the soul recoils from it — 
'Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps, 
Have sterner feelings ? 

ISIDORE. 

Something troubles you. 
How shall I serve you ? By the life you gave me, 
By all that makes that life of value to me. 
My wile, my babes, my honor, I swear to you, 
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing. 
If it be innocent ! But this, my Lord, 
Is not a place where you could perpetrate. 
No, nor propose, a wicked thing. The darkness, 
When ten strides oil] we luiow 't is cheerful moonlight. 
Collects the guilt, and crowds it romid the heart. 
It must be innocent. 
[Ordonio darkli/, and in the feeling of self-justifica- 
tion, tells what he conceives of his own character and 
actions, speaking of himself in the third person. 

ORDONIO. 

Thyself be judge. 
One of our family knew this place well. 

ISIDORE. 

Who ? when ? my Lord ? 

ORDONIO. 

What boots it, who or when ? 

Hang up thy torch — I '11 tell liis tale to thee. 

[They hang up their torches on some ridge in 
the cavern. 
He was a man different from other men. 
And he despised them, yet revered himself 

ISIDORE (aside). 
He ? He despised ? Thou 'rt spealdng of thyself! 
I am on my guard, however : no surprise. 

[Then ^oOrdonio. 
What! he was mad? 

ORDONIO. 

All men seem'd mad to him ! 
Nature had made him for some other planet. 
And press'd his soul into a human shape 
By accident or malice. In this world 
He found no fit companion. 



[Aside. 



Of himself he speaks. 

Alas! poor wretch! 
Mad meii are mostly proud. 

ORDONIO. 

He walk'd alone. 
And phantom thoughts unsought-for troubled him. 
Sometliing within W'luld still be shadowing out 
All possibilities ; and with these shadows 
His mind held dalliance. Once, as so it happen'd, 
A fancy cross'd him wilder than the rest : 
To this in moody murmur and low voice 
He yielded utterance, as some talk in sleep : 
The man who heard him. — 

Why didst thou look round ? 



ISIDORE. 

I have a prattler three years old, my Lord ! 
In truth he is my darling. As I went 
From forth my door, he made a moan in sleep- 
But I am talking idly — pray proceed ! 
And what did this man ? 

ORDONIO. 

With his human hand 
He gave a substance and reality 
To that wild fancy of a possible thing. — 
Well it was done ! [ Then very wiMly 

Why babblest thou of guilt ? 
The deed was done, and it pass'd fairly off 
And he whose tale I tell thee — dost thou listen ? 

ISIDORE. 

I would, my Lord, you were by my fire-side, 
I 'd listen to you with an eager eye. 
Though you began this cloudy tale at midnight , 
But I do hsten — pray proceed, my Lord. 

ORDONIO. 

Wliere was 1 1 

ISIDORE. 

He of whom you tell tlie tale — 

ORDONIO. 

Surveying all things with a quiet scorn. 
Tamed himself dov\-n to living purposes, 
Tlie occupations and the semblances 
Of ordinary men — and such he seem'd ! 
But tliat same over-ready agent — he — 

ISIDORE. 

Ah ! what of him, my Lord ? 

ORDONIO 

He proved a tMitor, 
Betray'd the mystery to a brother traitor. 
And they between them hatch'd a damned plot 
To hunt him down to infamy and death. 
What did the Valdez ? I am proud of the name. 
Since he dared do it. — 

[Ordonio grasps his sword, and turns off from 
Isidore ; then after a pause returns 
Our links burn dimly. 

ISIDORE. 

A dark tale darkly finish'd ! Nay, my Lord ! 
Tell what he did. 

ORDONIO. 

That which his wisdom prompted — 

He made that Traitor meet him in this cavern. 

And here he kill'd the Traitor. 

ISIDORE. 

No ! the fool ! 
He had not wit enough to be a traitor. 
Poor thick-eyed beetle ! not to have foreseen 
That he who gull'd thee with a whiinper'd lie 
To murder his ov\ii brother, woidd not scruple 
To murder thee, if e'er his guilt grew jealous, 
And he could steal upon thee in the dark ! 

ORDONIO. 

Thou wouldst not tlien have come, if 

ISIDORE. 

Oh yes, my Lord ! 

I would have mot him arm'd, and scared the coward 
[Isidore throws off his rohc ; shows himself armed 
and draws his sword. 

ORDONIO. 

Now this is excellent, and warms the blood ! 
My heart was drawdng back, did wing me back 

98 



REMORSE. 



89 



With weak and womanish scruples. Now my Ven- 
geance 
Beckons mo onwards with a warrior's mien, 
And claims that lilb, my pity robb'd her of— 
Now will I kill theo, thankless slave ! and count it 
Among my conilbriable thoughts hereafter. 

ISIDORE. 

And all my little ones fethcrless — 

Die thou first. 
[They flight ; Ordomo disarms IsinoRK, and in dis- 
arming him throws his sword up that recess oppo- 
site to which then were standing. IsiDOiiK hurries 
into the recess with his torch, OjidosioJ'oHows him ; 
a loud cry of " Trailer ! MonsU-r .' " is heard 
from Uie cavern, and in a nurment Ordo.mo returns 
alone. 

ORDONIO. 

I have hurl'd him down the chasm ! Treason for trea- 
son. 
He dreamt of It : henceforward let him sleep 
A dreamless sleep, from which no wife tan wake him. 
His dream too is made out — Now for his friend. 

[Exit Ordonio. 



VALDEZ. 

Hush, thoughtless woman ! 

TERESA. 

Nay, it wakes within me 
More than a woman's spirit. 

VALDEZ. 

No more of this — 
\Vliat if Monviedro or his creatures hear us I 
I dare not listen to you. 

TERKSA 

My honor'd Lord, 
These were my Alvar's lessons ; and whene'ei 
I bend ine o'er his jwrtrait, I repeal them, 
As if to give a voice to the nmie image. 

VAI.DEZ. 

We have inourn'd for Alvar. 



SCENE II.* 

The interior Court of a Saracenic or Gothic Castle, 
with tlie Iron Gate of a Dungeon visible. 

TERESA. 

Heart-chilling Superstition ! thou canst glaze 
Even Pity's eye with her own frozen tear. 
In vain I urge the tortures that await him ; 
Even Selma, reverend guardian of my childhood, 
My second mother, shuts her heart against me! 
Well, I have won from hor what most imports 
The present need, this secret of the dungeon, 
KnowTi only to herself — A Moor ! a Sorcerer ! 
No, I have faith, that Nature ne'er permitted 
Baseness to wear a form so noble. True, 
I doubt not, that Ordonio had suborn'd him 
To act some part in some unholy fraud ; 
As little doubt, that for some unknown purpose 
He hath baflled his suborner, terror-struck him. 
And that Ordonio meditates revenge ! 
But my resolve is fix'd! myself will rescue him, 
And lenrn if haply he know aught of Alvar. 

Enter Vai,dez. 

VALDEZ. 

Still sad ? — and gazing at the massive door 
Of that fell Dungeon which thou ne'er hadst sight of, 
Save what, perchance, thy infant fancy shaped it, 
Wlien the nurse still'd thy cries with unmeant threats. 
Now by my faith, Girl ! this same wizard haunts Ihcc I 
A stately man, and eloquent and tender — 

[ With a sneer. 
Who then need wonder if a lady sighs 
Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans — 

TERESA {witli solemn indignation). 
The horror of their ghastly punishments 
Doth so o'erlop the height of all com[)assion, 
That I should feel too little for mine enemy, 
If it were possible I could feel more, 
Even though the dearest inmates of our household 
Were do<)m'd to sulFer them. That such things are — 



Of his sad fate there now remains no doubt. 
Have I no other son ? 

TEltlCSA. 

Speak not of him ! 
That low imposture ! That mysterious picture ! 
If this be madness, must I wed a madman? 
And if not madness, there is mystery, 
And guilt doth lurk behind it. 

VALDEZ. 

Is this well ? 

TERESA. 

Yes, it is truth : saw you his countenance ? 
How rage, remorse, and scorn, and stupid fear. 
Displaced each other with swift interchanges ? 

that I had indeed the sorcerer's power! • 

1 would call up before thine eyes tlie image 
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first-born ! 
His own fair counlcnance, his kingly forehead, 
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips! 
That sjuritual and almost heavenly light 
In his commanding eye — his mien heroic, 
Virtue's own native heraldry ! to man 
(Jenial, and pleasant to his guardian angel. 
Whene'er he gladdcn'd, how tlie gladness spread 
Wide round him! and v\hcn oft with swelling tears. 
Flash'd through by indignation, he bewail'd 
The wrongs of Belgium's raartyr'd patriots. 
Oh, what a grief was t/iere — for joy to envy, 
Or gaze upon enamour'd ! 

O my father ! 
Recall that morning when we knelt together, 
And thou didst bless our loves ! O even now. 
Even now, my sire ! to thy mind's eye present him. 
As at that moment ho rose up before thee, 
Stalely, with beaming look ! Place, place beside him 
Ordonio's dark perturbed countenance ! 
Tlien bid me (Oh thou couldst not) bid me turn 
I>om him, the joy, the triumph of our kind ! 
To take in exchange that brooding man, who never 
Lifts up his eye from the earth, unless to scowl. 



• Vido Apoendix, Note 2. 



VALDEZ. 

Ungrateful woman ! I have tried to stifle 
An old man's passion! was it not enough 
That thou hadst made my son a restless man, 
Bauish'd his health, and half unhinged his reason 
But that thou wilt insult him with suspicion ? 
And toil to blast his honor ? I am old, 
A comfortless old man ! 

TERESA. 

O Grief! to hear 
Hateful entreaties from a voice we love ' 
99 



90 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Enter a Peasant and presents a letter to Valdez 

VALDEZ {reading it). 

" He dares not venture hither ! " Why what can this 

mean? 
" Lest tlie Familiars of the Inquisition, 
That watch around my gates, should intercept him ; 
But he conjures me, that without delay 
I hasten to him — for my own sake entreats me 
To guard from danger him I hold imprison'd — 
He will reveal a secret, the joy of which 
Will even outweigh the sorrow." — Why what can 

this be ? 
Perchance it is some Moorish stratagem, 
To have in me a hostage for his safety. 
Nay, that they dare not ? Ho ! collect my servants ! 
I will go thither — let them arm themselves. 

[Exit Valdez. 

TERESA {alone). 
The moon is high in heaven, and all is hush'd. 
Yet, anxious listener ! 1 have seem'd to hear 
A low dead thunder mutter through the night, 
As 'twere a giant angry in his sleep. 
O Alvar ! Alvar ! that they could return, 
ITiose blessed days that imitated heaven, 
When we two wont to walk at even-tide ; 
When we saw naught but beauty ; when we heard 
The voice of that Almighty One who loved us 
In every gale that breathed, and wave that mur- 
mur'd ! 

we have listen'd, even till high-wrought pleasure 
Hath half assumed the countenance of grief. 

And the deep sigh seem'd to heave up a weight 
Of bliss, that press'd too heavy on the heart. 

[A pause. 
And this majestic Moor, seems he not one 
Who oft and long communing with my Alvar 
Hath drunk in kindred lustre from his presence, 
And guides me to him with reflected light 1 
What if in yon dark dungeon coward Treachery 
Be groping for him with envenom'd poniard — 
Hence, womanish fears, traitors to love and duty — 

1 '11 free him. [Exit Teresa. 



SCENE m. 



The Mountains by moonlight. Alhadra alone in a 
Moorish dress. 

alhadra. 
Yon hanging w'oods, that touch'd by autumn seem 
As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold ; 
The flower-like woods, most lovely in decay, 
The many clouds, the sea, the rock, the sands, 
Lie in the silent moonshine : and the owl, 
'Strange I very strange I) the screech-owl only wakes ! 
Sole voice, sole eye of ail this world of beauty ! 
Unless, perhaps, she sing her screeching song 
To a herd of wolves, that skulk athirst for blood. 
Why such a thing am I ? — Where are these men ? 
1 need the sympathy of human faces. 
To beat away tliis deep contempt for all things. 
Which quenches my revenge. Oh ! would to Alia, 
The raven, or the sea-mew, were appointed 
To bring me food ! or rather that my soul 
Could drink in life from the universal air ! 
It were a lot divine in some small skiff 
Along some Ocean's boundless solitude, 



To float for ever with a careless course, 
And think myself the only being alive ! 

My children ! — Isidore's children ! — Son of Valdez, 
This hath new-strung mine arm- Thou coward tyrant 
To stupify a woman's heart with anguish, 
Till she forgot — even that she was a mother ! 
[She fixes her eye on the earth. Then drop in one after 
another, from different parts of the stage, a con- 
siderable number of Morescoes, all in Moorish gar- 
ments and Moorish armor. They form a circle at 
a distance round Alhadra, aiid remain silent till 
the second in command, Naomi, enters, distinguisked 
by his dress and armor, and by the silent obeisance 
paid to him on his entrance by the other Moors. 
naoml 
Woman ! may Alia and the Prophet bless thee ! 
We have obey'd thy call. Where is our cliief? 
And why didst thou enjoin these Moorish garments ? 

Alhadra {raising her eyes, and looking round on the 

circle). 
Warriors of Mahomet ! faithful in the battle ! 
My countrymen ! Come ye prepared to work 
An honorable deed ? And would ye work it 
In the slave's garb ? Curse on those Christian robes' 
They are spell-blasted : and whoever wears them 
His arm shrinks wither'd, his heart melts away. 
And his bones soften. 

NAOMI. 

Where is Isidore ? 
ALHADRA {in a deep low voice). 
This night I went from forth my house, and left 
His children all asleep : and he was living ! 
And I return'd and found them still asleep, 

But he had perish'd 

all the morescoes. 
Perish'd ? 

ALHADRA. 

He had perish'd ! 
Sleep on, poor babes ! not one of you doth knovr 
That he is fatherless — a desolate orphan ! 
Why should we wake them ? can an infant's arm 
Revenge his murder ? 

ONE MORESCOE {to another). 

Did she say his murder ? 

NAOML 

Murder ? Not murder'd ? 

ALHADRA. 

Murder'd by a Christian ! 
[They all at once draw their sabres- 
ALHADRA {to Naomi, who odmnccs from the circled 
Brother of Zagri ! fling away thy sword 
Tliis is thy chieftain's! [He slops forward to taJce itt 

Dust thou dare receive it ? 
For I have sworn by Alia and the Prophet, 
No tear shall dim these eyes, this woman's heart 
Shall heave no groan, till I have seen that sword 
Wet with the liie-blood of the son of Valdez ! 

[A pau 
Ordonio was your chieftain's murderer ! 

NAOMI. 

He dies, by Alia. 
ALL {kneeling.) 

By \lla 

ALHADRA. 

This night your chieftain arm'd himself, 
100 



RE]MORSE. 



91 



And liurrietl from me. But I follow'd him 
At distance, till I saw him enter — Uiere ! 

NAOMI. 

The cavern ? 

AI.Il.VDRA. 

Yes, the moulh of yonder cavern. 

After a while I saw the son of \aldez 

Rush by with llaring torch ; he likewise enter'd. 

There was another and a longer pause ; 

And once, methought I heard the clash of swords ! 

And soon the son of V'aldez reappear'd : 

He flung his torch towards the moon in sport, 

And seein'd as he were mirthful ! I stood listening, 

Impvitient for the footsteps of my husband! 



NAOMI. 



Thou calledst him? 



ALIIADRA. 

I crept into the cavern — 
Twas dark and very silent [Then wildlij. 

What saidst thou ? 
No ! no ! I did not dare call, Isidore, 
I^st I should hear no answer ! A brief while. 
Belike, I lost all thought and memory 
Of that for which I camel After that pause, 
() Heaven! I heard a groan, and follow'd it: 
And yet another groan, which guided me 
Into a strange recess — and there was ligJit, 
A hideous light ! his torch lay on the ground ; 
Its flame burnt dimly o'er a chasm's brink : 
[ spake ; and wliilst I spake, a feeble groan 
(^ame from that chasm! it was his last! his death- 
groan ! 

NAOMI. 

Tomfort her. Alia. 

ALHADRA. 

I Stood in unimaginable trance 
And agony that cannot be remcmber'd. 
Listening with horrid hope to hear a groan ! 
B'lt I had heard his last : my husband's death-groan ! 

NAOMI. 

Ha-'ste I let us onward. 

ALHADRA. 

• I look'd far dowm the pit — 

My sight was bounded by a jutting fragment: 
Anil it was stain'd with blood. Then first I shriek'd. 
My eye-balls burnt, my brain grew hot as fire, 
And all the hanging drops of the wot roof 
Tum'd into blood — I saw them turn to blood ! 
Atwl I was leaping w"ildly down the chasm, 
When on the farther brink I saw his sword. 
And it said, Vengeance ! — Curses on my tongue ! 
The moon hath moved in Heaven, and I am here. 
And he hath not had vengeance ! Isidore I 
Spirit of Isidore ! thy murderer lives ! 
Away! away! 

ALL. 

Away ! away ! 

[She rushes off, all following her. 



ACT V. 

SCENE I. 

A Dungeon, 

ALVAR {(done) rises slowly from a led of reeds. 

ALVAR. 

And this place my forefathers made for man • 



This is the process of our love and wisdom 
To each poor brother who offends agaiiLst us — 
Most iiniocent, perhaps — and what if guilty ? 
Is this the only cure ? Merciful God ! 
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd up, 
By ignorance and parching poverty, 
His energies roll hack uiK)n his heart. 
And stagnate and corrupt, till, changed to fwison. 
They break out on him, like a lothesome plague- 
spot ! 
Then we call in our pampor'd mountebanks : 
And this is their best cure! uncomforted 
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears, 
And savage faces, at the clanldng hour. 
Seen through the steam and vaiwrs of his dungeon 
By the lamp's dismal twilight I So he lies 
Circled with evil, till his very soul 
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deform'd 
By sights of evermore deformity ! 
Willi other ministrations thou, O Nature ! 
Healesl thy wandering and dislemper'd child : 
Thou pourest on him tliy soft infiuences, 
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets ; 
Thy melodies of words, and winds, and waters ! 
Till he relent, and can no more endure 
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing 
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy ; 
But, btirsting into tears, wins back his way. 
His angry spirit heal'd and harmonized 
By the benignant touch of love and beauty. 
I am cliill and weary ! Yon rude bench of stone. 
In that dark angle, the sole resting-place I 
But the self-approving mind is its own light. 
And life's best warmth still radiates from the heart 
Where Love sits brooding, and an honest purpose. 

[Retires out of sight. 

Enter Teresa with a Taper. 

TERESA. 

It has chill'd my very life — my own voice scares me ! 

Yet when I hear it not, I seem to lose 

The substance of my being — my strongest grasp 

Sends inw ards but weak witness that I am. 

I seek to cheat the echo. — How the half sounds 

Blend with this strangled light ! Is he not here — 

[Looking Touiui 
O for one human face here — but to see 
One human face here to sustain me. — Courage ! 
It is but my own fear ! The life within me. 
It sinks and wavers like this cone of flame. 
Beyond wliich I scarce dare look onward ! Oh ! 

[Shuddering. 
If I faint ! If this inhuman den should be 
At once my death-bed and my burial vault ! 

[Faintly screams as Alvar. emerges from Uie recess. 

ALVAR {rushes towards her, and catches her as she 
is falling). 

gracious Heaven ! it is, it is Teresa ! 

1 shall reveal myself? The sudden shock 
Of rapture will blow out this spark of life. 
And Joy complete what Terror has begun. 

ye impetuous beatings here, be still ! 
Teresa, best beloved ! pale, pale, and cold ! 
Her pulse doth flutter ! Teresa ! my Teresa ! 

TERESA (recovering, looks round wildly). 

1 heard a voice ; but often in my dreams 

I hear that voice ! and wake and try — and try— . 

]4 101 



92 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



To hear it waking ! but I never could — 
And 'tis so now — even so! Well: he is dead — 
Murder'd, perhaps ! And I am faint, and feel 
As ii" it were no painful tiling to die ! 

ALVAR {eagerly). 
Believe it not, sweet maid ! Believe it not. 
Beloved woman ! 'T was a low imposture, 
Framed by a guilty wretch. 

■^ERESA {retires from him, and feebly supports herself 
against apillar of the dungeon). 

Ha ! Who art thou ? 
ALVAR {exceedingly affected). 
Subom'd by his brother — 

TERESA. 

Didst tho7i murder him ? 
And dost thou now repent ? Poor troubled man, 
1 do forgive thee, and may Heaven forgive tliee ! 

ALVAR. 

Ordonio — he — 

TERESA. 

If thou didst murder him — 
His spirit ever at the throne of God 
Asks mercy for thee : prays for mercy for thee, 
With tears in Heaven ! 

ALVAR. 

Alvar was not murder'd. 
Be calm ! Be calm, sweet maid ! 

TERESA (wildly). 
Nay, nay, but tell me ! 

[A pause ; then presses her forehead. 
O 'tis lost again! 
This dull confused pain — 

[A pause, she gazes at Alvar. 
Mysterious man ! 
Methinlcs I can not fear thee : for thine eye 
Doth swim wiih love and pity — AVell I Ordonio — 
Oh my foreboding heart ! and he subom'd thee. 
And thou didst spare his life ? Blessmgs shower on 

thee, 
As many as the diops twice counted o'er 
In the fond faithful lieart of his Teresa I 

alvar. 
I can endure no more. The Moorish Sorcerer 
Exists but in the stain upon his face. 
That picture — 

TERESA {advances towards hiin). 
Ha ! speak on ! 

ALVAR. 

Beloved Teresa! 
It told but half the truth. O let this portrait 
Tell all — that Alvar lives — that he is here ! 
Tliy much deceived but ever faithful Alvar. 

[JhJies her 2>ortrait from his nech; and gives it her. 
TERESA {receiving the portrait). 
The same — it is the same. Ah ! who art thou ? 
Kay I will call thee, Alvar ! [She falls on his nech 

ALVAR. 

O joy unutterable ! 
But hark! a sound as of removing bars 
At tlie dungeon's outer door. A brief, brief while 
Conceal thyself, my love ! It is Ordonio. 
For the honor of our race, for our dear father ; 
O for himself too (he is still my brother) 
Lei me recall him to his nobler nature. 
That he may wake as from a dream of murder ! 
O let me reconcile him to himself, 



Open the sacred source of penitent tears. 
And be once more liis own beloved Alvar. 

TERESA. 

O my all virtuous love ! I fear to leave thee 
With tliat obdiu-ate man. 

ALVAR. 

Thou dost not leave me ! 
But a brief while retire into the darkness : 

that my joy could spread its sunshuie round thee 

TERESA. 

The sound of thy voice shall be my music ! 

[Retiring, she returns hastily and embraces Alvar. 
Alvar ! my Alvar ! am I sure I hold thee ? 
Is it no dream ? thee in my arms, my Alvar! [Exit 
[A noise at the Dungeon door. It opens, and 
Ordomo enters, with a goblet in his hand 

ORDOXIO. 

Hail, potent wizard ! in my gayer mood 

1 pour'd forth a libation to old Pluto, 

And as I brinuu'd the bowl, I thought on thee. 

Thou hast conspired against my life and honor, 

Hast trick'd me foully ; yet I hate thee not. 

Wh}^ should I hate thee >. this same world of ours, 

'T is but a pool amid a slorra of rain. 

And we the air-bladders that couree up and dovvTi, 

And joust and lilt in nieriy tournament; 

And when one bubble runs foul of another, 

[Waving his hand to Alvar. 
The weaker needs must break. 

ALVAR. 

I see thy heart ! 

There is a frightful glitter in thine eye 
Which doth betray thee. Inly-tortured man! 
This is the reveliy of a drunken anguish, 
Which fain would scoff away the pang of guilt. 
And quell each human feeling. 

ORDONIO. 

Feeling ! feeling ! 
The death of a man — the breaking of a bubble — 
'T is true I cannot sob for such misfortunes ; 
But faintness, cold and hunger — curses on me 
If willingly I e'er inflicted them ! 
Come, take the beverage ; this chill place demands it 
[Ordoxio proffers the gobleL 

ALVAR. 

Yon insect on the wall, 

Which moves this way and that its hundred limbs. 

Were it a toy of mere mechanic craft, 

It were an infuiitely curious thing ! 

But it has life, Ordonio ! life, enjoyment ! 

And by the power of its miraculous wiU 

Wields all the complex movements of its frame 

Unerringly to pleasurable ends ! 

Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim, 

I would remove it with an anxious pity I 

ORDO.MO. 

Wliat meanest thou ? 

ALVAR. 

There's poison in the wme. 

ORDOMO. 

Thou hast guess'd right ; there's poison in the wine 
There's poison in't — wliich of us two shall drink it? 
For one of us must die ! 

ALVAR. 

Whom dost thou think me / 
102 



REMORSE. 



93 



ORDOMO. 

The accomplice and sworn friend of Isidore. 

ALVAR. 

I know him not 
And yet mcthinks I have heard the name but lately. 
Means he ilie husband of the Moorish woman ? 
Isidore ? Isidore ? 

ORDONIO. 

Good I good ! that lie ! by heaven it has restored me. 
Now I am thy ina.ster! Villain! tliou shall driidi it, 
Or die a bitterer death. 

ALVAR. 

What strange solution 
Ha.<!t thou found out to satisfy thy fears, 
And drug them to unnatural sleep ? 
[Alvar. lakes (he gMef, and throwing tt to the ground 
with stern contempt. 

My master ! 

ORDO.NIO. 

Thou mountebank! 

ALVAR. 

MountcI)ank and villain I 
What then art thou ? For shame, put up thy sword ! 
What boots a weajwn in a wither'd arm ? 
I fix mine eye upon thee, and Ihou tremblest! 
I speak, and fear and wonder crusli thy rage, 
And turn it to a motionless distraction! 
Thou blind solf-worshippcr ! thy pride, thy cunning, 
Thy faith in universal villany. 
Thy shallow sophisms, thy pretended scorn 
For all thy human brethren — out U{)on them ! 
What have they done for thee ? have they given thee 

peace ? 
Cured thee of starting in thy sleep ? or made 
The darkness pleasant when thou wakest at midnight ? 
Art happy when alone ? Canst walk by thyself 
With even step and quiet cheerfulness ? 
Yet, yet thou mayest be saved 

ORDO.MO {vacanllij repeating the words). 

Saved ? saved ? 

ALVAR. 

One pang! 
Could I call up one pang of true Remorse ! 

ORDOMO. 

He told me of the babes that prattled to him. 

His fatherless little ones ! Remorse! Remorse! 

Where gott'st liiou that fool's word I Curse on Remorse! 

Can it give up the dead, or recompact 

.V mangled Iwdy ? mangled — dash'd to atoms ! 

iS'ot all the blessings of a host of angels 

Can blow away a desolate widow's curse! 

And though thou spill thy heart's blood for atonement. 

It will not weigh against an orphan's tear ! 

ALVAR (almost overcome by his feelings). 
But Alvar — 

ORDO.VIO. 

Ha ! it chokes thee in the throat, 
Kvon thee ; and yet I pray thee speak it out ! 
Siill Alvar! Alvar! — howl it in mine ear, 
Heap it like coals of fire upon my heart. 
And shoot it hissing through my brain ! 



Alas! 
That day when thou didst leap from off the rock 
Into the waves, and gra-sp'd thy sinking brother, 
And bore him to the strand : then, son of Valdez, 
K 



How sweet and musical the name of Alvar! 
Tlun, then, OnJonio, he was dear to thee. 
And ihou wert dear to him ; Heaven only knows 
How very dear thou wert ! ^Vhy didst thou hate himt 

heaven ! how- lie would fall upon thy neck. 
And weep forgiveness ! 

ORDONIO. 

Spirit of the dead ! 
Melhinks I know thee ! ha ! my brain turns wild 
At its own dreams ! — off — off I'antastic shadow ! 

ALVAR. 

1 fain would tell thee what I am ! but dare not ! 

ORDOMO. 

Cheat! villain! traitor! whatsoever thou be — 
I fear thee, man ! 

TKRESA {rushing out and falling on Alvar's nech). 
Ordonio! 'tis thy brother. 

[Ordonio with frantic wildness runs upon Alvar 
v}ith his sword. Teresa flings herself on 
Ordomo and arrests his arm. 

Stop, madman, stop. 
alvar. 
Does then this thin disguise impenetrably 
Hide Alvar from thee ? Toil and painful wounds 
And long imprisonment in unwholesome dungeons, 
Have marr'd perhaps all trait and lineament 
Of what I was ! But chiefly, chiefly, brother, 
My anguish for thy guilt ! 

Ordonio — Brother ! 
jVay, nay, thou shall embrace me. 
ORDOMO {drawing back and gazing at Alvar uith a 
countenance of at once awe and terror). 

Touch me not ! 
Touch not pollution, Alvar! I will die. 
[He attempts to fall on his sword: Alvar and Teresa 
prevent him. 

alvar. 
We will find means to save your honor. Live, 
Oh live, Ordonio ! for our father's sake ! 
Spare his gray hairs ! 

TERESA. 

And you may yet be happy. 

ORDOMO. 

O horror ! not a thousand years in heaven 

Could recompose this miserable heart. 

Or make it capable of one brief joy ! 

Live ! Live ! Why yes ! 'twere well to live with you : 

For is it fit a villain should be proud ? 

My brother! I will kneel to you, my brother! 

[Kneeling. 
Forgive me, Alvar ! — Curse me with forgiveness ! 

ALVAR. 

Call back thy soul, Ordonio, and look round thee : 
Now is iFie time for greatness ! Think that Heaven • 

TERESA. 

O mark his eye ! he hears not what you say. 

ORDONIO (pointing at the vacancy). 
Yes, mark his eye ! there's fascination in it I 
Thou saidsl thou didst not know him — That is he! 
He comes upon me ! 

ALVAR. 

Heal, O heal him. Heaven ' 

ORDOMO. 

Nearer and nearer! and I cannot stir! 
Will no one hear these stifled groans, and wake me ? 
103 



94 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



He would have died to save me, and I kill'd liim — 
A husband and a father I — 

TERESA. 

Some secret poison 
Drinks up liis spirits ! 

ORDONio {fiercely recollecting himself). 
Let the eternal Justice 
Prepare my punishment in the obscure world — 
I will not bear to live — to live — O agony ! 
And be myself alone my own sore torment ! 

[The doors of the dungeon are broken open, and in 
rush Alhadka, aTid the band of Morescoes. 

ALHADRA. 

Seize first that man ! 

[Alvar presses onward to defend Ordonio. 

ORDONIO. 

Off, ruffians ! I have flung away my sword. 
Woman, my life ia thine ! to thee I give it ! 
Off! he that touches me with his hand of flesh, 
I '11 rend his limbs asunder ! I have strength 
With this bare arm to scatter you like ashes. 

ALHADRA. 

My husband — 

ORDONIO. 

Yes, I murder'd him most foully. 

ALVAR a?ld TERESA. 

horrible ! 

ALHADRA. 

Why didst thou leave his children ? 
Demon, thou shouldst have sent thy dogs of hell 
To lap their blood ! Then, then I might have harden'd 
My soul in misery, and have had comfort. 

1 would have stood far off, quiet though dark. 
And l3ade the race of men raise up a mourning 
For a deep horror of desolation. 

Too great to be one soul's particular lot ! 
Brother of Zagri ! let me lean upon thee. 

[Struggling to suppress her feelings. 
The time is not yet come for woman's anguish. 
I have not seen his blood — Within an hour 
Those little ones will crowd around and ask me, 
Where is our father ? I shall curse thee then ! 
Wert thou in heaven, my curse would pluck thee 
thence ! 

TERESA. 

He doth repent ! See, see, I kneel to thee ! 

O let him live ! That aged man, his father 

ALHADRA {Sternly) 
Why had he such a son ? 

[Shouts from the distance of. Rescue ! Rescue ! 

Alvar ! Alvar ! a?id the voice of Valdez heard. 

ALHADRA. 

Rescue ? — and Isidore's Spirit unavenged ? 
The deed be mine ! [Suddenly stabs Ordonio. 

Novv' take my life ! 
ORDONIO {staggering from the wound). 

Atonement! 
Alvar {tvhile with Teresa sttpporting Ordonio). 
Arm of avenging Heaven, 

Thou hast snatch'd from me my most cherish'd hope. 
But go ! my word was pledged to thee. 

ORDONIO. 

Away ! 
Brave not my father's rage! I thank thee! Thou — 
[Then turning his eyes languidly to Alvar. 



She hath avenged the blood of Isidore ! 

I stood in silence like a slave before her. 

That I might taste the wormwood and the gall, 

And satiate this self-accusing heart 

With bitterer agonies than death can give 

Forgive me, Alvar! 

Oh ! couldst thou forget me ! [Dies 
[Alvar and Teresa bend over the body of Ordonio 

ALHADRA {to the Moors). 
I thank thee, Heaven ! thou hast ordain'd it wisely, 
That still extremes bring their own cure. That point 
In misery, which makes the oppressed Man 
Regardless of his own life, makes him too 
Lord of the Oppressor's — Knew I a hundred men 
Despairing, but not palsied by despair. 
This arm should shake the Kingdoms of the World , 
The deep foundations of iniquity 
Should sink away, earth groaning from beneath them ; 
The strong-holds of the cruel men should fall. 
Their Temples and their mountainous Towers should 

fall; 
Till Desolation seem'd a beautiful thing. 
And all that were, and had the Spirit of Life, 
Sang a new song to her who had gone forth. 
Conquering and still to conquer ! 

[Alhadra hurries off with the Moors ; the stage f Us 
with armed Peasants and Servants, Zulimez 
arul Valdez at their head. Valdez rushes into 
Alvar's arms. 

ALVAR. 

Turn not thy face that way, my father ! hide. 
Oh hide it from his eye ! Oh let thy joy 
Flow in unmingled stream through thy first blessing 
[Both kneel to Valdez 

VALDEZ. 

My Son! My Alvar! bless. Oh bless him, Heaven! 

TERESA. 

Me too, ray Father ? 

VALDEZ. 

Bless, Oh bless my children ! 

[Both rise. 

ALVAR. 

Delights so full, if unalloy'd with grief. 
Were ominous. In these strange dread events 
Just Heaven instructs us with an awful voice, 
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice. 
Our inward monitress to guide or warn. 
If listen'd to ; but if repell'd with scorn. 
At length as dire Remorse, she reappears. 
Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears ! 
Still bids. Remember ! and still cries. Too late ! 
And while slie scares us, goads us to our fate. 



APPENDIX. 

Note 1, page 81, col. 1 

You are a painter 

The following lines I have preserved in this place, 
not so much as explanatory of the picture of the 
assassination, as (if I may say so without disrespect 
to the Public) to gratify my own feelings, the passage 
being no mere fancy portrait ; but a slight, yet not 
i04 



REMORSE. 



95 



unfaithful profile of one,* who still lives, nobilitate 
lelix, arte clarior, vitiL colendissimus. 

ZULIMEZ (speaking o/Alvar in the third perion). 
Such was the noble Spaniard's own relation. 
Jle tolil mo, too, liow in his early youth, 
Anil his first travels, 'twas his choice or chance 
To make long sojourn in sea-wedded V^enice ; 
There won the love of that divine old man. 
Courted by mightiest kings, the t'aiiious Titian! 
Who, like a second and more lovely Nature, 
By the sweet mystery of lines and colors. 
Changed the blank canvas to a magic mirror, 
That made the Absent present ; and to Shadows 
Gave light, depth, substance, bloom, yea, thought and 

motion. 
He loved the old man, and revered his art: 
And though of noblest birth and ample fortune, 
The young enthusiast thought it no scorn 
But this inalienable ornament, 
To be his pupil, and with filial zeal 
By practice to appropriate the sage lessons. 
Which the gay, smiling old man gladly gave. 
The Art, hehonor'd thus, requited him : 
And in the following and calamitous years 
Beguiled the hours of his captivity. 

ALHADRA. 
And then he framed this picture? and unaided 
By arts unlawful, spell, or talisman! 

ALVAR. 
A potent siiell, a mighty talisman! 
The imperishable memory of the deed 
Sustain'd by love, and grief, and indignation! 
So vivid were the forms within his brain, 
His very eyes, when shut, made pictures of them ! 

Note 2, page 89, col. 1. 

The following Scene, as unfit for the stage, was taken 
from the Tragedy, in the year 1797, and published 
in the Lyrical Ballads. But this work having been 
long out of print, I have been advised to reprint it, 
as a Note to the second Scene of Act the Fourth, p. 
89. 

Enter Teresa and Selma. 



'Tis said, he spake of you familiarly. 

As mine and Alvar's common foster-mother. 

SELMA. 

Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be. 

That join'd your names with mine ! O my sweet Lady, 

As often as I think of those dear times. 

When you two little ones would stand, at eve. 

On each side of my chair, and make me learn 

All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk 

In gentle phrase ; then bid me sing to you — 

Tis more like heaven to come, than what has been! 

TERESA. 

But that entrance, Se!ma ? 

SELMA. 

Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale I 

TERESA. 

No one. 



• Sir George BeaumonU (Written 18J4.) 



SELMA. 
My husband's father told it me, 
Poor old Sesina — angels rest his soul ! 
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw 
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam 
Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel ? 
Beneath that tn^o, while yet it was a tree. 
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined 
With thistle-boards, and such small locks of wool 
As hang on brambles. Well, he brouglit him home, 
And reared him at the then Lord Valdez' cost. 
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, 
A pretty boy, but most unteachable — 
He never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead. 
But knew the names of birds, and mock'd their notes, 
And whistled, as he were a bird himself: 
And all the autumn 't was his only play 
To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them 
With earth and water on the stumps of trees. 
A Friar, who gather'd simples in the wood, 
A gray-haird man, he loved this little boy: 
The boy loved him, and, when the friar taught him, 
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time 
Live<l chiefly at the Convent or the Castle. 
So he became a rare and learned youth: 
But O! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read, 
Till his brain turn'd ; and ere his twentieth year 
He had unlawful thoughts of many things: 
And though he pray'd, ho never loved to pray 
With holy men, nor in a holy place. 
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet. 
The late Lord Valdez ne'er was wearied with him. 
And once, as by the north side of the chapel 
They stood together, cliain'd in deep discourse. 
The earth heaved under them with such a groan. 
That the wall totter'd, and liad well-nigh fallen 
Right on tlieir heads. My Lord was sorely frighten'd , 
A fever seized him, and he made confession 
Of all the heretical and lawless talk 
Which brought this judgment : so the youth was seized 
And cast into that h(de. My husband's father 
Sobb'd like a child — it almost broke his heart: 
And once as he was working near this dungeon, 
He heard a voice distinctly ; 'twas the youth's. 
Who sung a doleful song about green fields. 
How sweet it were on lake or wide savanna 
To hunt for food, and be a naked man. 
And wander up and dovi'n at liberty. 
He always doted on the youth, and now 
His love grew desperate ; and defying death. 
He made that cunning entrance I described, 
And the young man escaped. 

TERESA. 

'T is a sweet tale : 
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep. 
His rosy face besoil'd with unwipcd tears. 
And what became of him ? 

SELMA. 

He went on shipboard 
With those bold voyagers who made discovery 
Of golden lands. Sesina's younger brother 
Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain, 
He told Sesina, that the poor mad youth. 
Soon after they arrived in that new world. 
In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat. 
And all alone set sail by silent moonlight 
Up a great river, great as any sea. 
And ne'er was heard of more : but 'tis supposod, 
He lived and died among the savage men. 
105 



96 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



A CHRISTMAS TALE. 
IN TWO PARTS. 



USp i:vpi ^ptj TOiavTa Xiyeiv ^eiitwvog ev ILpq. 

Apud Athen^cm. 



ADVLRTISEMENT. 

The form of the following dramatic poem is in hum- 
ble imitation of the Winter's Tale of Shakspeare, 
except that I have called the first part a Prelude in- 
stead of a first Act, as a somewhat nearer resem- 
blance to the plan of the ancients, of which one 
specimen is left us in the ^schylian Trilogy of the 
Agamemnon, the Orestes, and the Eumenides. Though 
a matter of form merely, yet two plays, on different 
periods of the same tale, might seem less bold, than 
an interval of twenty years between the first and 
second act. Tliis is, however, in mere obedience to 
custom. The effect does not, in reality, at all de- 
pend on the Time of the interval ; but on a very dif- 
ferent principle. There are cases in which an inter- 
val of twenty hours between the acts would have a 
worse effect (i. e. render the imagination less disposed 
to take the position required) than twenty years in 
other cases. For the rest, I shall be well content if 
my readers will take it up, read and judge it, as a 
Christmas tale. 



CHARACTERS. 



MEN. 
Emerick, usurping King of Illyria. 
Raab Kiuprili, an lUyrian Chieflahu 
Casimir, Son of Kiuprili. 
Chef Ragozzi, a Military Commander 

WOMAN. 
Zapolya, Qwcen of Illyria. 



ZAPOLYA. 



PART I. 



THE PRELUDE, ENTITLED, « THE USURP- 
ER'S FORTUNE." 
SCENE L 
Front of the Palace with a magnificent Colonnade. On 
one side a military Guard-House. Sentries pacing 
backward and forward bifore the Palace. Chef 
Ragozzi, at the door of the Guard-House, as looking 
forwards at some object in the distaiice. 

CHEF RAGOZZI 

My eyes deceive me not, it must be he ! 
Who but our chief, my more than father, who 



But Raab Kiuprili moves with such a gait ? 
Lo ! e'en this eager and unwonted haste 
But agitates, not quells, its majesty. 
My patron ! my commander ! yes, 't is he ! 
Call out the guards. The Lord Kiuprili comes. 

Drums beat, etc. the Guard turns out. Erder Raab 

Kiuprili. 
raab kiuprili {making a signal to slop the drums, etc.) 
Silence! enough! This is no time, young friend! 
For ceremonious dues. This summoning drum, 
Th' air-shattering trumpet, and the horseman's clatter, 
Are insults to a dying sovereign's ear. 
Soldiers, 'tis well! Retire! your general greets you. 
His loyal fellow-warriors. [Guards retire. 

CHEF ragozzi. 

Pardon my surprise. 
Thus sudden from the camp, and unattended I 
What may these wonders prophesy ? 
raab kiuprill 

Tell me first, 
How fares the lung ? His majesty still lives ? 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

We know no otherwise ; but Emcrick's friends 
(And none but they approach him) scoff at hope. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Ragozzi ! I have rear'd thee from a child. 

And as a cliild I have rear'd thee. Whence this air 

Of mystery ? That face was wont to open 

Clear as the morning to me, showing all things 

Hide nothing from me. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

most loved, most honor'd, 

The mystery that struggles in my looks, 
Betray'd my whole tale to thee, if it told thee 
That I am ignorant ; but fear the worst. 
And mystery is contagious. All things here 
Are full of motion : and yet all is silent : 
And bad men's hopes infect the good with fears. 
RAAB kiuprili {his hand to his heart). 

1 have trembling proof within, how true thou speaki 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

That the prince Emerick feasts the soldiery, 
Gives splendid arms, pays the commanders' debts, 
And (it is whisper'd) by sworn promises 
Makes himself debtor — hearing this, thou hast heard 

All {Then in a subdued and saddened voice.} 

But what my Lord will learn too soon himself. 

RAAB kiuprili. 

Ha ! — Well then, let it come ! Worse scarce can 



,estJ: 



This letter, written by the trembling hand 
Of royal Andreas, calls me from the camp 
106 



iSn 



ZAPOLYA. 



97 



To his iinmedialo presence. Il ap})oinls me, 

The Queen, aiul Knieriek, guartlians of iho realm. 

And of ihc royul infant. Day by day, 

Robb'd of Zajwlya's soolhini: cares, tlie king 

Yearns only to behold one precious boon, 

And with iiis life breathe forth a lather's blessing. 

riiF.F iiAr.o/.zi. 
Remember you, my Lord, that Hebrew leech, . 
Whose face so much distemper'd you ( 

RAAD KILTKILI. 

Barzoni ? 
I held him for a spy : but the proof failing 
(More courieously, I own, than pleased myself), 
I sent him from the camp. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

To him in chief 
Prince Emerick trusts his royal brother's health. 

RAAB Kiuruii.i. 
Hide nothing, I conjure you ! What of liim? 

CHEF nAGOZZI. 

With pomp of words beyond a soldier's cunning, 
And shrugs and wrinkled brow, he smiles and whis- 
pers I 
Talks in dark words of women's fancies ; hints 
That 't were a useless and cruel zeal 
To rob a dying man of any hope. 
However vain, that soothes him : and, in fine. 
Denies all cliance of offspring from the Queen. 

RAAB KIUI'KILI. 

The venomous snake ! My heel was on its head, 
And (Ibol !) I did not crush it ! 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Nay, he fears 
Zajwlya will not long survive her husband. 

RAAB KlUPRILl. 

Manifest treason ! Even this brief delay 

Half makes me an accomplice (If he live), 

[Is moving toward the palace. 
If he but live and know me, all may 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Halt! [Slops him. 
On pain of death, my Lord ! am I commanded 
To stop all ingress to the palace. 

RAAB KIUrRILI. 

Thou ! 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

No place, no name, no rank excepted — 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Thou ! 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

This life of mine, O take it. Lord Kiuprili ! 

I give it as a weapon to thy hands. 

Mine own no longer. Guardian of Illyria, 

Useless to thee, 'lis worthless to myself 

Thou art the framer of my nobler being : 

Nor does there live one virtue in my soul, 

One honorable hope, but calls thee father. 

Yet ere thou dost resolve, know that yon palace 

Is guarded from within, that each access 

Is throng'd by arm'd conspirators, vvatch'd by ruflians 

Pampor'd with gifts, and hot upon the spoil 

Which that false promisor still trails before them. 

I ask i)ut this one boon — reserve my life 

Till I can lose it for the realm and thee ! 

RAAB KIUI'RILI. 

My heart is rent asunder. O my country, 
fallen Illyria ! stand I here spell-bound ? 
8 K2 



Did my King love mo ? Did I earn his love ? 

Have we embraced a.s l)rothers would embrace? 

Was I his arm, liis thunder-holt ? And now 

Must I, Img-ridden, pant as in a dream ! 

Or, like an eagle, whose strong wings press up 

Against a coiling serpent's folds, can I 

.Strike but for mockery, and with restless beak 

Gore my own breast ( — Kagozzi, thou art faithful ? 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Here before Heaven I dedicate my faith 
To the myal line of Andreas. 

RAAB Kioruii.i. 

Hark, Ragozzi ! 
Guilt is a timorous thing ere perpetration : 
Despair alone makes wicked men bo bold. 
Come thou with me ! They have heard my voice in 

llight, 
Have faced round, terror-struck, and fear'd no longer 
The wliislling javelins of their (ell pursuers. 
Ha! what is this I 

[Black Flag displai/ed from Ihc Tower of the Pal- 
ace : a dcalh-bcll tolls, etc. 
Vengeance of Heaven ! He is dead. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

At length then 'tis announced. Alas! I fear. 
That these black death-flags are but treason's signals, 

RAAB KIUI'RILI {loohiitg forwards anxiously). 
A propliccy too soon fullill'd! See yonder! 

rank and ravenous wolves ! the death-bell echoes 
Still in the doleful air — and see ! they come. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Precise and faithful in their villany, 

Even to the moment, that the master traitor 

Had preordaia'd llicm. 

RAAB KIUrRILI. 

Was it over-haste, 
Or is it scorn, that in this race of treason 
Their guilt thus drops its musk, and blazons foith 
Their infiimous plot oven to an idiot's sense. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Doubtless they deem Heaven too usurp'd ! Heaven's 

justice 
Bought like themselves! 

[During this conversation music is heard, at first 
solemn and funereal, and t/ten clianging lo 
spirited and triumphal. 

Being equal all in crime. 
Do you press on, ye sixjtted parricides ! 
For the one sole pre-eminence yet doubtful, 
The prize of foremost impudence in guilt ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

The bad man's cunning still prepares the way 
For its own outwitting. I applaud, Ragozzi ! 

[Musi/ig to himself — iheitr— 
Ragozzi ! I applaud, 
In thee, the virtuous hope that dares look onward 
And keeps the life-s]iark warm of future action 
Beneath tlie cloak of patient suflerance. 
Act and appear as lime and prudence prompt thee; 

1 shall not misconceive the part thou playest. 
Mine is an easier part — to brave Ihc Usurper. 

[Enter a procession of Emerick's Adherents 
Nobles, Chieftains, and Soldiers, with Music. 
They advance toward the front of the Stage, 
Kiuprili makes the signal for tJiem lo stop,— 
The Music ceases. 

107 



as 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



LEADER OF THE PROCESSION. 

The Lord Kiuprili ! — AVelcome from the camp. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Grave magistrates and cliieftaLns of Illyria ! 

In good time come ye hither, if ye come 

As loyal men with honorable purpose 

To mourn what can alone be mourn'd ; but chiefly 

To enforce the last commands of royal Andreas, 

And shield the queen, Zapolya : haply making 

The mother's joy light up the widow's tears. 

LEADER. 

Our purpose demands speed. Grace our procession ; 
A warrior best will greet a warlike Idng. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

This patent, written by your lawful king 
(Lo ! his own seal and signature attesting) 
Appoints as guardians of his realm and offspring. 
The Queen, and the Prince Emerick, and myself. 

[ Yokes of Live King Emerick ! an Emerick ! an 
Emerick .' 
What means this clamor ? Are these madmen's voices ? 
Or is some knot of riotous slanderers leagued 
To infamize the name of the king's brother 
With a lie black as Hell ? unmanly cruelty. 
Ingratitude, and most umiatural treason ! [Murmurs. 
What mean these murmurs I Dare then any here 
Proclaim Prince Emerick a spotted traitor ? 
One that has taken from you your sworn faith, 
And given you in return a Judas' bribe. 
Infamy no\v, oppression in reversion. 
And Heaven's inevitable curse hereafter 1 

[Loud murmurs, followed by cries — Emerick ! No 
Baby Prince ! No Changelings .' 
Yet bear with me awhile ! Have I for this 
Bled for your safety, conquer'd for your honor ! 
Was it for this, Illyrians ! that I forded 
Your thaw-swoln torrents, when the shouldering ice 
Fought with the foe, and stain'd its jagged points 
With gore from wounds, I felt not ? Did the blast 
Beat on this body, frost-and-famine-numb'd, 
Till my hard flesh distinguish'd not itself 
From the insensate mail, its fellow-warrior ? 
And have I brought home with me Victory, 
And with her, hand in hand, firm-footed Peace, 
Her countenance twice lighted up with glory. 
As if I had charm'd a goddess down from Heaven ? 
But these will flee abhorrent from tlie throne 
Of usurpation I 
[Murmurs increase — and cries of Onward .' onward ! 

Have you then thrown off shame, 
And shall not a dear friend, a loyal subject. 
Throw off all fear ? I tell ye, the fair trophies 
Valiantly wrested from a valiant foe. 
Love's natural oflferings lo a rightful king, 
Will hang as ill on this usurping traitor, 
This brother-blight, this Emerick, as robes 
Of gold pluck'd from the images of gods 
Upon a sacrilegious robber's back. 

[During the last four lines, enter Lord Casimir, 
with expressions of anger and alarm. 

CASIMIR. 

Who is this factious insolent, that dares brand 
The elected King, our chosen Emerick ? 

[Starts — then approaching with timid respect. 
My father! 



RAAB KIUPRILI (fuming away). 

Casimir ! He, he a traitor ! 

Too soon indeed, Ragozzi ! have I learnt it. 'Asid& 

CASIMIR [with reverence). 
My father and my Lord ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

I luiovv thee not! 

LEADER. 

Yet the remembrancing did sound right filial. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

A holy name and words of natural duty 
Are blasted by a thankless traitor's utterance. 

CASIMIR. 

O hear me, Sire ! not lightly have I sworn 

Homage to Emerick. lUyria's sceptre 

Demands a manly hand, a warrior's grasp. 

The queen Zapolya's self-expected otTspring 

At least is doubtful : and of all our nobles, 

The king inheriting his brother's heart. 

Hath honor'd us the most. Your rank, my Lord ! 

Already eminent, is — all it can be — 

Confirmed : and me the king's grace hath appointed 

Chief of his council and the lord high-steward. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

(Bought by a bribe !) I know thee now still less. 

CASI.MIR {struggling with his passion). 
So much of Raab Kiuprih's blood flows here, 
That no ix)\ver, save that holy name of father, 
Could shield the man who so dishonor'd me. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

The son of Raab Kiuprili ! a bought bond-slave, 
Guilt's pander, treason's mouth-piece, a gay parrot, 
School'd to shrill forth his feeder's usurp'd titles. 
And scream. Long live king Emerick ! 

LEADER. 

Ay, King Emerick ! 
Stand back, my Lord ! Lead us, or let us pass. 

SOLDIER. 

Nay, let the general speak ! 

SOLDIERS. 

Hear him ! Hear him ' 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Hear me. 
Assembled lords and warriors of Illyria, 
Hear, and avenge me ! Twice ten years have I 
Stood in your presence, honor'd by the king. 
Beloved and trusted. Is there one among you. 
Accuses Raab Kiuprili of a bribe ? 
Or one false whisper in his sovereign's ear ? 
Who here dare charge me with an orphan's rights 
Outfaced, or widow's plea left undefended ? 
And shall I now be branded by a traitor, 
A bought bribed wretch, who, being called my son 
Doth libel a chaste matron's name, and plant 
Hensbane and aconite on a mother's grave ? 
The underling accomplice of a robber, 
That from a widow and a widow's oflSpring 
Would steal their heritage ? To God a rebel, 
And to the common father of his country 
A recreant ingrate I 

CASIMIR. 

Sire ! your words grow dangerous. 
High-flown romantic fancies ill-beseem 
Your age and wisdom. 'T is a statesman's virtue, 
To guard his coimtry's safety by what means 
108 



♦ 



ZAPOLYA. 



99 



It best may be protected — come what will 
Of these monks' morals ! 

RAAB KiuPRiLi (aside). 

Ila ! the elder Brutiis 
Made his soul iron, though his sons repented. 
They boasted not their baseness. 

[Starts, and draics his sword. 
Infamous changeling ! 
Recant this instant, and swear loyalty, 
And strict obedience to thy sovereign's will ; 
Or, by the spirit of departed Andreas, 

Thou diest 

[Chiefs, etc. rusk to interpose ; during the tumult 
enter Emerick, alarmed. 

EMKRICK. 

Call out the guard ! Ragozzi ! seize the assassin. 

Kiuprili? Ha! [With lowered voice, at the same 

time with one hand making signs to the guard 

to retire. 

Pass on, friends ! to the palace. 
[Music reeommences. — The Procession jjasses into 
the Palace. — During which time Eaierick and 
Kiuprili regard each other sted/astly. 

EMERICK. 

VVTiat ! Raab Kiuprili ? What ! a father's sword 
Against his own son's breast i 

RA.\B KIUPRILI. 

'T would be best excuse him, 
Were he thy son, Prince Emerick. / abjure him. 

EMERICK. 

This is my thanks, then, that I have commenced 
A reign to which the free voice of the nobles 
Hath call'd me, and the people, by regards 
Of love and grace to Raab Kiiiprili's house ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

What right hadst thou. Prince Emerick, to bestow 
them? 

EMERICK. 

By what right dares Kiuprili question me ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

By a right common to all loyal subjects — 

To me a duty ! As the realm's co-regent, 

Appointed by our sovereign's last free act, 

Writ by himself — [Grasping the Patent. 

EMERICK (with a contemptuous sneer). 
Ay ! — Writ in a delirium ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

I likewise ask, by whose authority 

The access to the sovereign was refused me ? 

EMERICK. 

By whose authority dared the general leave 
His camp and army, hke a fugitive ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

A fugitive, w-ho, with victory for his comrade. 
Ran, open-eyed, upon the face of death ! 
A fugitive, with no other fear, than bodements 
To be belated in a loyal purpose — 
At the command, Prince! of nitj king and thine, 
Hiiher I came ; and now again require 
Audience of Queen Zapolya; and (the States 
Forthwith convened) that thou dost show at large, 
On what ground of defect thou 'st dared annul 
This thy King's last and solemn act — hast dared 
Ascend the throne, of ^vhich the law had named. 
And conscience should have made thee, a protector. 



EMERICK. 

A sovereign's ear ill brooks a subject's questioning ! 
Yet for thy past well-doing — and because 
'Tis hard lo erase at once the fond belief 
Ijong chcrish'd, that Ulyria had in iheo 
iVo dreaming priest's slave, but a Roman lover 
Of her true weal and freedom — and for this, loo, 
That, hoping to call forih to the broad day-light 
And fostering breeze of glor)*, all deservings, 
I still had placed thee foremost. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Prince ! I listen. 

EMERICK. 

Unwillingly I tell thee, that Zapolya, 

Madden'd wiih grief, her erring hopes proved idle — 

CASIMIR. 

Sire! speak the whole truth! Say, her/;au</s detected! 

EMERICK. 

According to the sworn attests in council 
01' her physician 

RAAD KIUPRILI (flSirfc). 

Yes ! the Jew, Barzoni 

EMERICK. 

Under the imminent risk of death she lies, 

Or irrecoverable loss of reason. 

If known friend's lace or voice renew the frenzy. 

CASIMIR (lo Kiuprili). 
Trust me, my Lord! a woman's trick has duped you— 
Us too — but most of all, the sainted Andreas. 
Even for his own fair fame, his grace prays hourly 
For her recovery that (the States convened) 
She may take counsel of her friends. 

E.MERICK. 

Right, Casimir! 
Receive my pledge, Lord General. It shall stand 
In her own will to appear and voice her claims ; 
Or (which in truth I hold the wiser course) 
With all the past pass'd by, as family quarrels. 
Let the Queen-Dowager, with unblench'd honors. 
Resume her slate, our first Illyrian matron. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Prince Emerick! you speak fairly, and your pledge too 
Is such, as well would suit an honest meaning. 

CASIMIR. 

My Lord ! j-ou scarce know half his grace's goodness. 

The wealthy heiress, high-born fair Sarolta, 

Bred in the convent of our noble ladies, 

Iler relative, the venerable abbess. 

Hath, at his grace's urgence, woo'd and won for me. 

EMERICK. 

Long may the race, and long may that name flourish. 
Which your heroic deeds, brave chief, have render'd 
Dear and illustrious to all true Illyrians ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI (stemly). 
The longest line, that ever tracing herald 
Or found or feign 'd, placed by a beggar's soul. 
Hath but a mushroom's date in Ihc comparison: 
And with the soul, tlie conscience is coeval, 
Yea, the soul's essence. 

EMERICK. 

Coascience, good my Lord, 
Is but the pulse of reason. Is it conscience. 
That a free nation should be handed down. 
Like the dull clods beneath our feet, by chance 
And the blind law of lineage ? That whether infant 
Or man matured, a wise man or on idiot, 
15 lOH 



100 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Hero or natural coward, shall have guidance 

Of a free people's destiny ; should fall out 

In the mere lotteiy of a reckless nature, 

Where few the prizes and the blanks are countless ? 

Or haply that a nation's fate should hang 

On the bald accident of a midwife's handling 

The unclosed sutures of an infant's skull ? 

CASIMIR. 

What better claim can sovereign wish or need, 
Tlian the free voice of men who love their country ? 
Tliose chiefly who have fought for't? Who, by right. 
Claim for their monarch one, who having obey'd 
So hath best learnt to govern ; who, having sufler'd. 
Can feel for each brave sufferer and reward him ? 
Whence sprang the name of Emperor ? Was it not 
By Nature's fiat? In the storm of triumph, 
'Mid warriors' shouts, did her oracular voice 
Make itself heard : Let the commanding spirit 
Possess the station of command ! 

KAAB KlUPRILI. 

Prince Emerick, 
Your cause will prosper best in your own pleading. 

EMERICK (aside to Casimir). 
Riigozzi was thy school-mate — a bold spirit ! 
Bind him to us I — Thy father thaws apace ! 

[Then alovd. 
Leave us awhile, my Lord ! — Your friend, Ragozzi, 
VYliom you have not yet seen since his return, 
Commands the guard to-day. 

[Casimir retires to the Guard-House ; mul after a 
time appears before it with Chef Ragozzi. 
We are alone. 
What further pledge or proof desires Kiuprili ? 
Then, with your assent 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Mistake not for assent 
The unquiet silence of a stern Resolve, 
Tlirotiling ilie impatient voice. I have heard thee, 

Prince ! 
And I have wateh'd thee, too ; but have small faith in 
A plausible tale told with a flitting eye. 

[E.MKRiCK turns as about to call for the Guard. 
In the next moment I am in thy power, 
In this thou art in mine. Stir but a step, 
Or make one sign — I sv\ear by this good s^vord, 
Thou diest that instant. 



Ha, ha! — Well, Sir! — Conclude your homily. 

RAAB KIUPRILI (in a somewhat suppressed voice.) 
A tale which, whether true or false, comes guarded 
Against all means of proof, detects itself 
The Queen mew'd up — tliis too from anxious care 
And love brought forth of a sudden, a twin birth 
With the discovery of her plot to rob thee 
Of a rightful throne ! — Mark how the scorpion, False- 
hood, 
Coils round in its own perplexity, and fixes 
Its sting in its own head ! 

EMERICK. 

Ay ! to the mark ! 
Raab Kiuprili (aloud): [he and Emerick stand- 
ing at equi-di stance from the Palace aiul 
the Guard-House. 
Hadst thou believed thine own tale, hadst ihoM fancied 
Tliiself the rightful successor of Andreas, 



Wouldst thou have pilfer'd from our school-boys 

tliemes 
These shallow sophisms of a popidar choice ? 
A\niat people ? How convened ? or, if convened, 
Must not the magic power that chamis together 
Millions of men in council, needs have power 
To win or wield them ? Better, O far better 
Shout forth thy titles to yon circling mountains, 
And with a thousand-fold reverberation 
Make the rocks flatter thee, and the volleying air, 
Unbribed, shout back to thee. King Emerick ! 
By wholesome laws to embank the sovereign power 
To deepen by restraint, and by prevention 
Of lawless will to amass and guide the flood 
In its majestic channel, is man's task 
And the true patriot's gloiy ! In all else 
Men safelier trust to Heaven, than to tliemselves 
When least themselves in the mad whirl of crowds 
Where folly is contagious, and too oft 
Even wise men leave their better sense at home, 
To chide and wonder at them when return'd. 

EMERICK (aloud). 
Is 't thus, thou scoff'st the people ! most of all, 
The soldiers, the defenders of the people ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI (oloiul). 

most of all, most miserable nation, 

For whom th' Imperial power, enormous bubble ! 
Is blown and kept aloft, or burst and shaller'd 
By the bribed breath of a lewd soldiery ! 
Chiefly of such, as from the frontiers far 
(Which is the noblest station of true warriors), 
In rank licentious idleness beleaguer 
City and court, a venom'd thorn i' the side 
Of virtuous kings, the tyrant's slave and tyrant, 
Still ravening for fresh largess ! but with such 
Wliat title claim'st thou, save thy birth ? Wliat merita 
Which many a liegeman may not plead as well. 
Brave though I grant thee ? If a life outlabor'd 
Head, heart, and fortunate arm, in watch and war, 
For the land's fame and weal ; if large acquests, 
Made honest by th' aggression of the foe 
And whose best praise is, that they bring us safety ; 
If victory, doubly-wreathed, whose under-garland 
Of laurel-leaves loolis greener and more sparkling 
Through the gray olive-branch ; if these, Prince Eme- 
rick ! 
Give the true title to the throne, not thou — 
No ! (let lUyria, let the infidel enemy 
Be judge and arbiter between us !) I, 

1 were the rightful sovereign ! 

EMERICK. 

I have faith 
Tliat thou both think'st and liopcst it Fair Zapolya 
A provident lady — 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Wretch, beneath all answer' 

EMERICK. 

Oflfers at once the royal bed anu throne ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

To be a kingdom's bulwark, a king's glory, 
Yet loved by both, and trusted, and trust-worthy, 
Is more than to be king ; but see ! thy rage 
Fights with thy fear. I will relieve thee ! Ho ! 

[To the Guard 

EMERICK. 

Not for thy sword, but to entrap thee, ruffian • 

110 



ZAPOLYA. 



101 



Thus long I have listen'd — Guard — lio! from the 
Palace. 
77ic Guard post from the Guard-House with 
Chef Ragozzi at their head, and then a 
number from the Palace — Chef Ragozzi de- 
mands KiuPRiLi's sword, and apprehends him. 

CASIMIR. 

agony ! (To Emerick). Sire, hear me ! 

[To KiuPRiLi, who turns from him. 
Hear me, Father ! 

EMERICK. 

Take in arrest that traitor and assassin ! 

Who pleads for his life, strikes at mine, his sovereign's. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

As the co-regent of ihe realm, 1 stand 
Amenable to none save to the States, 
Met in due course of law. But ye are bond-slaves, 
Yet vvimess ye that before God and man 

1 here impeach Lord Emerick of foul treason, 
And on strong grounds attaint him with suspicion 
Of murder — 

EMERICK. 

Hence with the madman! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Your Queen's murder. 
The royal orphan's murder : and to the death 
Defy him, as a tyrant and usurper. 

[Hurried off by Ragozzi and the Guard. 

EAIERICK. 

Ere twice the sun hath risen, by my sceptre 
This insolence shall be avenged. 

CASIMIR. 

O banish him I 
Tliis infamy will crush me. O for my sake, 
Banish him, my liege lord ! 

EMERICK (^scomfidly). 

What .' to the army ? 
Be calm, young friend ! Nought shall be done in anger. 
The child o'erpowers the man. In this emergence 
I must take counsel for us both. Retire. 

[Exit Casimir in agitation. 
EMERICK {alone, looks at a Calendar). 
The changeful planet, now in her decay, 
Dips down at midnight, to be seen no more. 
With her shall sink the enemies of Emerick, 
Cursed by the last look of the waning moon ; 
And my bright destiny, with sharpcn'd horns, 
Shall greet me fearless in the new-bom crescent. 

[Exit. 
Scene changes to another vieiv, namely, the hack of the 
Palace — o Wooded Park, and Mountains. 

Enter Zapolya, with an Infant in her arms. 

ZAPOLYA. 

Hush, dear one ! hush ! My tremblmg arm disturbs 

thee! 
Thou, the Protector of the helpless ! thou, 
The widow's Husband and the orphan's Father, 
Direct my steps ! Ah whither ? O send down 
Thy angel to a houseless babe and mother, 
Driven forth into the cruel widemcss ! 
Hush, sweet one! Thou art no Hagar's offipring: 

thou art 
The rightful heir of an anointed king ! 
What sounds are those ? It is the vesper chant 
Of laboring men returning to their home ! 
llieir queen has no home ! Hear me, heavenly Father! 



And let this darkness 

Be as the shadow of thy outspread wings 
To hide and shield us! Slart'st thou in thy slumbers? 
Thou canst not dream of savage Emerick. Hush ! 
Betray not thy poor mother ! For if they seize thee, 
I siiall grow mad indeed, and they'll believe 
Thy wicked uncle's lio. lla! what? A soldier? 

[iSlie starts back — and enter CiiEF Ragozzi. 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Sure Heaven befriends us. Well ! he hath escaped 

rare tune of a tyrant's promises 
That can enchant the serpent treachery 

From forth its lurking-hole in the heart. "Ragozzi! 

" O brave Ragozzi! Count ! Commander ! What not?" 

And all this too for nothing ! a poor nothing ! 

Merely to play the underling in the murder 

Of my best IHcnd Kiuprili ! His own son — monstrous! 

Tyrant ! I owe thee tlianks, and in good hour 

VVill I repay thee, for that thou thought'st 7ne too 

A serviceable villain. Could I now 

But gain some sure iiilclligence of the queen : 

Heaven bless and guard her ! 

z APOLYA {coming fearfully forward). 

Art thou not Ragozzi ? 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Tlie Queen ! Now then the miracle is full ! 

1 see Heaven's wisdom in an over-match 

For the devil's cimning. This way, madam, haste I 

ZAPOLYA. 

Stay ! Oh, no ! Forgive me if I wrong thee ! 

This is thy sovereign's cliild : Oh, pity us, 

And be not treacherous! [Kneeling 

CHEF RAGOZZI [raising her). 
Madam ! For mercy's sake ! 

ZAPOI.VA. 

But tyrants have a hundred eyes and arms ! 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Take courage, madam ! 'T were too horrible, 
(I can not do 't) to swear I 'm not a monster ! — 
Scarce had I barr'd the door on Raab Kiuprili — 

ZAPOLYA. 

ffiuprili! how? 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

There is not time to tell it. 
Tlie tyrant call'd me to him, praised my zeal 
(And be assured I overtopt his cunning 
And seem'd right zealous). But time wastes : in fine 
Bids me dispatch my trustiest friends, as couriers 
With lettei-s to the army. Tlie (bought at once 
Flash'd on me. I disguised my prisoner — 

ZAPOLYA. 

Wliat! Raab Kiuprili? 

CHEF R.VGOZZI. 

Yes ! my noble general ! 
I sent him ofF] with Emerick's own packet. 
Haste, and post haste — Prepared to follow him 

ZAPOLYA. 

Ah, how? Is it joy or fear? My limbs seem sinking! — 

CHEF RAGOZZI (supporting her). 
Heaven still befriends us. I have left my charger 
A gentle beast and fleet, and my boy's mule, 
One that can shoot a precipice like a bird, 
Just where the wood begins to climb the mountains. 
The course we'll thread will mock the tyrant's guesses, 
Or scare the followers. Ere we rcacli the main roan 
The Lord Kiuprili will have sent a troop 

111 



102 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



To escort me. Oh, thrice happy when he finds 
The treasure which I convoy I 

ZAPOLYA. 

One brief moment. 
That, praying for strength I may have strength. This 

babe, 
Heaven's eye is on it, and its innocence 
Is, as a prophet's prayer, strong and prevailing ! 
Through thee, dear babe! the inspiring thought 

possess'd me, 
When the loud clamor rose, and all the palace 
Emptied itself — (They sought my life, Ragozzi !) 
Like a swift shadow gliding, I made way 
To the deserted chamber of my Lord. — 

[Then to the infant. 
And thou didst kiss thy father's lifeless lips, 
And in thy helpless hand, sweet slumberer ! 
Still clasp'st the signet of thy royalty. 
As I removed the seal, the heavy arm 
Dropt from the couch aslant, and the stiff finger 
Seem'd pointing at my feet. Provident Heaven ! 
Lo, I was standing on the secret door. 
Which, through a long descent where all sound 

perishes. 

Let out beyond the palace. Well I knew it 

But Andreas framed it not! He was no tyrant! 

CHEF RAGOZZI. 

Haste, madam I Let me take this precious burden ! 
[He kneels as he takes the child. 



Take him ! And if we be pursued, I charge thee, 
Flee thou and leave me ! Flee and save thy king! 

[Then as going off, she looks back on the palace. 
Thou tyrant's den, be call'd no more a palace ! 
The orphan's angel at the throne of Heaven 
Stands up against thee, and there hover o'er thee 
A Queen's, a Mother's, and a Widow's curse. 
Henceforth a dragon's haunt, fear and suspicion 
Stand sentry at thy portals ! Failh and honor. 
Driven from the throne, shall leave the attainted na- 
tion: 
And, for the iniquity that houses in theo. 
False glory, thirst of blood, and lust of rapine 
(Fateful conjunction of malignant planets). 
Shall shoot their blastments on the land. The fathers 
Henceforth shall have no joy in their young men. 
And when tliey cry : Lo ! a male child is born ! 
The mother shall make answer with a groan. 
For bloody usurpation, like a vulture. 
Shall clog its beak witliin lUyria's heart. 
Remorseless slaves of a remorseless tyrant I 
They shall be mock'd with sounds of liberty, 
And liberty shall be proclaim'd alone 
To thee, O Fire ! O Pestilence ! O Sword ! 
Till Vengeance hath her fill. — And thou, snatch'd 

hence. 
Again to the infant.) poor friendless fugitive ! with 

Mother's wailing. 
Offspring of Royal Andreas, shalt return 
With trump and timbrel clang, and popular shout 
In triumph to the palace of thy fathers ! [ExeuM. 



PART n. 



THE SEQUEL, ENTITLED 
FATE." 



THE USURPER'S 



ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS. 

MEN. 

Old Bathory, a Mountaineer. 

Bethlen Bathory, the Young Prince Andreas, sup- 
posed Son of Old Bathory. 

Lord Rudolph, a Courtier, hut friend to the Queen's 
party. 

Laska, Steward to Casimir, betrothed to Glycine. 

Pestalutz, an Assassin, in Emerick's employ. 

WOMEN. 
Lady Sarolta, Wife of Lord Casimir. 
Glycine, Orphan Daughter of Chef Ragozzi. 

Between the flight of the Queen, and the civil war 
which immediately followed, and in which Emerick 
remained the victor, a space of twenty years is sup- 
posed to have elapsed. 



ACT L 

SCENE I. 

A Mountainous Country. Bathory's Dwelling at 
the end of the Stage. 

Enter Lady Sarolta and Glycine, 
glycine. 
AVell, then ! our round of charity is finish'd 
Rest, Madam ! You breathe quick. 
sarolta. 

What ! tired. Glycine ! 
No delicate court dame, but a mountaineer 
By choice no less than birth, I gladly use 
The good strength Nature gave me. 

glycine. 

Tliat last cottage 
Is built as if an eagle or a raven 
Had chosen it for her nest. 

SAROLTA. 

So many are 
The sufferings which no human aid can reach, 
It needs must be a duty doubly sweet 
To heal the few we can. Well ! let us rest. 

GLYCINE. 

There ? [Pointing to Bathory's dwelling Sarolta 
answering, points to where she then standi 

SAROLTA. 

Here ! For on this spot Lord Casimir 
Took his last leave. On yonder mountain ridge 
I lost the misty image which so long 
Linger'd or seem'd at least to linger on it. 

GLYCYNE. 

And what if even now, on that same ridge, 

A speck should rise, and still enlarging, lengthening 

As it clomb dovwiwards, shape itself at last 

To a numerous cavalcade, and spurring foremost, 

Who but Sarolta's own dear Lord retum'd 

From his high embassy ? 

112 






i 



ZAPOLYA. 



103 



SAROLTA. 

Tliou hast hit my thought ! 
All the long day, from yestor-iuorn to evening, 
The restless hope flulter'd ahout my heart. 
Oh, we are querulous creatures ! Little less 
Than all things can sufllco to make us happy ; 
And little more than nothing is enough 
To discontent us. — Were he come, then should I 
Repine he had not arrived just one day earlier 
To keep his birth-day hero, in his own birth-place. 

GLYCINE. 

But our best sports belike, and gay processions 
Would to my Lord have seem'd but work-day sights 
Compared with those tlie royal court aflbrds. 

SAROLTA. 

I have small wish to see them. A spring morning, 

With its wild gladsome minstrelsy of birds, 

And its bright jewclr)' of flowers and dew-drops 

(Each orbed drop an orb of glory in it). 

Would put them all in eclipse. This sweet retirement 

Lord Casiinir's wish alone would have made sacred : 

But in good truth, his loving jealousy 

Did but command, what I had else entreated. 

GLYCINE. 

And yet had I been born Lady Sarolta, 
Been wedded to the noblest of the realm. 
So beautiful besides, and yet so stately 

SAROLTA. 

Hush ! innocent flatterer ! 

GLYCINE. 

Nay I to my poor fancy 
The royal court would seem an earthly heaven. 
Made for such stars to shine in, and be gracious. 

SAROLTA. 

So doth the ignorant distance still delude us ! 

Thy fancied heaven, dear girl, like that above thee, 

In its mere self, a cold, drear, colorless void, 

Seen from below and in the large, becomes 

The bright blue ether, and the scat of gods ! 

Well ! but this broil that scared you from the dance ? 

And was not Laska there : he, your betroth'd ? 

GLYCINE. 

Yes, madam ! he was there. So was the maypole, 
For we danced round it 

SAROLTA. 

Ah, Glycine ! why. 
Why did you then betroth yourself? 

GLYCINE. 

Because 
My own dear lady wish'd it ! 't was you ask'd me ! 

SAROLTA. 

Yes, at my Lord's request, but never wish'd. 
My poor affectionate girl, to see thee wTctched. 
Thou know'st not yet the duties of a wife. 

GLYCINE. 

Oh, yes! It is a wife's chief duty, madam. 
To stand in aw^e of her husband, and obey him ; 
And, I am sure, I never shall see Laska 
But I shall tremble. 

SAROLTA. 

Not with fear, I think. 
For you still mock him. Bring a seat from the cottage. 
[Exit Glycine into the cotiasre, Sarolta continues 
her speech, looking after her. 
Something above thy rank there hangs about thee, 
And in thy countenance, thy voice, and motion, 



Yea, e'en in thy simplicily, Cilyfine, 
A lino and foniiiiiiio grace, that makes me feel 
More as a mother than a mistress to thee ! 
Thou art a soldier's orphan ! that — the courage, 
Which rising in thine eye, seems oft to give 
A new soul to its gentleness, doth prove thee 
Thou art sprung too of no ignoble blood. 
Or there's no faith in instinct! 
\Angry voices and clamor within, re-enter Gltcinb 

GLYCINE. 

Oh, madam ! there 's a party of your servants, 
And my Lord's steward, Laska, at their head. 
Have come to search for old Bathory's son, 
Bothlen, that brave young man ! 'twas he, my lady. 
That took our parts, and beat off the intruders ; 
And in mere spite and malice, now they charge him 
With bad words of Lord Casimir and tiie king. 
Pray don't believe them, madam! This way ! This 

way ! 
Lady Sarolta 's here. [CaUing without 

SAROLTA. 

Be calm. Glycine. 
Enter Lasea and Servatits with Old Bathort. 

LASKA {to BaTIIORY). 

We have no concern with you ! What needs youi 
presence ? 

OLD BATIIORY. 

WTiat ! Do you think I '11 suffer my bravo boy 
To be slander'd by a set of coward-ruffians, 
And leave it to their malice, — yes, mere malice ! — 
To tell its own tale ? 

[Laska aiul Servants bow to Lady Sarolta 

SAROLTA. 

Laska ! What may this mean ? 
LASKA {pompously, as commencing a set speech). 
Madam ! and may it please your ladyship ! 
Tliis old man's son, by name Bethlen Bathory, 
Stands charged, on weighty evidence, that he, 
On yester-eve, being his lordship's birth-day. 
Did traitorously defame Lord Casimir : 
The lord high-steward of the realm, moreover 

SAROLTA. 

Be brief! We know his titles ! 

LASKA. 

And moreover 
Raved like a traitor at our liege King Emerick. 
And furthermore, said witnesses make oath. 
Led on the assault upon his lordship's servants; 
Yea, insolently tore, from this, your huntsman. 
His badge of livery of your noble house. 
And trampled it in scorn. 

SAROLTA {to the Servants who offer to spcah). 

You have had your spokesman . 
Where is the young man thus accused ? 

OLD BATIIORY. 

I know not : 
But if no ill betide him on the mountaiii.s. 
He will not long be absent ! 

SAROLTA. 

Thou art his father ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

None ever with more reason prized a son : 
Yet I hate falsehood more than I love hiin. 
But more than one, now in my lady's presence, 
Witness'd the affray, besides these men of malice ; 

And if I swerve from truth 

113 



104 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



GLYCINE. 

Yes ! good old man ! 
My lady ! pray believe him ! 

SAROLTA. 

Hush, Glycine ! 
Be silent, I command you. [Then to Bathory. 

Speak ! we hear you ! 
OLD bathory. 
My tnle is brief. During our festive dance, 
Your servants, the accusers of my son, 
Ofler'd gross insults, in unmanly sort. 
To our village maidens. He (could he do less?) 
Rose in defence of outraged modesly. 
And so persuasive did his cudgel prove 
(Your hectoring sparks so over brave to women 
Are always cowards), that they soon took flight. 
And now in mere revenge, like baffled boasters, 
Have framed this tale, out of some hasty words 
Which their own threats provoked. 

SAROLTA. 

Old man ! you talk 
Too bluntly! Did your son owe no respect 
To the livery of our liouse ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

Even such respect 
As the sheep's skin should gain for the hot wolf 
That hath begun to worry the poor lambs ! 

LASKA. 

Old insolent ruffian I 

glycine. 
Pardon ! pardon, madam ! 
I saw the whole affray. The good old man 
Means no offence, sweet lady ! — You, yourself, 
Laska ! know well, that these men were the ruffians ! 
Shame on you ! 

SAROLTA (f:pealcs zvith affected mtger). 
What ! Glycine ! Go, retire ! 

[Exit Glycine, mournfully. 
Be it then that these men faulted. Yet yourself, 
Or better still belike the maidens' parents. 
Might have complain'd to us. Was ever access 
Denied you ? Or free audience ? Or are we 
Weak and imfit to punish our own servants ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

So then ! So then ! Heaven gi-ant an old man patience ! 
And must the gardener leave his seedling plants, 
Leave his young roses to the rooting swine, 
Wliile he goes ask their master, if perchance 
His leisure serve to scourge them from their ravage ? 

LASKA. 

Ho ! Take the rude clown from your lady's presence ! 
I will report her further will ! 

SAROLTA. 

Wait, then, 
Till thou hast learnt it ! Fervent, good old man ! 
Forgive me that, to try thee, I put on 
A face of sternness, alien to my meaning ! 

[Tlien speaks to the Servants. 
Hence ! leave my presence ! and you, Laska ! mark 

me ! 
Those rioters are no longer of my household ! 
If we but shake a dew-drop from a rose. 
In vain would we replace it, and as vainly 
Restore the tear of Avounded modesty 
To a maiden's eye familiarized to license. — 
But these men, La.ska— 



LASKA (aside). 

Yes, now 'tis commg. 

SAROLTA. 

Brutal aggressors first, then baffled dastards. 
That they have sought to piece out their revenge 
With a tale of words lured from the lips of ange» 
Stamps them most dangerous ; and fill I want 
Fit means for wicked ends, we shall not need 
Their services. Discharge them ! You, Bathory! 
Are henceforth of my household ! I shall place you 
Near my own person. When your son returns, 
Present him to us. 

OLD BATHORY. 

Ha ! what, strangers* here ! 
What business have they in an old man's eye ? 
Your goodness, lady — and it came so sudden — 
I cannot — must not — let you be deceived. 
I have yet another tale, but — [Then to Sarolta a.nde. 
Not for all eare! 

SAROLTA. 

I oft have pass'd your cottage, and still praised 
Its beauty, and that trim orchard-plot, whose blossoms 
The gusts of April shower'd aslant its thatch. 
Come, you shall show it me ! And while you bid it 
Farewell, be not ashamed that I should witness 
The oil of gladness glittering on the water 
Of an ebbing grief. 

[Bathory bowing, shows her into his cottage 
LASKA {alo7ie). 

Vexation ! baffled ! school'd ! 
Ho! Laska! wake! why? what can all this mean! 
She sent away that cockatrice in anger ! 
Oh the false witch ! It is too plain, she loves him 
And now, the old man near my lady's person, 
She '11 see this Bethlen hourly ! 

[Laska flings himself into the seat. Glycink 
peeps in timidhj. 

GLYCINE. 

Laska! Laska! 
Is my lady gone ? 

LASKA {surlily). 
Gone. 

GLYCINE. 

Have you yet seen him ? 
Is he return'd ? 

[Laska starts vp from his seat 
Has the seat stung you, Laska ? 

LASKA. 

No! serpent! no; 'tis you that sting me ; you! 
What! you would cling to him again! 

GLYCINE. 

Whom ? 

LASKA. 

Bethlen! Bethlen., 
Yes ; gaze as if your very eyes eml^raced him ! I 

Ha ! you forget the scene of yesterday ! * 

Mute ere he came, but Ilien — Out on your scream?, 
And your pretended fears ! 

GLYCINE. . 

Your fears, at least. 
Were real, Laska ! or your trembling limbs 
And white cheeks play'd the hyiwcrites most vilely! 



• Refers to tlietoar, wiiirh he feos stiirtrnsr in his eye. The 
following line was borrowed unconsciously from Mr. Wor 
wortli's Excursion. 

114 

i 



ZAPOLYA. 



105 



LASKA. 

1 fear ! whom ? A\Tiat ? 

GLYCINE. 

I know, what I should fear, 
Were I in Laska's place. 

LASKA. 

What? 

GLYCINE. 

My own conscience, 
For having fed my jealousy and envy 
With a plot, made oul of other men's revenges, 
Against a brave and innocent young man's life ! 
Yet, yet, pray tell ine ! 

LASKA {mali^nantli/). 

You will know too soon. 

GLYCINE. 

Would I could find my lady ! though she chid me — 
Yet this suspense — [Going. 

LASKA. 

Stop! slop! one question only — 
I am quite calm — 

"GLYCINE. 

Ay, as the old song says. 
Calm as a tiger, valiant as a dove. 
Nay now, I have niarr'd the verse : well ! this one 
question — 

LASKA. 

Are you not bound to me by your own promise ? 
And is it not as plain — 

GLYCINE. 

Halt! that's two questions. 

LASKA. 

Pshaw ! Is it not as plain as impudence, 

Tliat you're in love with this young swaggering 

beggar, 
Bethlen Bathory ? When he was accused. 
Why press'd you forward ? Why did you defend him ? 

GLYCINE. 

Question meet question : that 's a woman's privilege. 

Why, Laska, did you urge Lord Casimir 

To make my lady force that promise from me ? 

LASKA. 

So then, you say. Lady Sarolta forced you ? 

GLYCINE. 

Could I look up to her dear countenance, 

And say her nay ? As far back as I wot of. 

All her commands were gracious, sweet requests. 

How could it be then, but that her requests 

Must needs have sounded to me as commands ? 

And as for love, had I a score of loves, 

I 'd keep them all for my dear, kind, good mistress. 

LASKA. 

Not one for Bethlen ! 

GLYCINE. 

Oh! that's a diflerent thing. 
To be sure he's brave, and handsome, and so pious 
To his good old father. But for loving him — 
Nay, there, indeed you are mistaken, Laska ! 
Poor youth ! I rather think I grieve for him ; 
For I sigh so deeply when I think of him ! 
And if I see him, the tears come in my eyes. 
And my heart beats; and all because 1 dreamt 
That the war-wolf* had gored him as he hunted 
In the haunted forest! 



• For the best account of the VVarwolf or Lycanlhropiis, see 
/Jrayton's Moon-calf, Chalmers' English Poets, vol. iv. p. 
13 fr 



LASKA. 

You dare own all this ? 
Your lady will not warrant promise-breach. 
Mine, paraper'd Miss ! you shall be ; and I '11 make 

you 
Grieve for him with a vengeance. Odds, my fingers 
Tingle already ! [Makes threaiening signs. 

GLYCINE (aside). 
Ila ! Bethlen coming this way ! 
[Glycine Own cries out as if afraid of being beaten 
Oh. save ine ! save me ! Pray don't kill me, Laska ! 
Enter Bethlen in a Hunting Dress. 

BETHLEN. 

What, beat a woman ! 

LASKA (/o Glycine). 
O you cockatrice ! 

ItKrilLEN. 

Unmanly dastard, hold I 

LASKA {pompously). 

Do you chance to know 
Who — I — am. Sir ? — (S'death how black he looks ') 

BETHLEN. 

I have started many strange beasts in my lime, 
But none less like a man, ilian this belbre me 
'I'hat lifts his hand against a timid female. 

LASKA. 

Bold youth ! she's mine. 

GLYCINE. 

Ao, not my master yet, 
But only is to be ; and all because 
Tv\o years ago my lady ask'd me, and 
I promised hrr, not him ; and if she '11 let me, 
I '11 /tale you, my Lord's steward. 

BETHLEN. 

Hush, Glycine ' 

GLYCINE. 

Yes, I do, Bethlen ; for he just now brought 
i'^alse witnesses to swear away your life : 
Your life, and old Baihoiy's too. 

BETHLEN. 

Balhor)''s ! 

Where is my father? Answer, or lla! gone ! 

[Laska during this lime slinks 'off the Stage, using 
threaiening gestures to Glycine. 

GLYCINE. 

Oh, heed not him ! 1 saw you pressing onward, 
And did but feign alarm. Dear gallant youth, 
It is ijour life they seek ! 

BETHLEN. 

My life ? 

GLYCINE. 

Alaii! 
Lady Sarolta even — 

BETHLEN. 

She does not know me ! 

GLYCINE. 

Oh that she did ! she could not then have spoken 
With such stern countenance. But though she spurn 

me, 
I will kneel, Bethlen — 

BETHLEN. 

Not for mo. Glycine ! 
What have I done? or whom have I offended? 

GLYCINE. 

Rash words, 'tis said, and treasonous, of the king. 
[Bethlen mutters to himself indignanlly 
GLYCINE (aside). 
So looks the statue, in our hall, o' the god. 
The shaft just flown that lulled the serpent! 
115 



106 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



BETHLEN (muttering aside). 



Kins ! 



GLYCINE. 

Ah, often have I wish'd you were a king. 

Vou would protect the helpless everywhere, 

As you did us. And I, too, should not then 

Grieve for you, Bethlen, as I do ; nor have 

The tears come in my eyes ; nor dream bad dreams 

That you were kill'd in the forest; and then Laska 

Would have no right to rail at me, nor say 

(Yes, the base man, he says) that I — I love you. 

BETIILEX. 

Pretty Glycine ! wert thou not betrothed — 
But in good truth I know not what I speak. 
This luckless morning I have been so haunted 
With my own fancies, starting up like omens, 
That I feel like one, who waking from a dream 
Both asks and answers wildly — But Bathory ? 

GLYCINE. 

Hist! 'tis my lady's step! She must not see you! 

[Bethlen retires. 
Enter from the Cottage Sarolta a7id Bathory. 
sarolta. 
Go, seek your son ! I need not add, be speedy — 
You here. Glycine ? [Exit Bathory. 

GLYCINE. 

Pardon, pardon, Madam ! 
If you but saw the old man's son, you would not. 
You could not have him harm'd. 

sarolta. 

Be calm, Glycine ! 

GLYCINE. 

No, I shall break my heart. [Sobbivg. 

sarolta {taking her hand). 

Ila ! is it so ? 
O strange and hidden power of sympathy, 
That of like fates, though all unknown to each, 
Dost make blind instincts, orphan's heart to orphan's 
Drawing by dim disquiet! 

GLYCINE. 

Old Bathory — 
sarolta. 
Seeks his brave son. Come, wipe away thy tears. 
Yes, in good truth. Glycine, this same Bethlen 
Seems a most noble and deserving youth. 

GLYCINE. 

My lady does not mock me ? 
sarolta. 



Where is Laska? 



Has he not told thee ? 



glycine. 
Nothing. In his fear — 
Anger, I mean — stole oflP — I am so flutter'd — 
Left me abruptly — 

sarolta, 
His shame excuses him ! 
He is somewhat hardly task'd ; and in discharging 
His own tools, cons a lesson for liimself 
Bathory and the youlh licnceforward hve 
Safe in my Lord's protection. 

GLYCINE. 

The saints bless you ! 
Shame on my graceless heart ! How dared I fear 
Lady Sarolta could be cruel ' 



sarolta. 

Come, 
Be yourself, girl ! 

GLYCINE. 

O, 't is so full here. [At her heart 
And now it cannot harm him if I tell you, 
That the old man's son — 

sarolta. 

Is not that old man s son ! 
A destiny, not unlike thine own, is his. 
For all I know of thee is, that thou art 
A soldier's orphan : left when rage intestine 
Shook and ingulf'd the pillars of lUyria. 
This other fragment, thrown back by that same earth- 
quake, 
This, so mysteriously inscribed by Nature, 
Perchance may piece out and interpret thine. 

Command thyself! Be secret ! His true father 

Hcar'st thou ? 

GLYCINE {eagerly). 
O tell— 
BETHLEN {who had overheard tlee last few words, now 
rushes out). 
Yes, tell me. Shape from Heaven ' 
Who is my father ? 

sarolta {gazing with surprise). 

Thine I Thy father ? Rise ! 

GLYCINE. 

Alas ! He hath alarm'd you, my dear lady I 

sarolta. 
His countenance, not his act I 

GLYCINE. 

Rise, Bethlen ! Rise ! 

BETHLEN. 

No ; kneel thou too ! and with thy orphan's tongue 

Plead for me ! I am rooted to the earth. 

And have no power to rise ! Give me a father ! 

There is a prayer in those uplifted eyes 

That seeks high Heaven ! But I will overtake it. 

And bring it back, and make it plead for me 

In thine own heart ! Speak ! speak ! Restore to me 

A name in the world ! 

sarolta. 
By that blest Heaven I gazed at 
I know not who thou art. And if I knew, 
Dared I — But rise ! 

BETHLEN. 

Blest spirits of my parents, 
Ye hover o'er me now ! Ye shine upon me ! 
And like a flower that coils forth from a ruin, 
I feel and seek the light, I cannot see ! 

SAROLTA. 

Thou see'st yon dim spot on the mountain's ridge, 
But what it is thou knovv'st not Even such 
Is all I know of thee — haply, brave youlh. 
Is all Fate makes it safe for thee to know ! 



BETHLEN. 

Safe 1 safe ? O let me then inherit danger. 
And it shall be my birth-right ! 

SAROLTA {aside). 

That look again !— 
The wood which first incloses, and then skirls 
The highest track that leads across the mountains- 
Thou know'st it, Bethlen ? 

BETHLEN. 

Lady, 'twas my wont 
116 



i 



ZAPOLYA. 



107 



To roam there in my chiklliood oft alone, 
And mutter lo myself the name of faliier. 
For still Batliory (why, till now 1 guess'd not) 
Would never hear it Irom my lips, but sighing 
Gazed upward. Yet of late an idle terror 

GLYCINE. • 

Madam, that wood is haunted by the war-wolves, 

Vampires, and monstrous 

SAROLTA (witJi a smile). 

Moon-calves, credulous girl 
Haply some o'ergrown savage of the forest 
Ilalli his lair there, and fear hath framed the rest. 

[Then apeaking again to Belhlcn. 
After that last great battle (O young man! 
Thou wakest anew my life's sole anguish), that 
Which (ix'd Lord Emcrick on his throne, Bathory 
Led by a cry, fur inward from the track. 
In the hollow of an old oak, as in a nest. 
Did find thee, Bethlen, then a helpless babe : 
The robe, that wrapt thee, was a widow's mantle. 

BETHLEN. 

An infant's weakness doth relax my frame. 

say — I fear to ask 

SAROLTA. 

And I to tell thee. 

BETHLEN. 

Strike ! O strike quickly ! See, I do not shrink. 

[Striking his hreasl. 

1 am stone, cold stone. 

SAROLTA. 

Hid in a brake hard by, 
Scarce by both palms supjwried from the earth, 
A wounded lady lay, whose life fast waning 
Soem'd to survive itself in her fixt eyes, 
That strain'd towards the babe. At length one arm 
Painfully from her own weight disengaging, 
She pointed first to Heaven, then from her bosom 
Drew forth a golden casket. Thus entreated 
Thy foster-father took thee in liis anns, 
And, kneeling, spake : If aught of this world's com- 
fort 
Can reach thy heart, receive a poor man's troth. 
That at my lile's risk I will save thy child ! 
Her countenance work'd, as one that seem'd pre- 
paring 
A loud voice, but it died upon her lips 
In a faint whisper, " Fly ! Save him ! Hide — hide 
all!" 

BETHLEN. 

And did he leave her ? What! Had I a mother ? 
And left her bleeding, dying ? Bought I vile life 
With the desertion of a dying mother ? 
Oh agony ! 

GLYCINE. 

Alas ! thou art bewilder'd. 
And dost forget thou wert a helpless infant ! 

BETHLEN. 

What else can I remember, but a mother 
Mangled and left to perish ? 

SAROLTA. 

Hush, Glycine ! 
It is the groimd-svvell of a teeming instinct : 
Let it but lift itself to air and sunshine, 
And it will find a mirror in the waters, 
now makes boil above it. Check him not! 

BETIILE.N. 

that I were diffiised among the waters 
That pierce into the secret depths of earth. 
And find their way in darkness ! Would that I 
f^ould spread myself uiwn the homeless winds ! 



And I would seek her ! for she is not dead ! 
She can not die ! O pardon, gracious lady , 
You were about to say, that he return'd — 

SAROLTA. 

Deep Love, the godlike in us, still believes 
Its objects as immortal as itself! 

BETHLEN. 

And found her still — 

SAROLTA. 

Alas ! he did return : 
He left no spot unsearch'd in all the forest, 
But slie (I trust me by some friendly hand) 
Had been borne off 

BETHLEN. 

O whither ? 

GLYCINE. 

Dearest Bethlen ! 
I would that you could weep like me ! O do not 
Gaze so upon the air ! 

SAROLTA {continuing the stonj). 

While he was absent, 
A friendly troop, 't is certain, scour'd the wood, 
Hotly pursued indeed by Emerick. 

BETHLEN. 

Emerick ! 
Oh Hell ! 

GLYCINE {JLo silence him). 
Bethlen ! 

BETHLEN. 

Hist ! I '11 curse him in a whisper . 
This gracious lady must hear blessings only. 
She hath not yet the glory roimd her head. 
Nor those strong eagle wings, which made swiA 

way 
To that appointed place, which I must seek : 
Or else she were my mother ! 

SAROLTA. 

Noble youth ! 
From me fear nothing ! Long time have I owed 
Offerings of expiation for misdeeds 
Long pass'd that weigh me down, though imiocent . 
Thy Ibster-father hid the secret from thee. 
For he perceived tliy thoughts as they expanded, 
Proud, restless, and ill-sorting with thy state ! 
Vain was his care ! Thou 'st made thyself suspected 
E 'en where Suspicion reigns, and asks no proof 
But its owTi fears ! Great Nature hath endow'd thee 
With her best gifts ! From me thou shall receive 
All honorable aidance ! But haste hence ! 
Travel will ripen thee, and enterprise 
Beseems thy years ! Be thou henceforth my soldier ! 
And whatsoe'er betide thee, still believe 
That in each noble deed, achieved or sufFcr'd, 
Thou sol vest best the riddle of thy birth ! 
And may the hght that streams from thine own 

honor 
Guide thee to that thou seekest! 

GLYCINE. 

Must he leave ur ? 

BETHLEN. 

And for such goodness can I return nothing. 
But some hot tears that sting mine eyes? Some sighs 
That if not breathed would swell my heart to sti- 
fling ? 
May Heaven and thine own virtues, high-born lady 
Be as a shield of fire, far, far aloof 
To scare all evil from thee! Yet, if fate 
Hath destined thee one doubtful hour of danger. 
From the uttermost region of the earth, mcthink.s 
Swift as a spirit invoked. I should be with theei 
Itt J 17 



108 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



And then, perchance, I might have power to unbosom 
These thanks that struggle here. Eyes lair as thine 
Have gazed on me with tears of love and anguish, 
Whicli these eyes saw not, or beheld unconscious ; 
And tones of anxioiis fondness, passionate prayers, 
Have been lalk'd to me ! But this tongue ne'er 

soothed 
A mother's ear, hsping a mother's name ! 
O, at how dear a price have I been loved, 
And no love could return .' One boon then, lady ! 
Where'er thou bidd'st, 1 go thy faithful soldier. 
But first must trace the spot, where she lay bleeding 
Who gave me life. No more shall beast of ravine 
Affront with baser spoil that sacred forest! 
Or if avengers more than human haunt there, 
Take they what shape they list, savage or heavenly. 
They shall make answer to me, though my heart's 

blood 
Should be the spell to bind them. Blood calls for 

blood ! 

[Exit Bethlen. 

SAROLTA. 

Ah ! it was this I fear'd. To ward off this 
Did I withhold from him that old Bathory 
Returning, hid beneath the selfsame oak, 
Where the babe lay, the mantle, and some jewel 
Bound on his infant arm. 

GLYCINE. 

Oh, let me fly 
And stop him ! Mangled limbs do there lie scatter'd 
Till the lured eagle bears them to her nest. 
And voices have been heard I And there the plant 

grows 
That being eaten gives the inhuman wizard 
Power to put on the fell hyena's shape. 

SAROLTA. 

What idle tongue hath vvitch"d thee, Glycine ? 
I hoped that thou hadst learnt a nobler faith. 

GLYCINE. 

O chide me not, dear lady ! question Laska, 
Or the old man. 

SAROLTA. 

Forgive me, I spake harshly. 
It is indeed a mighty sorcery 
That doth enthral thy young heart, my poor girl ; 
And what hath Laska told thee ? 

GLYCINE. 

Three days past 
A courier from the king did cross that wood ; 
A wilful man, that arm'd himself on purpose : 
And never hath been heard of from that time ! 

[Sound of horns without. 

SAROLTA. 

Hark ! dost thou hear it ? 

GLYCINE. 

'T is the sound of horns ! 
Our huntsmen are not out ! 

SAROLTA. 

Lord Casimir 
VVould not come thus ! [Horns again. 

GLYCINE. 

Still louder 

SAROLTA. 

Haste we hence ! 
For I believe in part thy tale of terror.' 
But trust me, 't is the inner man transforo'd : 
Beasts in the shape of men are worse thdn war- 
wolves. 



[Sarolta and Glycine exeunt. Trumpets etc. louder 
Enter Ejiericr, Lord Rudolph, Laska, and 
Huntsmen and Attendants. 

RUDOLPH. 

A gallant chase, Sire. 

emerick. 

Ay, but this new quarry 
That we last started seems worth all the rest. 

[Tlien to Laska 
And you — excuse me — what's your name ? 
laska. 

Whatever 
Your Majesty may please. 

emerick. 

JVay, that 's too late, man 
Say, what thy mother and thy godfather 
Were pleased to call thee ? 

LASKA. 

I^aska, my liege Sovereign 
emerick. 
Well, my liege subject Laska ! And you are 
Lord Casimir's steward ? 

LASKA. 

And your majesty's creature 
emerick. 
Two gentle dames made off at our approach. 
Which was your lady ? 

LASKA. 

My liege lord, the taller 
The other, please your grace, is her poor handmaid 
Long since betrothed to me. But the maid's fro- 

ward — 
Yet would your grace but speak — 

EiVIERICK. 

Hum, master steward 
I am honor'd with this sudden confidence. 
Lead on. [To Laska, then to Rudolph 

Lord Rudolph, you '11 announce our coming 
Greet fair Sarolta from me, and entreat her 
To be our gentle hostess. Mark, you add 
How much we grieve, that business of the state 
Hath forced us to delay her lord's return. 

LORD RUDOLPH (OStde). 

Lewd, ingrate tyrant ! Yes, I will announce thee. 

EMERICIC. 

Now onward all. [Exeunt attzndants 

EMERICK (solus). 

A fair one, by my faith ! 
If her face rival but her gait and stature. 
My good friend Casimir had his reasons too. 
" Her tender health, her vow of strict retirement. 
Made earltj in the convent — His word pledged — " 
All fictions, all ! fictions of jealousy. 
Well ! if the mountain move not to the prophet, 
The prophet must to the mountain ! In this Laska 
There 's somewhat of the knave mix'd up with dolt 
Through the transparence of the fool, methought 
I saw (as I could lay my finger on it) 
The crocodile's eye, that peer'd up from the bottom 
This knave may do us service. Hot ambition 
Won me the husband. Now let vanity 
And the resentment for a forced seclusion 
Decoy the wife ! Let liim be deem'd the aggressor 
Whose cunning and distrust began the game ! 

[Exit. 
18 



ZAPOLYA. 



100 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. 

A savage wood. At o/ie side a cavern, overhung with 
ivi/. Zai'Oi.ya and Raab Kiupiuli discovered: 
both, but especially the latter, in rude and savage 
garments. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Heard you then aught while I was slumbering ? 

ZAPOLYA. 

Nothing, 
Only your face became convulsed. We miserable ! 
Is Heaven's last mercy fled ? Is sleep grown treach- 
. erous ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

for a sleep, for sleep itself to rest in ! 

1 dreamt I had met with food bencalh a tree, 
And 1 was seeking you, when all at once 
My feet became entangled in a net : 

.Siill more entangled as in rage I tore it. 

At length I freed myself, had sight of you. 

But as I hasten'd eagerly, again 

1 found my frame encumber'd : a huge serpent 

Twined round my chest, but tightest round my throat 

ZAPOLYA. 

Alas ! 'twas lack of food . for hunger chokes! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

And now I saw you by a shrivell'd child 
Strangely pursued. You did not fly, yet neither 
Touch'd you the ground methought, but close above it 
Did seem lo jhool yourself along the air. 
And as you pass'd me, turn'd your face and shriek'd. 

ZAPOLYA. 

I did in truth send forth a feeble shriek. 
Scarce knowing why. Perhaps the mock'd sense craved 
To hear the scream, which you but seem'd to utter. 
For your whole face look'd like a mask of torture ! 
Yet a child's image doih indeed pursue me 
Shrivell'd with toil and penury ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Nay ! vvliat ails you ? 

ZAPOLYA. 

A wondrou.s faintncss there comes stealing o'er me. 
Is it Death's lengthening shadow, who comes onward. 
Life's setting sun behind him ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Cheerly ! The dusk 
Will quickly shroud us. Ere the moon be up, 
Trust me I '11 bring thee food ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Hunger's tooth has 
f inawn itself blunt. O, I could queen it well 
O'er my ov\ti sorrows as my rightful subjecls. 
Rut wherefore, O revered Kiuprili ! wherefore 
Did my importunate prayers, my hopes and fancies, 
Force thee from thy secure though sad retreat ? 
Would that my tongue had then cloven to my mouth ! 
But Heaven is just ! With tears I conquer'd thee, 
And not a tear is left me to repent with ! 
Hadst thou not done already — hadst thou not 
Sufler'd — oh, more than e'er man leign'd of friend- 
ship ? 

RAAB KIUPRILL 

Yet be thou comforted ! What ! hadst thou faith 
When I turn'd back incredulous? 'Twas thy light 
'J'hat kindlcil mine. And shall it now go out, 
And leave thy soul in darkness ? Yet look up, 
L2 



And think thou see'st thy sainted lord comniission'd 

And on liis way lo aid us I Wiience those late dreams. 

Which after such long interval of hopeless 

And silent resignation, all at once 

Night after night commanded thy return 

Hither? and still presented in clear vision 

This wood as in a scene ? this very cavern ? 

Thou darest not doubt that Heaven's especial hand 

Work'd in those signs. The hour of thy deliverance 

Is on the stroke : — for Misery cannot add 

Grief to thy griefs, or Patience lo thy sufferance ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Cannot ! Oh, what if thou wert taken from me ? 
Nay, thou saidst well : for that and death were one. 
Life's grief is at its height indeed; the hard 
Necessity of this inhuman state 
Has made our deeds inhuman as our vestments. 
Housed in this wild wood, with wild usages. 
Danger our guest, and famine at otir portal — 
Wolf-Uke to prowl in llic shepherd's fold by night! 
At once for food and safety to aflrighten 
The traveller from his road — 

[Glycine is heard singing without 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Hark ! heard you not 
A distant chant ! 

SONG, BY Glycine. 

A sunny shaft did I behold. 

From sky to earth it slanted ; 
And poised therein a bird so bold — 

Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted ! 

He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he troU'd 
Within that shaft of sunny mist ; 

His eyes of fire, his beak of gold. 
All else of amethyst ! 

And thus he sang : " Adieu ! adieu ! 
Love's dreams prove seldom true. 
The blossoms, they make no delay : 
The sparkling dew-drops will not stay. 
Sweet month of May, 
We must away ; 
Far, far away ! 
To-day! to-day!" 

ZAPOLYA. 

Sure 'tis some blest spirit ! 
P'or since thou slowest the usurper's emissary 
Ttiat plimged upon us, a more than mortal fear 
Is as a wall, that wards ofl^ the beleaguerer 
And starves the poor besieged. [Song again. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

It is a maiden's voice ! quick to the cave ! 



ZAPOLYA. 

Hark ! her voice falters ! 



[Exit Zapolyiv. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

She must not enter 
The cavern, else I will remain unseen ! 

[KiUPRiLi retires to one side of the stage: Glycine 
enters si7iging. 

GLYCINE (fear/iiUi/). 
A savage place ! saints shield me! Bethlen ! Bethlen! 
Not here ? — ^There's no one here! I'll slug again. 

[Sings again, 
119 



110 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



IC I do not hear my own voice, I shall fancy 
Voices ill all cliance sounds ! [Starts. 

'Twas some dry branch 
Dropt of itself! Oh, he went forth so rashly, 
Took no food with him — only his arms and boar-spear! 
What if I leave these cakes, this cruse of wine, 
Here by this cave, and seek him with the rest ? 

RAAB liiUPRiLi {unseen). 
Leave them and flee ! 

GLYCINE {shrieks, then recovering). 
Where are you ? 
RAAB KIUPRILI {Still Unseen). 

Leave them ! 

GLYCINE. 

'T is Glycine! 
Speak to me, Bethlen ! speak in your own voice ! 
All silent ! — If this were the war-wolf's den ! 
*T was not his voice ! — 

[Glycine leaves the provisions, and exit fearfully. 
KiUPRiLi comes forward, seizes them and carries 
them into the cavern. Glycine returns, having 
recovered lierself. 

GLYCINE. 

Shame ! Nothing hurt me ! 
If some fierce beast have gored him, he must needs 
Speak with a strange voice. Wounds cause thirst 
and hoarseness ! 

Speak, Bethlen ! or but moan. St — St No — Bethlen ! 

If I turn back, and he should be found dead here, 

[She creeps nearer and nearer to the cavern. 
I should go mad ! — Again I 'T was my own heart I 
Hush, coward heart ! better beat loud with fear, 
Than break with shame and anguish ! 

[As she approaches to enter the cavern, KiUPRiLl 
stops her. Glycine nhriehf!. 

Saints protect me ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Swear then by all thy hopes, by all thy fears — 

GLYCINE. 

Save me ! 

RAAB KIITPRILI. 

Swear secrecy and silence ! 

GLYCINE. 

I swear ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Tell what thou art, and what thou seekest ? 

GLYCINE. 

Only 
A harAless orphan youth, to bring him food — 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Wherefore in this wood ? 

GLYCINE. 

Alas ! it Avas his purpose — 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

With what intention came he ? Wouldst thou save him, 
Hide nothing ! 

GLYCINE. 

Save him ! O forgive his rashness ! 
He is good, and did not know (hat thou wert human ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI {repeats the word). 
Human ? 

[Then sternly. 
With what design ? 

GLYCINE. 

To kill thee, or 
•f that thou wert a spirit, to compel thee 



By prayers, and with the shedding of his blood, 
To make disclosure of his parentage. 
But most of all — 

ZAPOLYA {rushing out from the cavern). 

Heaven's blessing on thee ! Speak . 

GLYCINE. 

Whether his Mother live, or perish'd here ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Angel of Mercy, I was perishing 
And thou didst bring me food : and now thou bring'st 
The sweet, sweet food of hope and consolation 
To a mother's famish'd heart! His name, sweet 
maiden ! 

GLYCINE. 

E'en till this morning we were wont to name him 
Bethlen Bathory ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Even till this morning? 
This morning? when my weak faith fail'd me wholly 
Pardon, O thou that portion'st out our sufferance, 
And fiU'st again the widow's empty cruse ! 
Say on ! 

GLYCINE. 

The false ones charged the valiant youth 
With treasonous words of Emerick — 

ZAPOLYA. 

Ha ! my son ! 

GLYCINE. 

And of Lord Casimir — ' 

RAAB KIUPRILI {aside). 
O agony ! my son ! 

GLYCINE. 

But my dear lady — 

ZAPOLYA and raab kiuprili. 
Who? 

GLYCINE. 

Lady Sarolta 
Frown'd and discharged these bad men. 

raab KIUPRILI {turning off and to himself). 

Righteous Heaven 
Sent me a daughter once, and 1 repined 
That it was not a son. A son was given me. 
My daughter died, and I scarce shed a tear : 
And lo ! that son became my curse and infamy. 

ZAPOLYA {embraces Glycine). 
Sweet innocent ! and you came here lo seek him, 
And bring him food. Alas ! thou fear'st ? 

GLYCINE. 

Not much 
My own dear lady, when I was a child 
Embraced me oft, but her heart never beat so. 
For I too am an orphan, motherless ! 

raab KIUPRILI {to ZaPOLYA). 

O yet beware, lest hope's brief flash but deepen 

The after gloom, and make the darkness stormy ! 

In that last conflict, following our escape. 

The usurper's cruelty had clogg'd our flight . 

With many a babe, and many a childing mother 1 

This maid herself is one of numberless 

Planlis from the same vast wreck. 

[Then to Glycine agavt. 

Well! Casimir's wife- • 

GLYCINE. 

She is always gracious, and so praised the old man ; 
That his heart o'erflow'd, and made discovery 
That in this wood — 

120 



ZAPOLYA. 



Ill 



ZAPOLYA {in agifation). 
O speak ! 

GLYCINE. 

A wounded lady — 
[ZAPOLYA/ain/s — they both support her. 

GLYCINE. 

•s this liis mother ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

She would fain believe it. 
Weak though the proofs be. Hope draws towards 

Itself 
The flame with which it kindles. 

[Horn heard without. 
To the cavern ! 
Quick! quick! 

GLYCINE. 

Perchance some huntsmen of the lung's. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

E"ierick ? 

GLYCINE. 

He came this morning — 
[TTiey retire to the cavern, bearing Zapolya. Then 
enter Bethlen armed with a boar-spear. 

BETHLEN. 

I had a glimpse 
Of some fierce shape ; and but that Fancy often 
Is Nature's intermcddlcr, and cries halves 
With the outward sight, I should believe I saw it 
Bear off some human prey. O my preserver ! 
Baihory ! Father ! Yes, thou deservest that name ! 
Thou didst not mock me ! These are blessed findings ! 
The secret cipher of my destiny 

[Looking at his signet. 
Stands here inscribed : it is the seal of ftte ! 
Ha ! — {Observing the cave). Had ever monster fitting 

lair, 'tis yonder! 
Thou yawning Den, I well remember thee ! 
Mine eyes deceived me not Heaven leads me on ! 
Now for a blast, loud as a king's defiance, 
To rouse the monster couchant o'er his ravine ! 

[Blows the horn — then a pause. 
Another blast ! and with another swell 
To you, ye charmed watchers of this wood ! 
If haply I have come, the rightful heir 
Of vengeance: if in me survive the spirits 
Of those, whose guiltless blood flowed streaming here ! 
[Blows again louder. 
Still silent ? Is the monster gorged 1 Heaven shield me ! 
Thou, faithful spear ! be both my torch and guide. 
[As Bethlen is about to enter, Kiuprili speaks 

from the cavern unseen. 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Withdraw thy foot! Retract thine idle spear, 
And wait obedient ! 

bethlen {in amazemenf). 

Ha ! What art thou ? speak ! 
RAAB KIUPRILI {still iinseen). 
Avengers ! 

BETHLEN. 

By a dying mother's pangs, 
E'en such am I. Receive me ! 

RAAB KIUPRILI {Still unseen). 

Wait! Beware! 
At thy first step, thou treadest upon the light 
Thenceforth must darkling flow, and sink in darkness! 

BETHLEN. 

Ha ! BOB my boar-spear trembles like a reed !— 



Oh, fool ! mine eyes are duped by my own shudder- 
ing. — 

Tliose piled thoughts, built up in solitude. 
Year following year, that prcss'd ujion my heart 
As on the altar of some unknown God, 
Then, as if toucli'd by fire from heaven descending 
Blazed up within nie at a father's name — 
Do they desert me now ! — at my last trial ? 
Voice of command ! and thou, O liiddcn Light ! 
I have obey'd ! Declare ye by what name 
I dare invoke you ! Tell what sacrifice 
Will make you gracious. 

RAAB KIUPRILI {sliU unseen). 

Patience ! Truth ! Obedience . 
Be thy whole soul transparent ! so the Light 
Thou seekest may enshrine itself within thee ! 
Tliy name ? 

BETHLEN. 

Ask rather the poor roaming savage. 
Whose infancy no holy rite had blest. 
1^0 him, perchance rude spoil or ghastly trophy, 
In chase or battle won, have given a name. 
I have none — but like a dog have answer'd 
To the chance sound which he that fed me call'd me, 

RAAB KIUPRILI {sliU unseen). 
Thy birth-place ? 

BETHLEN. 

Deluding spirits, do ye mock me ? 
Question the Night! Bid Darkness tell its birlh-place? 
Yet hear ! Within yon old oak's hollow trunk. 
Where the bats cling, have I survey 'd my cradle! 
The mother-falcon hath lier nest above it. 

And in it the w'olf litters ! 1 invoke you, 

Tell me, ye secret ones ! if ye beheld me 
As I slood there, like one who having delved 
F'or hidden gold hath found a talisman, 
O tell ! what rites, what offices of duty 
This cygnet doth command ? What rebel spirits 
Owe homage to its Lord ? 

RAAB KIUPRILI {still unscen). 

More, guiltier, mightier, 
Than thou mayest summon! Wait the destined hourl 

BETHLEN. 

yet again, and with more clamorous prayer, 

1 importune ye ! Mock me no more with shadows! 
Tliis sable mantle — tell, dread voice ! did this 
Enwrap one fatherless ? 

ZAPOLYA (unseen). 

One fatherless ! 
BETHLEN {Starling). 
A sweeter voice ! — A voice of love and pity ! 
Was it the soften'd echo of mine own ? 
Sad echo ! but the hope it kill'd was sickly. 
And ere it died it had been moum'd as dead ' 
One other hope yet lives within my soul ; 
Quick let me a-sk ! — while yet this stifling fear, 
This stop of the heart, leaves utterance ! — Are — are 

these 
The sole remains of her that gave me life ? 
Have I a mother? 

[Zapolya rushes out to embrace him. Bethlen starts 
Ha! 
ZAPOLYA {embracing him). 

My son ! my son ! 
A wretched — Oh no, no! a blest — a happy mother. 
[They embrace. Kiuprili arul Glycine come forward 
and the curtain drops. 

121 



U2 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



ACT III. 

SCENE I. 

A stalely Room in Lord Casimir's Castle. 

Enter Emerick and Lasea. 

EMERICK. 

[ do perceive thou hast a tender conscience, 
Laska, in all tilings that concern thine own 
Interest or safety. 

LASKA. 

In this sovereign presence 
I can fear notliing, but your dread displeasure. 

EMERICK. 

Perchance, thou think'st it strange, that I of all men 
Should covet thus the love of fair Soralta, 
Dishonoring Casiinir ? 

LASKA. 

Far be it from me ! 
Your Majesty's love and choice bring honor with them. 

EMERICK. 

Perchance, thou hast heard, that Casimir is my friend, 
Fought for me, yea, for my sake, set at nought 
A parent's blessing ; braved a father's curse ? 

LASKA (aside). 
Would I but knew now, what his Majesty meant ! 
Oh yes. Sire ! 't is our common talk, how Lord 
Kiuprili, my Lord's father — 

EMERICK. 

'Tis your talk. 
Is it, good statesman Laska ? 

LASKA. 

No, not mine. 
Not mine, an please your Majesty ! There are 
Some insolent malcontents indeed that talk thus — 
Kay worse, mere treason. As Bathory's son. 
The fool that ran into the monster's jaws. 

EMERICK. 

Well, 'tis a loyal monster if he rids us 

Of traitors! But art sure the youth's devoured? 

LASKA. 

Not a limb left, an please your Majesty ! 
And that unhappy girl — 

EMERICK. 

Thou followed'st her 
Into the wood ? [Laska bows assent. 

Henceforth then I '11 beheve 
That jealousy can make a hare a lion. 

LASKA. 

Scarce had I got the first glimpse of her veil. 
When, with a horrid roar that made the leaves 
Of the wood shake — 

EMERICK. 

Made thee shake like a leaf! 

LASKA. 

The war-wolf leapt; at the first plunge he seized her; 
Forward I rush'd I 

EMERICK. 

Most marvellous ! 

LASKA. 

Hurl'd my javelin ; 
Wliich from his dragon-scales recoiling — 

E.MERICK. 

Enough ! 
And take, friend, this advice. When nest thou 

tonguest it, 



Hold constant to thy exploit with this monster, 
And leave untouch'd your common talk aforesaid, 
What your Lord did, or should have done. 

LASKA. 

Mj/ talk 
The saints forbid ! I always said, for my part, 
" Was not the king Lord Casimir's dearest friend ? 
Was not tliat friend a king ? Whale' er he did 
'Tnxts all from pure love to his Majesty." 

EMERICK. 

And this then was thy talk ? While Imave and coward. 

Both strong within thee, wrestle for the uppermost. 

In slips the fool and lakes the place of both. 

Babbler ! Lord Casimir did, as thou and all men. 

He loved himself, loved honors, wealth, dominion. 

All these were set upon a father's head : 

Good truth ! a most unlucky accident ! 

For he but wish'd to hit the prize ; not graze 

Tlie head that bore it : so with steady eye 

Off" flew the parricidal arrow. — Even 

As Casimir loved Emerick, Emerick 

Loves Casimir, intends him no dishonor. 

He wink'd not then, for love of me forsooth ! 

For love of me now let him wink ! Or if 

The dame prove half as wise as she is fair, 

He may still pass liis hand, and find all smooth. 

[Passing his havid across his brow 

LASKA. :. 

Your Majesty's reasoning has convinced me. ' 

EMERICK [with a slight start, as one who had been 
talking aloud to himself : then with scorn). I 

Thee! I 
'Tis well ! and more than meant. For by my faith I 
I had half forgotten thee, — Thou hast the key ? 

[Laska bows. 
And in your lady's chamber there 's full space ? 

LASKA. I 

Between tlie wall and arras to conceal you. ' 

EMERICK. 

Here ! This purse is but an earnest of thy fortune, 
If thou provest faithful. But if thou betrayest me, 
Hark you ! — the wolf that shall drag thee to his den 
Shall be no fiction. 

[Eodt Emerick. Laska manet with a hey in one 
Itand, and a purse in the other. 

LASKA. 

Well then ! Here I stand, 
Like Hercules, on either side a goddess. 
Call this [Looking at the purse 

Preferment ; this {Holding vp the key), Fidelity ! 
And firet my golden goddess : what bids she ? 
Only : — " This way, your Majesty ! hush. The house 

hold 
Are all safe lodged" — Then, put Fidelity 
Within her proper wards, just turn her round — 
So — the door opens — and for all the rest, 
'Tis the king's deed, not Laska's. Do but this, 
And — "I'm the mere earnest of your fidure fortunes." 
But what says the other ? — \Vhisper on ! I hear you 
[Putting the key to his ear 
All very true! — but, good Fidehty! 
If I refuse king Emerick, will you promise. 
And swear, now, to unlock the dungeon-door. 
And save me from the hangman? Ay! you're silent' 
What ! not a word in answer ? A clear nonsuit ' 
Now for one look to see that all are lodged 

122 



ZAPOLYA. 



113 



Al llie due (Jislauce — then — yonder lies tlio road 
^o^ Laska and liis royal frioiid king Kiiiorii-k! 

[Edit Laska. Then inter liATiioRY and Betiilen. 

BETULEN. 

[le look'd as if he were some God disguised 
In an old warrior's venerable shape. 
To guard and guide my nioiher. Is there not 
Chapel or oratory in this niauiiion ? 

OLD BATllOIiy. 

Even so. 

BETIII.E.V. 

From that place then am I to take 
A helm and breasipluic, boili inlaid with gold, 
And tlie good sword that once was Iluab Kiuprili's. 

OLD BATtlORV. 

Those very arms this day Sarolla sliowM me — 
With wistful look. I'm lost in wild conjectures! 

BtnilLEN. 

tempt nie not, e'en with a wandering guess, 
To break the lirst command a luolher's will 
Imposed, a mother's voice made known to me ! 
"Ask 7iot, my son," said she, " our names or thine. 
The shadow of the celipse is jiassing off 

The full orb of thy deslintj .' Alrewltj 
The victor Crescent glitters forth, and sheds 
O'er the yet lingering haze a phantom light. 
Thou canst nol hasten it! Leave then to Heaven 
The work of Heaven : and with a siletit spirit 
Sympathize with the powers that work in silence I " 
Thus spake she, and she look'd as she were then 
Fresh I'roni some heavenly vision ! 

[lic-enler Laska, nol perceiving them. 

LASKA. 

All asleep ! 
[Then observing Bethlex, stands in idiot-affright. 

1 must speak to it lirst — Put — put the question ! 

1 '11 confess all ! [Stammering with fear. 

old bathorv. 
Laska ! what ails thee, man ? 
laska {pointing to Bethlen). 
There ! 

OLD BATIIORY. 

I see notliing ! where ? 

LASKA. 

He does not see it ! 
Bethlen, torment me not ! 

BETULEN. 

Soft! Rouse him gently! 
Tie hath outwatch'd his hour, and half asleep. 
With eyes half open, mingles bight with dreams. 

OLD BATIIORY. 

llo ! Laska ! Do n't you know us ! 't is Bathory 
And Bethlen! 

LASKA (recovering himself). 

Good now ! Ila ! ha ! an excellent trick. 
Afraid! Nay, no odence; but I must laugh. 
But are you sure now, that 'tis you, yourself. 

BETHLEN (holding vp his hand as if to strike him). 
Wouldst be convinced ? 

LASKA. 

No nearer, pray! consider! 
If it shmilfl prove his ghost, the touch would freeze me 
To a tomb-stone. No nearer ! 



BETHLEN. 



Tlie fool is drunk ! 



LASKA {still more recovering). 
Well now ! I love a brave man to my heart. 
1 myself braved the monster, and would tiiin 
Have saved tlie false one from the fiiic she tempted 

OLD BATIIORY. 

You, Laska ? 

BETIILEV {to BaTUORV). 

Mark! Heaven grant it may be so! 
Glycine ? 

LASKA. 

She ! I traced her by the voice. 
You'll scarce believe me, when I say I heard 
The close of a song : the poor wretch had been 

singing ; 
As if she vvish'd to compliment the war-wolf 
At once with music and a meal ! 

BETHLEN {to BaTHORY). 

Mark that ! 

LASKA. 

At the next moment I beheld her running. 
Wringing lier hands with, Bethlen ! poor Bethlen ! 
I almost lear, the sudden noise I made. 
Rushing impetuous through the brake, alarm'd her. 
She slept, then mad with fear, tin-n'd round and ran 
Into the monster's gripe. One piteous scream 
I heard. There was no second — I — 

BETHLEN. 

Stop there I 
We '11 spare your modesty ! Who dares not honor 
Laska's brave tongue, and high heroic fancy ? 

LASKA. 

You too, Sir Knight, have come back safe and sound 
You play'd the hero at a cautious distance ! 
Or was it that you sent the poor girl forward 
To slay the monster's stomach ? Dainties quickly 
Pall on the taste and cloy the appetite ! 

OLD BATIIORY. 

Laska, beware ! Forget not what thou art ! 
Sliouldst thou but dream thou 'rt valiant, cross thyselt"! 
And ache all over at the dangerous fancy! 

LASKA. 

What then ! you swell upon my lady's favor. 

High lords, and perilous of one day's growth ' 

But other judges now sit on the bench! 

And haply, Laska hath found audience there, 

Wiere to defend the treason of a son 

Might end in lifting up both Son and Father 

Still higher ; to a height from whifh indeed 

^'ou both may drop, but, spile of falc and fortune. 

Will be secured from falling to the ground. 

'T is possible too, young man ! that royal Emerick 

At Laska's rightful siiit, may make inquiry 

By whom seduced, the maid so strangely missing — 

BETHLEN. 

Soft ! my good Laska ! might it not sufTice, 
If to yourself, being Lord Casimir's steward, 
I should make record of Glycine's fate ? 

LASKA. 

'T is well ! it shall content me ! though your fear 
Has all the credit of these lower'd tones. 

[Then very pompously 
First, we demand Oie manner of her death? 

BETHLEN. 

Nay! that's superfluous! Have you not just told us 
That you yourself, led by impetuous valor, 
Witncss'd the whole ? My talc 's of later date. 
123 



114 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



After the fate, from which your valor strove 
In vain to rescue the rash maid, I saw her! 

LASKA. 

Glycine ? 

BETHLEN. 

Nay ! Dare I accuse wise Laska, 
Whose words find access to a monarch's ear, 
Of a base, braggart lie ? It must liave been 
Her spirit that appear'd to me. But haply 
I come too late ? It has itself deliver'd 
Its own commission to you? 

OLD BATHORY. 

'T is most likely ! 
And the ghost doubtless vanish'd, when we enter'd 
And found hrave Laska staring wide — at nothing ! 

LASKA. 

T is well ! You 've ready wits ! I shall report them. 
With all due honor, to his Majesty ! 
Treasure them up, I pray ! a certain person, 
Whom the king flatters with his confidence. 
Tells you, his royal friend asks startling questions ! 
'Tis but a hint! And now what says the ghost? 

BETHLEX. 

Listen ! for thus it spake : "Say thou to Laska, 
Glycine, knowing all thy thoughts engrossd 
In thy new office of king's fool and knave. 
Foreseeing thou'lt forget with thine own hand 
To make due penance for the wrongs thou'st caused her, 
For thy soid's safety, doth consent to take it 
From BelMen's cudgel" — thus. [Beats him off. 

Off! scoundrel! off! 
[Laska runs away. 

OLD BATHORY. 

The sudden swelling of this shallow dastard 
Tells of a recent storm : the first disruption 
Of the black cloud that hangs and threatens o'er us. 

BETHLEN. 

E'en this reproves my loitering. Say where lies 
The oratory ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

Ascend yon flight of stairs! 
Midway the corridor a silver lamp 
Hangs o'er the entrance of Sarolta's chamber, 
And facing it, the low-arch'd oratory ! 
Me thou 'It find watchuig at the outward gate : 
For a petard might burst the bars, unheard 
By the drenched porter, and Sarolta hourly 
Expects Lord Casimir, spite of Emerick's message ! 

BETHLEN. 

There I will meet you ! And till then good night ! 
Dear good old man, good night ! 

OLD BATHORY. 

O yet one moment ! 
What I repell'd, when it did seem my own, 
I cling to, now 'tis parting — call me father! 
It can not now mislead thee. O my son, 
Ere yet our tongues have learnt another name, 
Bethien ! — say — Father to me ! 

BETHLEN. 

Now, and for ever' 
My father ! other sire than thou, on earth 
1 never had, a dearer could not have ! 
F'rom the base earth you raised me to your arms, 
And I would leap from off a throne, and kneeling. 
Ask Ileavon's lilessing from thy lips. My father! 



BATHORY. 

Go! Go! 

[Bethlen breaks off and exit. Bathory lookt 
affectionately after him. 
May every star now shining over us. 
Be as an angel's eye, to watch and guard him . ■ 

[Exit Bathory ■ 

Scene changes to a splendid, Bed-Chamber, hung 
with tapestry. Sarolta in an elegant Night 
Dress, and an Attendant. 

attendant. 
We all did love her. Madam I 

sarolta. 

She deserved it ! 
Luckless Glycine ! rash, unhappy girl ! 
'Tvvas the first time she e'er deceived me. 

attendant. 
She was in love, and had she not died thus, 
With grief for Betlden's loss, and fear of Laska, 
She would have pined herself to death at home. 

sarolta. 
Has the youth's father couie back from his search '. 

attendant. 
He never will, I fear me, O dear lady ! 
Tiiat Laska did so triumph o'er the old man — 
It was quite cruel — " Yon 'II be sure," said he, 
"To meet with part at least of your son Bethlen, 
Or the war-wolf must have a quick digestion ! 
Go! Search the wood by all means! Go! I pray you!* 

SAROLTA. 

Inhuman wretch ! 

attendant. 
And old Baihory answer'd 
With a sad smile, "It is a witch's prayer. 
And may Heaven read it backwards." Though she 

was rash, 
'T was a small fault for such a punishment ! 

SAROLTA. 

Nay! 'twas my grief, and not my anger spoke. 
Small fault indeed ! but leave me, my good girl ! 
I feel a weight that only prayer can lighten. 

[Exit Attendant 
O they were innocent, and yet have perish'd 
In their May of life ; and Vice grows old in triumph 
Is it Mercy's hand, that for the bad man holds 

Life's closing gate ? 

Still passing thence petitionary hours 
To woo the obdurate spirit to repentance ? 
Or would this chillness tell me, that there is 
Guilt too enormous to be duly punish'd. 
Save by increase of guilt ? The Powers of Evil 
Are jealous claimants. Guilt too hath its ordeal, 
And Hell its own probation ! — Merciful Heaven, 
Rather than this, pour down upon thy sup])liant 
Disease, and agony, and comfortless want ! 
O send us forth to wander on, unshelter'd ! 
Make our food bitter with despised tears ! 
Let viperous scorn hiss at us as we pass ! 
Yea, let us sink down at our enemy's gate. 
And beg forgiveness and a morsel of bread ! 
With all the heaviest worldly visitations. 
Let the dire father's curse that hovers o'er us 
Work out its dread fulfilment, and the spirit 
Of wrong'd Kiuprili be appeased. But only. 
Only, O merciful in vengeance ! let not 

124 



ZAPOLYA. 



115 



That plague turn inward on my Casimir's soul! 
Scare thenc-e the fiend Ambition, and restore him 
To his own heart ! O save liim ! Save my husband ! 
[During the hitler }>arl of this speech, Ejierick 
comes furiL-ard from his hiding-place. Sarolta 
seeing him, without recognizing him. 
In such a shape a father's curse sliould como. 

EMERiCK {advancing). 
Fear not I 

SAROI.TA. 

Who art thou ? Robber ! Traitor ! 

EMERICK. 

Friend ! 
\Vho in gowl hour hath startled these dark fiincies, 
Rapacious traitors, that would fain depose 
Joy, love, and beauty, from their natural thrones : 
Those lips, those angel eyes, that regal Ibrchcad. 

SAROLTA. 

Strengthen rac, Heaven I I must not seem afraid ! 

[Aside. 
The king to-night then deigns to play the masker. 
What seeks your Majesty >. 

E.MERICK. 

Sarolta's love ; 
And Emerick's power lies prostrate at her feet. 

SAROLTA. 

Heaven guard the sovereign's power from such de- 
basement ! 
Far rather. Sire, let it descend in vengeance 
On the base ingrate, on the faithless slave 
Who dared unbar the doors of these retirements! 
For whom ? lias Casimir deserved this insult? 
O my misgiving heart! If — i(^— from Heaven 
Yet not from you, Lord Emerick ! 

EMERICK. 

Chiefly from me. 
Has he not like an ingrate robb'd my court 
Of Beauty's star, and kept my heart in darliness ! 
First then on him I will administer justice — 
If not in mercy, yet in love and rapture. [Seizes her. 

SAROLTA. 

Help! Treason! Help! 

EMERICK. 

Call louder ! Scream again ! 
Here 's none can hear you ! 

SAROLTA. 

Hear me, hear me, Heaven ! 

EMERICK. 

Nay, why this rage ? Who best deserves you ? Casimir, 
Emerick's touglit implement, the jealous slave 
That mews you up with bolts and bars ? or Emerick, 
Who proffers you a throne ? Nay, mine you shall be. 
Ihmce with this fond resistance ! Yield ; tlien live 
This month a widow, and the next a queen ! 

SAROLTA. 

Yet, for one brief moment [Struggling. 

Unhand me, I conjure you. 

[She throws him off, and rushes toirards a toilet. 

Emerick follovis, and as she takes a dagger, 

he grasps it in her hand. 

S>ierick. 

Ha ! ha ! a dagger ; 
A seemly ornament for a lady's casket ! 
'Tia held, devotion is akin to love, 



But yours is tragic ! Love in war ! It charms me. 
And makes your beauty worth a king's embraces ! 

{During this speech, Betiile.n enters armed). 

BKTIILE.V. 

Rufllan, forbear ! Turn, turn and front my sword 

E.MERICK 

Pish ! who is this I 

SAROLTA. 

O sleepless eye of Heaven ! 

A blest, a blessed spirit ! Whence earnest thou / 
May 1 still call Ihce Bethlen ? 

BETIILEN. 

Ever, lady. 
Your faithful soldier ! 

EMERICK. 

Insolent slave ! Depart ! 
Know'st thou not me ? 

BETHLEN. 

I know thou art a villain 
And coward ! That, thy devilish purpose marks thee! 
What else, this lady must instruct my sword ! 

SAROLTA. 

Monster, retire! O touch him not, thou blest one! 
This is the hour, that fiends and damned spirits 
Do walk the earth, and take what form they list! 
Yon devil hath assumed a lung's ! 

BETHLEN. 

Usurp'd it ! 

EMERICK. 

The king will play the devil \\\t\\ thee indeed ! 
But that I mean to hear thee howl on the rack, 
I would debase this sword, and lay thee prostrate, 
At this thy paramour's feel ; then drag her forth 
Stain'd with adulterous blood, and [Then to Sarolta 
— Mark you, traitress 
Srrumpeted first, then turn'd adrift to beggary ! 
Thou prayed'st Ibr't too. 

SAROLTA. 

Thou art so fiendish wicked, 
That in thy blasphemies I scarce hear thy threats. 

BETHLEN 

Lady, be calm ! fear not this king of the buskin ! 
A king ? Oh laughter ! A king Bajazet ! 
That from some vagrant actor's tyring-room, 
Ilalh stolen at once his speech and crown ! 

EMERICK. 

Ah! treason! 
Thou hast been lesson'd and trick'd up for this ! 
As surely as the wa\ on thy death-warrant 
Shall take the impression of this royal signet. 
So plain thy face hath ta'en the mask of rebel ! 
[Emerick points his hand haughtily towards Eeth- 
LEN, who catching a sight of the signet, seizes 
his hand and eagerly observes the signet, tfien 
flings tlte hand back with indignant joy. 
bethle.n. 
It must be so! 'Tis e'en the counterpart! 
l?ut with a foul usurping cipher on it ! 
The light hath flash'd from Heaven, and I must 

follow it ! 
O curst usurper! O thou brother-nnirderer! 
That madest a star-bright queen a fugitive widow ! 
Who fill'st the land with curses, being thyself 
All curses in one tyrant! see and tremble ! 
This is Kiuprili's sword that now hangs o'er thee! 
Kiuprili's blasting curse, Uiat from its point 
17 125 



IIG 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Slioots lightnings at thee ! Hark ! in Andreas' name, 
Heir of his vengeance ! hell-hound ! I defy thee. 
[They fight, and just as Emerick is disarvied, in 

rush Casimiij, Old Bathory, and attmdanls. 

Casimir runs in between the combatants, and 

parts them : in the struggle Bethlen's sword 

is thrown down. 

CASIMIR. 

The king disarm'd too by a stranger ! Speak ! 
What may this mean ? 

EMERICK. 

Deceived, dishonor'd lord ! 
Ask thou yon fair adultress ! She will tell thee 
A tale, which wouldst thou be both dupe and traitor. 
Thou wilt believe against thy friend and sovereign ! 
Thou art present now, and a friend's duty ceases : 
To thine own justice leave I thine own wrongs. 
Of half thy vengeance, I perforce must rob thee, 
For that the sovereign claims. To thy allegiance 
I now commit this traitor and assassin. 

[Then to the Attendants. 
Hence with him to the dungeon ! and to-morrow, 
Ere the sun rises, — hark ! your heads or his ! 

BETHLEN. 

Can Hell work miracles to mock Heaven's justice ? 

EMERICK. 

Who speaks to him dies I The traitor that has menaced 
His king, must not pollute the breathing air. 
Even with a word ! 

CASIMIR (to Bathory). 

Hence with him to the dungeon! 

[Exit Bethle.n, hurried off by Bathory and 

A tlendants. 

EMERICK. 

We hunt to-morrow in your upland forest : 

Thou (to Casimir) wilt attend us : and wilt then 

explain 
This sudden and most fortunate arrival. 

[Exit Emerick ; manent Casimir atid Sarolta. 
saroi.ta. 
My lord! my husband! look whose sword lies yonder! 
[Pointing to the sword which Bethlen had been 
disarmed of by the Attendants. 
It is Kiuprili's ; Casimir, 'tis thy father's! 
And wielded by a stripling's arm, it baffled. 
Yea, fell like Heaven's own lightnings on that Tar- 
quin. 

casimir. 
Hush ! hush ! [In an wider voice. 

I had detected ere I left the cify 
The tyrant's curst intent. Lewd, damn'd ingrate ! 
For him did I bring down a father's curse ! 
Swift, swift must be our means ! To-morrow's sun 
Sets on his fate or mine ! blest Sarolta ! 

[Embracing her. 
No other prayer, late penitent, dare I offer, 
But that thy spotless virtues may prevail 
O'er Casimir's crimes and dread Kiuprili's curse ! 

[Exeunt consulting. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 

A Glade in a Wood. 

Enter Casimir, looking anxiously around. 

casimir. 

This needs must be the spot ! O, here he comes ! 



Enter Lord Rudolph. 

Well met. Lord Rudolph ! 

Your whisper was not lost upon my ear. 
And I dare trust — 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

Enough ! the time is precious I 
You left Temeswar late on yester-eve ? 
And sojourn'd there some hours ? 
casimir. 

I did so ! 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

Heard you 
Aught of a hunt preparing? 

CASIMIR. 

Yes ; and met 
The assembled hunt.smen ! 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

Was there no word given ? 
casimir. 
The word for me was this ; — The royal Leopard 
Chases thy milk-white dedicated Hind. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

Your answer ? 

casimir. 
As the word proves false or true. 
Will Casimir cross the hunt, or join the huntsmen ! 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

The event redeem'd their pledge ? 

CASIMIR. 

It did, and therefore 
Have I sent back both pledge and invitation. 
The spotless Hind hath fled to them for shelter, 
And bears with her my seal of fellowship ! 

[They take hands, etc. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

But Emerick ! how when you reported to him 
Sarolta's disappearance, and the flight 
Of Bethlen with his guards ? 

CASIMIR. 

he received it 
As evidence of their mutual guilt : in fine. 
With cozening warmth condoled with, and dismissed 
me. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

I enter'd as the door was closing on you : 

His eye was fix'd, yet seem'd to follow you. 

With such a look of hate, and scorn and triumph, 

As if he had you in the toils already. 

And were then choosing where to stab you first 

But husli ! draw back ! 

CASIMIR. 

This nook is at the farthest 
From any beaten track. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

There ! mark them ! 
[Points to where Laska and Pestalutz cros% 
the St'ige. 

CASIMIR. 

Laska 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

One of the two I recognized this morning ; 
His name is Pestalutz: a Iriisfv' niffinn. 
Whose fiice is prologue still to some dark muroet 
Beware no stratagem, no trick of message, 
Dispart you from your servants. 

caslmir {aside). 

I deserve it 
126 



i 



ZAPOLYA. 



117 



Tlie conirailc of iliut rullinn is my scrvnni; 
The one 1 triislcd most and most preferr'd. 
nut we miisl part. Wliat makes tlie king so late ? 
1 1 was his wont to be an early stirrer. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

And his main policy 
To enthral the sluggard nature in ourselves 
l», in good truth, liic belter half of the secret 
To enliiral the world : for the will governs all. 
See, llie sky lowers ! the cross-winds way wardly 
Chase the lanlastic masses of the clouds 
With a wild mockery of the coming hunt! 

CASLMIR. 

Mark yonder mass ! I make it wear the shape 
Of a huge ram tliat butts with head depress'd. 

LORD RUDOLPH (,SmiUng). 

Belike, some stray sheep of the oozy flock, 
Which, if bards lie not, the Sea-shepherds tend, 
Glaucus or Proteus. But my fancy shapes it 
A monster couchant on a rocky shelf. 

CASIMIR. 

Mark too the edges of the lurid mass — 
Restless, as if some idly-vexing Sprite, 
On swift wing coasting by, with techy hand 
Pluck'd at the ringlets of the vajwrous Fleece. 
These are sure signs of conflict nigh at hand, 
And elemental war! 

[A si/igle Trumpet heard at a distance. 

LORD RUDOLPH. 

That single blast 
Announces that the tyrant's pawing courser 
Keighs at the gate [A vollci/ of Trumpets. 

Hark ! now the king comes forth ! 
For ever midst this crash of horns and clarions 
He mounts his sleed, which proudly rears an-end 
W'liile he looks round at case, and scans the crowd, 
\ ain of his stately form and horsemanship ! 
I must away ! my absence may be noticed. 

CASIMIR. 

f^ft as thou canst, essay to lead the hunt 
Hard by the forest skirts ; and ere high noon 
Expect our sworn confederates from Tcmcswar. 
I trust, ere yet this clouded sun slopes westward, 
That Emerick's death, or Casimir's, will appease 
The manes of Zapolya and Kiuprili ! 

[Exit Rudolph and manel Casimir. 

The traitor, Laska! 

And yet Sarolta, simple, inexperienced, 
Could see him as he was, and often wam'd me. 
Whence learn'd she this ? — O she was innocent ! 
And to be innocent is nature's wisdom ! 
The fledge-dovc knows the prowlers of the air, 
Fcar'd soon as seen, and flutters back to shelter. 
And the young steed recoils upon his haunches, 
The ncver-yel-seen adder's hiss first heard. 
O surer than Suspicion's hundred eyes 
U that fine sense, which to the pure in heart, 
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness, 
Reveals the approach of evil. Casimir ! 
O fool! O parricide! through yon wood didst thou, 
Willi fire and sword, pursue a patriot father, 
A widow and an orphan. Darest thou then 
fCurse-ladcn wretch), put forlh these hands to raise 
The ark, all sacred, of thy country's cause? 
Look down in pity on thy son, Kiu[irili ; 
And let this deep abhorrence of his crime, 
M 



Unstain'd with selfish fears, be his atonement! 

strenglhen him to nobler compensation 
In the deliverance of his bleeding country ! 

[Exit Casimir. 

Scene changes to the mouth of a Cavern, as in Act H. 
Zapolya and Glycine discovered. 

zapolya. 
Our friend is gone to seek some safer cave. 
Do not ihen leave me long alone. Glycine ! 
Having enjoy'd thy commune, loneliness, 
That but oppress'd me hiiherlo, now scares. 

GLYCINE. 

1 shall know Bethlen at Iho furthest distance, 
And the same moment I descry him, lady, 

I will return to you. [Exit Glycine. 

Enter Old Bathory, .ipcahing as he enters. 
OLD dathorv. 
Who hears ? A friend ! 
A messenger from him who bears the signet ! 

[Zapolya, who had heen gazing affectionately after 
Glvci.ne, starts at Bathory's voice. 
He hath the watch-word ! — Art thou not Bathory? 
OLD BATiionv. 

noble lady ! greetings from your son ! 

[Bathory kneels 

ZAPOLYA. 

Rise! rise! Or shall I railier kneel beside thee. 
And call down blessings from the wealth of Heaven 
Upon thy honor'd head? When ihou last saw'st me 

1 would full fain have knelt lo ihee, and could not. 
Thou dear old man ! How oft since then in dreams 
Have I done worship to thee, as an angel 
Bearing my helpless babe upon thy wings ! 

OLD BATHOKY. 

O he was born to honor! Gallant deeds 
And perilous hath he wrought since yester-eve. 
Now from Temcswar (for lo him was trusted 
A life, save thine, the dearest) he hastes liiiher — 

ZAPOLYA. 

Lady Sarolta mean'st thou? 

OLD bathorv. 

She is safe. 
The royal brute halh overleapt his prey. 
And when he turn'd, a sworded Virtue faced him. 
My own brave boy — O pardon, noble lady ! 
Your son 

ZAPOLYA. 

Haric ! Is it he ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

I hear a voice 
Too hoarse for Bethlen's! 'Twas his scheme and hope, 
Long ere the hunlcrs could approach the forest, 
To have led you hence. — Retire. 

ZAPOLYA. 

O life of terrors ! 

OLD BATHORY. 

In the cave's mouth we have such 'vantage-ground 
That even this old arm — 

[Exeunt Zapolya and Bathory into the Cave 

Enter Laska and Pest alutz. 
laska. 

Not a step further ! 
pestalutz. 
Dastard ! was this your promise lo the king ? 

127 



118 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



LASKA. 

I have fulfiU'd his orders ; have walk'd with you 
As with a friend ; have pointed out Lord Casimir : 
And now I leave you to talie care of him. 
For the king's purposes are doubtless friendly. 

PESTALUTZ (affecting to start). 
Be on your guard, man ! 

LASKA {in affright). 

Ha ! what now ? 

PESTALUTZ. 

Behind you 
'Twas one of Satan's imps, that grinn'd, and threa^ 

en'd you 
For your most impudent hope to cheat his master ! 

LASKA. 

Pshaw! What, you think 'tis fear that makes me 
leave you ? 

PESTALUTZ. 

Is't not enough to play the knave to others, 
But thou must lie to thine own heart ? 

LASKA [pompoushf). 
J'riend ! Laska will be found at his own post. 
Watching elsewhere for the king's interest. 
There's a rank plot that Laska must hunt down, 
'Twixt Bethlen and Glycine ! 

PESTALUTZ (with a sneer). 

What ! the girl 
Whom Laska saw the war-wolf tear in pieces ? 
LASKA (throwing down a boio and arrows). 
Well ! there 's my arms I Hark ! should your javeUn 

fail you, 
These points are lipt with venom. 

[Starts and sees Glycine without. 
By Heaven ! Glycine ! 
Now, as you love the king, help me to seize her ! 
[They run out o/Ver Glycine, and she shrieks with- 
out : then enter Batiiory from the Cavern. 

old bathory. 
Rest, lady, rest ! I feel in every sinew 
A young man's strength returning ! Which way went 

they ? 
The shriek came thence. 

[Clash of swords, and Bethlen's voice heard from 
behind the Scenes ; Glycine enters alarmed ; 
then, as seeing Laska's bow and arrows. 
glycine. 
Ha ! weapons here ? Then, Bethlen, thy Glycine 
Will die with thee or save thee ! 

[She seizes them and rushes out. 'Bathoky following 
her. Lively and irregular Mtisic, and Peasants 
with hunting-spears cross the stage, singing cho- 
rally. 

CHORAL SONG. 
Up, up ! ye dames, ye lasses gay ! 
To the meadows trip away. 
'T is you must tend the flocks this morn. 
And scare the small birds from the com. 
Not a soul at home may stay : 

For the shepherds must go 

With lance and bow 
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day. 

Leave the hearth and leave the house 
To the cricket and the mouse : 



Find grannam out a sunny seat, 
With babe and lambkin at her feet. 
Not a soul at home may stay : 
For the shepherds must go 
With lance and bow 
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day. 
Re-enter, as the Huntsmen pass off, Bathory, Bethlen 
aiui Glycine. 
GLYCINE (leaning on Bethlen). 

And now once more a woman 

bethlen. 

Was it then 
That timid eye, was it those maiden hands 
That sped the shaft which saved me and avenged me? 

OLD BATHORY (tO BeTHLEN exulllllgly). 

'Twas a vision blazon'd on a cloud 

By lightning, shaped into a passionate scheme 

Of life and death ! I saw the traitor, Laska, 

Stoop and snatch up the javelin of his comrade ; 

The point was at your back, when her shaft reach d 

him 
The coward turn'd, and at the self-same instant 
The braver villain fell beneath your sword. 

Enter Zapolya. 

ZAPOLYA. 

Bethlen ! my child ! and safe too ! 

BETHLEN. 

Mother .' Queen ! 
Royal Zapolya! name me Andreas ! 
Nor blame thy son, if being a king, he yet 
Hath made his own arm, minister of his justice 
So do the Gods who lanch the thunderbolt! 

ZAPOLYA. 

ORaabKiuprili! Friend! Protector! Guide' 
In vain we trench'd the altar round with waters 
A flash from Heaven hath touch 'd i he hidden incense — 

BETHLEN (hastily). 
And that majestic form that stood beside thee 
Was Raab Kiuprili ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

It was Raab Kiuprili ; 
As sure as thou art Andreas, and the king. 

OLD BATIIORY. 

Hail Andreas! hail my king! [Triumphantly 

ANDREAS. 

Stop, thou revered one 
Lest we oflfend the jealous destinies 
By shouts ere victory. Deem it then thy duty 
To pay this homage, when 'tis mine to claim it. 

GLYCINE. 

Accept thine hand-maid's service ! [Kneding 

ZAPOLYA 

Raise her, son ! 

raise her to thine arms ! she saved thy life. 

And through her love for thee, she saved thy mother's 
Hereafter thou shalt know, that this dear maid 
Hath other and hereditary claims 
Upon thy heart, and wth Heaven-smarded instinct 
But carried on the work her sire began ! 

ANDREAS. 

Dear maid ! more dear thou canst not be ! the res! 
Shall make my love religion. Haste ^ve hence ; 
For as I reach'd the skirts of this high forest, 

1 heard the noise and uproar of the cliase. 
Doubling its echoes from the mountain foot. 

128 



ZAPOLYA. 



119 



GLYCINE. 

Hark ! sure the hunt approaches. 

[Hurn icithmit, and afteru^rds distant thunder. 

ZAPOLYA. 

Kiuprili! 

OLD BATIIORY. 

The demon-hunters of the mitlille air 
Arc in full crj', and scare with arrowy fire 
The guilty! Hark! now here, now there, a horn 
Swells singly with irregular blast ! the tempest 
Has scatler'd them ! 

[Horns lieard as from different places at a distance. 

ZAPOLVA. 

O Heavens ! where stays Kiuprili ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

Tlie wood will be surrounded I leave me here. 

ANDRKAS. 

My mother ! let me see thee once in safety, 
I too will hasten back, with lightning's speed, 
To seek the hero I 

OLD BATHORY. 

Haste ! my life upon it, 
I '11 guide him safe 

ANDREAS (thunder again). 

Ha ! w hat a crash was there ! 
Heaven seems to claim a mightier criminal 

[Pointing without to the body of Pestalutz. 
Than yon vile subaltern. 

ZAPOLYA. 

Your behest, High Powers, 
Low I obey I to the appointed spirit. 
That hath so long kept watch round this drear cavern, 
In fervent faith, Kiuprili, I intrust thee ! 

[Exeunt Zapolya, Andreas, and Glycine, 
Andreas having in haste dropt his sword. 
Manet Bathory. 

OLD BATHORY'. 

Yon bleeding corse, (pointing to Pestalutz's body) 

may work us mischief still : 
Once seen, 'twill rouse alarm and crowd the hunt 
From all parts towards tliis spot. Slript of its armor, 
I "11 drag it hither. 

[Exit Bathory. After a while several Hunters 
cross the stage as scaltcnd. Some time after, 
enter Kiuprili in his disguise, fainting with 
fatigue, and as pursued. 
RAAB kiuprili (throwing off his disguise). 
Since Heaven alone can save me, Heaven alone 
Shall be my trust. 

[Then speaking as to Zapolva in the Cavern. 
Haste ! hasle ! Zapolya, flee ! 
[He enters the Cavern, and then returns in alarm. 
Gone ! Seized perhaps ? Oh no, let me not perish 
Despairing of Heaven's ju-stice ! Faint, disarm'd. 
Each sinew powerless, senseless rock sustain me ! 
Thou art parcel of my native land. 

[Then observing the sword. 
A sword ! 
Ha! and my sword! Zapolya hath escaped, 
The murderers are baffled, and there lives 
An Andreas to avenge Kiuprili's fall ! — 
There was a time, when this dear sword did flash 
As dreadful as the storm-fire from mine arms: 
I can scarce raise it now — yet come, fell tyrant ! 
And bring with thee my shame and bitter anguish. 
To end his work and tliine ! Kiuprili now 
Can take tJie death-blow as a soldier should. 



Re-enter Bathory, with Oie dead body of Pestah;tz. 

OLD BATHORY. 

Poor tool amt victim of anollicr".s guilt! 
Thou follow'st heavily : a reluctant weight I 
Good truth, it is an undeserved lienor 
That in Zapolya and KiupriU's cave 
A wretch like thee should find a burial-place. 

[Then observing KlUPRILI. 
'Tis he! — in Andreas' and Zapolya's name 
Follow me, reverend form ? Thou needst not sp>eak, 
For thou canst be no other than Kiuprili ! 

KIUPRILI. 

And are tliey safe ? [Noise without. 

OLD BATHORY. 

Conceal yourself, my Lord ' 
I will mislead them ! 

KIUPRILI. 

Is Zapolya safe ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

I doubt it not ; but haste, haste, I conjure you ! 

[As he retires, in rushes Casimir. 
CASiMiR (entering). 

Monster ! 
Thou shalt not now escape me ! 

OLD BATIIORY. 

Stop, Lord Casimir! 
It is no monster. 

CASIMIR. 

Art thou too a traitor ? 
Is this the place where Emerick's murderers lurk ? 
Say where is he that, Irick'd in this disguise. 
First lured me on, then scared my dastard Ibllowers? 
Thou must have seen him. Say where is th' assassin? 
OLD BATHORY (pointing to the body of Pestalutz). 
There lies the assassin ! slain by that same sword 
That was descending on liis curst employer. 
When entering thou beheld'st Sarolta rescued ! 

CASIMIR. 

Strange providence ! what then was he who fled me ? 
[Bathory points to the Cavern, whence Kiuprili 
advances. 
Thy looks speak fearful things ! \Vliither, old man ! 
Would thy hand point me ? 

OLD BATHORY. 

Casimir, to thy father. 
CASIMIR (discovering Kiuprili). 
The curse ! the curse ! Open and swallow me. 
Unsteady earth ! Fall, dizzy rocks ! and hide me ! 

OLD BATHORY (tO KlUPRILl). 

Speak, speak, my Lord ! 

KIUPRILI (holds out the sword, to Bathory). 
Bid him fulfil his work ! 

CASIMIR. 

Thou art Heaven's immediate minister, dread spirit ! 
O for sweet mercy, take some other form. 
And save me from perdition and despair ! 



He lives ! 



OLD BATHORY. 
CASIMIR. 

Lives ! A father's curse can never die ! 



KIUPRILI (in a tone of pity). 
Casimir ! Casimir ! 

OLD BATHORY'. 

Look ! he doth forgive you ! 
Hark! 'tis the tyrant's voice. 

[Emerick's voice wilhou 
129 



120 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



CASIMIR. 

I kneel, I kneel ! 
Retract thy curse ! O, by my mother's ashes, 
Have pity on Ihy self-abhorring child ! 
If not for me, yet for my innocent wife. 
Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength, 
Permitting me again to call thee fatlier! 

KIUPRILI. 

Son, I forgive thee ! Take thy father's sword ; 
When thou shalt lift it in thy country's cause, 
In that same instant doth thy father bless thee ! 

[KiUFRiLi and Casimir embrace ; they all retire 
to the Cavern supportijtg Kiuprili. Casimir 
as by accident drops his robe, and Bathory 
throws it over the body of Pestalutz. 
EMERICK [entering). 
Fools ! Cowards ! follow — or by Hell I '11 make you 
Find reason to fear Emeriek, more than all 
The mummer-fiends that ever masqueraded 
As gods or wood-nymphs ! — 

Then sees the body of Pestalutz, covered by 
Casimir's cloak. 

Ha! 'tis done then! 
Our necessary villain hath proved faithful. 
And there lies Casimir, and our last fears ! 

Well !— Ay, well ! 

And is it not well ? For though grafted on us. 
And fiU'd too with our sap, the deadly power 
Of the parent poison-tree lurk'd in its fibres : 
There was too much of Raab Kiuprili in him : 
The old enemy look'd at mc in his face. 
E'en when his words did flatter me with duty. 

[As EwERiCii moves towards the body, enter from, 
the Cavern Casimir and Bathory. 

OLD BATHORY (pointing to where the noise is, and aside 

to Casimir). 
Tills way they come .' 

CASIMIR (aside to Bathory). 

Hold them in check awliile. 
The path is narrow ! Rudolph will assist thee. 

EMERICK (aside, not perceiving Casimir and Bathory, 

and looking at the dead body). 
And ere I ring the alarum of ray sorrow, 
I '11 scan that face once more, and murmur — Here 
Lies Casimir, the last of the Kiuprilis ! 

[Ujicovers the face, and starts. 
Hell! 'tis Pestalutz! 

CASIMIR (coming forward). 

Yes, thou ingrate Emeriek ! 
'Tis Pestalutz! 'tis thy trusty murderer! 
To quell thee more, see Raab Kiuprili's sword ! 

EMERICK. 

Curses on it, and thee ! Think'st thou that petty omen 
Dare whisper fear to Emerick's destiny ? 
Ho ! Treason I Treason ! 

CASIMIR. 

Then have at thee, tyrant! 
[ They fghl. Emerick falls. 

EMERICK. 

Betray'd and baffled 

By mine own tool ! Oh ! [Dies. 

CASIMIR (triumphantly). 

Hear, hear, my father! 
Thou shouldst have wilness'd thine own deed. O 

father ! 
Wake from that envious swoon! The tyrant's fallen ! 
Tliy sworii hath conquer'd ! As I lifted it, 



Thy blessing did indeed descend upon me ; 
Dislodging the dread curse. It flew forth from me 
And lighted on the tyrant ! 

Enter Rudolph, Bathory, and Attendants. 

RUDOLPH and bathory (entering). 

Friends ! friends to Casimir 

CASIMIR. 

Rejoice, Illyrians ! die usurper 's fallen. 

RUDOLPH. 

So perish tyrants ! so end usui'pation ! 

CASIMIR. 

Bear hence the body, and move slowly on ! 

One moment 

Devoted to a joy, that bears no witness, 
I follow you, and we will greet our countrymen 
With the two best and fullest gifts of Heaven — 
A tyrant fallen, a patriot chief restored ! 

[Exeunt Casimir hito the Cavern. The rest cm 
the opposite side. 

Scene changes to a splendid Chamber in Casimir's 
Castle. Co.xFEDERATES discovered. 

first CONFEDERATE. 

It cannot but succeed, friends. From this palace 
E'en to the wood, our messengers are posted 
With such short interspace, that fast as sound 
Can travel to us, we shall learn the event ! 

Enter ano?7(er Confederate. 
What tidings from Temeswar? 

SECOND confederate. 

With one voice 
Th' assembled chieftains have deposed the tyrant ; 
He is proclaim'd the public enemy. 
And the protection of the law withdrawn. 

first confederate. 
Just doom for him, who governs without law ! 
Is it known on whom the sov'reignty will fall ? 

SECOND confederate. 

Nothing is yet decided : but report 

Points to Lord Casimir. The grateful memory 

Of his renowned father 

Enter Sarolta. 

Hail to Sarolta. 
sarolta. 
Confederate friends ! I bring to you a joy 
Worthy our noble cause ! Kiuprili lives. 
And from his obscure exile, hath return'd 
To bless our country. More and greater tidings 
Might I disclose ; but that a woman's voice 
Would mar the wondrous tale. Wait we for him 
The partner of the gloiy — Raab Kiuprili ; 
For he alone is worthy to announce it. 

[Shouts of " Kiuprili, Kiuprili !" and " The Tyrant 'a 
fallen!" without. Then enter Kiuprili, Casimir, 
Rudolph, Bathory, and Attendants, after the 
clamor has subsided. 

RAAB kiuprili. 

Spare yet your joy, my friends I A higher waits you 
Behold your Queen ! 

Enter from opposite side, Z a poly A and Andreas 
royally attired, with Glycine, 
confederates. 
Comes she from heaven to bless us 
130 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



121 



OTIIKR CONFEDERATES. 
It is! It is! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Heaven's work of grace is full ! 
Kiuprili, thou art safe! 

RAAB KIUPRILI. 

Royal Zajwlya ! 
To the heavenly ]xnvers, i)ay \ve our duly first; 
Who not alone preserved thee, but for thee 
And for our country, the one precious branch 
Of Andreas' royal liouse. O countrymen, 
Behold your King! And thank our country's genius. 
That the same means which have preserved our 

sovereign. 
Have likewise rcar'd him worihier of the throne 
By virtue than by birlli. The undoubted proofs 
Pledged by his royal mother, and this old man 
(Whose name henceforth be dear to all lllyrians). 
We haste to lay before the assembled council. 

ALL. 

Hail, Andreas ! Hail, Illyria's rightful king ! 

ANDREAS. 

Supjwrted thus, O friends! 'twere cowardice 

Unworlliy of a royal birth, to slirink 

From the appointed charge. Yet, while we wait 

Tlie awful sanction of convened lilyria. 

In this brief wliilc, O let mo feel myself 

The child, the friend, the debtor! — Heroic mother! — 

But what can l>realh add to that sacred name ( 

Kiuprili! gift of Providence, to teach us 

That loyalty is but the public form 

Of the sublimest friendship, let my youth 

Chmb round tliee, as the vino around its elm: 

Tliou 7ni/ support, and / thy faithful fruitage. 

My heart is full, and these poor words express not 

They are but an art to check its over-swelling. 

Bathory ! shrink not from my fdial arms ! 

Now, and from henceforth, thou shall not forbid me 

To call thee faliier ! And dare I forget 



The powerful intercession of thy virtue, 

Lady fSarolta >. Still acknowledge ine 

Thy faithful soldier! — But what invocation 

Shall my full soul address to tliee. Glycine ? 

Thou sword, tliat leap'st from forth a bed of roses ! 

Thou falcon-hearted dove ? 

ZAPOLVA. 

Hear that from me, son ! 
For ere she lived, her father saved tiiy life, 
Thine, and thy fugitive mother's ! 

CASIMIR. 

Chef Ragozzi ! 

shame upon my head ! I would have given her 
To a base slave ! 

ZAPOLYA. 

Heaven overruled thy purpose, 
And sent an angel {Poiitling to Sakolta) to thy house 

to guard her ! 
Tliou precious bark! freighted with all our treasures ! 

\To Andreas. 
The sport of tempests, and yet ne'er the victim, 
How many may claim salvage in thee ! 

(,PouUhig to Glycine). Take her, son ! 
A queen that brings with her a richer dowry 
Than orient kings can give ! 

sarolta. 

A banquet waits ! — 
On this auspicious day, for some few hours 

1 claim to be your hostess. Scenes so awful 
With flashing light, forte wisdom on us all ! 
K'en women at the distaff hence may see. 
That bad men may rebel, but ne'er be free; 
May whisper, when the waves of faction foam, 
None love their country, but who love their home ; 
For freedom can with those alone abide. 

Who wear the golden chain, with honest pride. 
Of love and duty, at their own fire-side : 
While mad ambition ever doth caress 
Its own sure fiite, in its own restlessness ! 



JTUc i^tccolomiui; or, tlieiFCtssti^art of SlSTalleniEjitein. 

A DRAMA. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER. 



PREFACE. 



It was my intention to have prefixed a Life of Wal- 
lenstein to this translation; but I found that it must 
either have occupied a space wholly disi)ro|)orlionaIe 
to the nature of the pul)lication, or have been merely 
a meagre catalogue of events narrated not more 
fully than they already are in the Play itself Tiie 
recent translation, likewise, of Schiller's History of 
the Thirty Years' War diminished the motives tlierelo. 
M3 



In the translation I endeavored to render my Author 
litrralhj wherever I was not prevented by absolute 
differences of idiom; but I am conscious, that in two 
or three short passages I have been guilty of dilating 
the original; and, from anxietjfito give the full 
meaning, have weakened tlio f()r«||pin the metre I 
have availed myself of no oilier lioerlies than tliose 
which Schiller had permitted to himself, except the 
occasional breaking-up of the line by the substitu 
lion of a trochee for an iambic; of which libcrt};^ so 
frequent in our tragedies, I find no instance ii^flieso 
dramas 

S. T. Coleridge 
131 



122 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



THE PICCOLOMINI, ETC. 



ACT L 

SCENE I. 



An old Gothic Chamber in the Council-House at Pilsen, 
decorated with Colors and other War Insignia. 

Illo with Butler and Isolani. 



Ye have come late — but ye are come ! The distance, 
Count Isolan, excuses your delay. 

ISOLANI. 

Add this too, that we come not empty-handed. 
At Donauvvert:* it was reported to us, 
A Swedish caravan was on its way 
Transporting a rich cargo of provision. 
Almost six hundred wagons. This my Croats 
Plunged down upon and seized, this weighty prize ! — 
We bring it hither 

ILLO. 

Just in time to banquet 
The illustrious company assembled here. 

BUTLER. 

'Tis all alive ! a stirring scene here ! 

ISOLAXI. 

Ay! 
The very churches are all full of soldiers. 

[Casts his eye around. 
And in the Council-house too, I observe, 
You 're settled, quite at home ! Well, well ! we soldiers 
Must shift and suit us in what way we can. 

ILLO. 

We have the colonels here of thirty regiments. 
You'll find Count Tertsky here, and Tiefenbach, 
Kolatto, Goetz, Maradas, Hinnersam, 

The Piccolomini, both son and father 

You'll meet with many an unexpected greeting 
From many an old friend and acquaintance. Only 
Galas is wanting still, and Altringer. 

BUTLER. 

Expect not Galas. 

ILLO (hesilatiiig). 
How so ? Do you know 

ISOLANI {interrupting him). 
Max. Piccolomini here ? — O bring me to him. 
I see him yet ('lis now ten years ago, 
We were engaged with Mansfeld hard by Dessau), 
I see the youth, in my mind's eye I see him. 
Leap his black war-horse from the bridge adown, 
And t'vvard his father, then in extreme peril, 
Beat up against the strong tide of the Elbe. 
The down was scarce upon his cliin! I hear 
He has' made go^the promise of his youth, 
And the full Iji^How is finish'd in him. 



e go^tl 
Ijflko 



BUTLER. 

Both wife and daughter does the Duke call hither ? 
He crowds in visitants from all sides. 



ISOLANI. 



Hm! 



You '11 see him yet ere evening. He conducts 
The Duchess Friedland hither, and the Princesst 
Frpin Carnthen. We expect them here at noon. 



A Wwn about 12 German miles N. E. of Ulm. 
t Th« dukes in Germany boine always rcienin? powers, their 
sons and daughterti are entitled Princes and Princesses. 



So much the better ! I had framed my mind 
To hear of naught, but warlike circumstance, 
Of marches, and attacks, and batteries : 
And lo ! the Duke provides, that something too 
Of gentler sort, and lovely, should be present 
To feast our eyes. 

ILLO {who has been standing in the attitude of medi 
tation, to Butler, whom he leads a little on one 
side). 
And how came you to know 
That the Count Galas Joins us not ? 
butler. 

Because 
He importuned me to remain behind. 

ILLO {with warmth). 
And you ? — You hold out firmly ? 

[Grasping his hand with affection 
Noble Butler! 

BUTLER. 

After the obligation which the Duke 
Had laid so newly on me 

ILLO. 

I had forgotten 
A pleasant duty — Major-General, 
I wish you joy ! 

ISOLANI. 

Wliat, you mean, of his regiment? 
I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter 
The Duke has given him the very same 
In which he first saw service, and since then, 
Work'd himself, step by step, through each preferment, 
From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives 
A precedent of hope, a spur of action 
To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance 
An old deserving soldier makes his way. 

BUTLER. 

I am perplex'd and doubtful, whether or no 

I dare accept this your congratulation. 

The Emperor has not yet confirm'd the appointment 

ISOLANI. 

Seize it, friend ! Seize it ! The hand which in tha» 

post 
Placed you, is strong enough to keep you there, 
Spile of the Emperor and his Ministers ? 

ILLO. 

Ay, if we would but so consider it ! — 

If we would all of us consider it so ! 

The Emperor gives us notliiiig ; from the Duke 

Comes all — whato'or wc hope, whate'er we have 

ISOLANI (to Illo). 
My noble brother! did 1 tell you how 
The Duke will satisfy my creditors? 
Will be himself my banker for the future, 
Make me once more a creditable man ! — 
And this is now the third lime, think of that! 
This kingly-minded man has rescued me 
From absolute ruin, and restored my honor. 

ILLO. 

O that his power but kept pace with his wishes ! 
Why, friend! he'd give the whole world to his 

soldiers. 
But at Vienna, brother ! — here 's the grievance ! — 
What politic schemes do they not lay to shorleu 
132 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



123 



His arm. ami where ihcy can, to clip his pillions. 
Then these new dainty requisitions ! these, 
U'liith tliis same Questenberg brings liithcrl — 

BUTX-ER. 

Ay! 
These requisitions of the Emperor, — 
I too have heard about them ; but I hope 
The Duke w ill not draw back a single inch ! 

ILLO. 

Not from his right most surely, unless first 
— From ollice ! 

BUTi.ER {shocked and confused). 
Know you aughl then ? You alarm me. 
isoLANi {at the same time with Butler, and in a flur- 
rying voice). 
We should be ruin'd, every one of us ! 

ILLO. 

No more ! 
Yonder I see our worthy friend* approaching 
\Vith the Lieutenant General, Piccoloiuini. 

BUTLER {shaking his head significantly). 
I fear we shall not go hence as we came. 



SCENE II. 
Etiler OcTAvio Piccolo.mim aiid Questenberg. 
ocTAVio {still in the distance). 
Ay, ay I more still ! Still more new visitors ! 
Acknowleilsre, friend I that never wa.s a camp, 
Which held at once so many heads of heroes. 

[Approaching nearer. 
Welcome, Count Isolani ! 

ISOLAXL 

My noble l)rolher, 
Evei. now am I arrived ; it had been else my duty — 

OCTAVIO. 

And Colonel Butler — trust me, I rejoice 

Tlius to renew acquaintance with a man 

W'liose worth and services I know and honor. 

See, sec, my friend ! 

There might we place at once before our eyes 

The sum of war's whole trade and mystery — 

[7b QuESTEXBERG, presenting Butler and Isolani 

at the same time to him. 
These two the total sum — Strength and Dispatch. 

aUESTENBEnC {In OcTAVIO). 

And lo ! betwixt them both, experienced Prudence 
OCTAVIO {presenting Questenberg to Butler and 

ISOLAM). 

Tlie Chamberlain and War-commissioner Questen- 
berg, 
The bearer of the Emperor's behests, 
The long-tried friend and patron of all soldiers. 
We honor in this noble visitor. [Uiiiversal silence 

ILLO {moving towards Questexberg). 
Tis not the first time, noble Minister, 
Vou have shown our camp this honor. 
queste.xberg. 

Once before, 
I stood before these colors. 

ILLO. 

Perchance loo you remember v:here that was. 
It \\as at Zniiimt in Moravia, where 



You did present yourself upon the jiart 
Of the Emperor, to supplicate our Duke 
That he would straight assume the chief command. 

questenberg. 
To sujrplicate ? Nay, noble General ! 
So far extended neither my commission 
(At least to my own knowledge) nor my zeal. 

ILLO. 

Well, well, then — to compel him, if you choose. 
I can remember me right well. Count Tilly 
Had suffer'd total rout upon the Lech. 
Bavaria lay all open to the enemy. 
Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing 
Onwards into the veiy heart of Austria. 
At that time you and Werdcnbcrg appear'd 
Before our General, storming him with prayers. 
And menacing the P'mperor's displeasure. 
Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness. 

ISOLANI {steps up to them). 
Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough. 
Wherefore with your commission of to-day 
You were not all too willing lo remember 
Your former one. 

questenberg. 

Why not, Count Isolan ? 
No contradiction sure exists between them. 
It was the urgent business of that time 
To snatch Bavaria from her enemy's hand ; 
And my commission of to-day instructs me 
To free her from her good friends and protectors. 

ILLO. 

A worthy office ! Af\er w ith our blood 

We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon, 

To be swept out of it is all our thanks. 

The sole reward of all our hard-won victories. 

questenberg. 
Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer 
Only a change of evils, it must be 
Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe. 

ILLO. 

What ? 'T w'as a favorable year ; the boors 
Can answer fresh demands ah'cady. 



questenberg. 



Nay, 



* Spoken with a sneer. 

t A town not far from the Mine-Mountains, on the high road 
from Vienna lo Prague. 



If yon discourse of herds and meadow-grounds — 

ISOLANI. 

The war maintains the war. Are the boors ruin'd, 
The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers. 

QUESTENBERG. 

And is the poorer by even so many subjects. 

ISOLANI. 

Poh ! We are all his subjects. 

QUESTENBERG. 

Yet with a difference, General ! The one fills 

With profitable industry the purse. 

The others are well skill'd to empty it. 

The sword has made the Emperor poor ; the plow 

Must reinvigorate his resources. 

ISOLANL 

Sure! 
Times are not yet so bad. Melhinlu I see 

[Examining with his eye the dress and orimmenti 
of Questenberg. 
Good store of gold that still remains uncoin'd- 
18 133 



124 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORivS. 



aUESTENBEKG. 

Thank Heaven ! that means have been found out to 

hide 
Some little from the fingers of the Croats. 

ILLO. 

There ! The Stawata and the Martinitz, 

On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces, 

To the heart-burning of all good Bohemians — 

Those minions of court favor, those court harpies, 

Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens 

Driven from their house and home — who reap no 

harvests 
Save in the general calamity — 
Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock 
The desolation of their country — these, 
Let these, and such as these, support the war, 
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled ! 

BUTLER. 

And those state-parasites, who have their feet 
So constantly beneath the Emperor's table, 
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they 
Snap at it with dog's hunger — they, forsooth. 
Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckon- 
ing! 

ISOLANI. 

My life long wdll it anger me to think. 
How when I went to court seven years ago. 
To see about new horses for our regiment. 
How from one antechamber to another 
They dragg'd me on, and left me by the hour 
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering 
Feast-fatten'd slaves, as if I had come thither 
A mendicant suitor tor the crumbs of favor 
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last. 
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin! 
Straight I began to muster up my sins 
For absolution — but no such luck for me! 
This was the man, this capuchin, with whom 
1 was to treat concerning the army horses : 
And I was forced at last to quit the field. 
The business unaccomplish'd. Afterwards 
The Duke procured me, in three days, what I 
Could not obtam in thirty at Vienna. 

aUESTENBERG. 

Yes, yes ! your travelling bills soon found their way 

to us : 
Too well I laiow we have still accounts to settle. 

ILLO. 

War is a violent trade ; one cannot always 

Finish one's work by soft means ; every trifle 

Must not be blacken'd into sacrilege. 

If we shovdd wait till you, in solemn council, 

With due deliberation had selected 

The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils, 

r faith we should wait long. — 

"Dash! and through with it!" — That's the better 

watchword. 

Then after come what may come. 'Tis man's nature 
To make the best of a bad tiling once past, 
A bitter and perplex'd " what shall I do ? " 
Is woi-se to man than v.'orst necessity. 

QUESTENBERG. 

Ay, doubtless, it is true : the Duke does spare us 
The troublesome task of choosing. 

BUTLER. 

Yes, the Duke 
Cares 'wi\h a father's feelings for his troops ; 
But how the Emperor feels for us, we see. 



QUESTENBERG. 

His cares and feelings all ranks share alike, 
Nor will he offer one up to another. 

ISOLANI. 

And therefore thrusts he us into the deserts 
As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve 
His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home 

QUESTENBERG {witli a siicer). 
Count ! this comparison you make, not I. 

BUTLER. 

Why, were we all the court supposes us, 
'Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty 

QUESTENBERG. 

You have taken liberty — it was not given you. 

And therefore it becomes an urgent duty 

To rein it in with curbs. 

ocTAVio {interposing and addressing Questenberg) 

My noble friend, 
This is no more than a remembrancing 
That you are now in camp, and among warriors. 
The soldier's boldness consiitutes his freedom. 
Could he act daringly, unless he dared 
Talk even so ? One runs into the other. 
The boldness of this worthy officer, 

[Pointing to Butler. 
Which now has but mistaken in its mark, 
Preserved, when naught but boldness could preserve 

it. 
To the Emperor his capital city, Prague, 
In a most formidable mutiny 

Of the whole garrison. [Militari/ music at a distance 
Hah ! here they come ' 

ILLO. 

The sentries are saluting them : this signal 
Announces the arrival of the Duchess. 

OCTAVIO (to Questenberg). 
Then my son Max. too has returned. 'Twas he 
Fetch'd and attended them from Camthen hither 

ISOLANI (to Illo). 
Shall we not go in company to greet them ? 

ILLO. 

Well, let us go. — Ho ! Colonel Butler, come. 

[To OCTAVIO. 

You '11 not forget, that yet ere noon we meet 
The noble Envoy at the General's palace. 

[Exeunt all but Questenberg and Octavio. 



SCENE III. 



Questenberg ajid Octavio. 
QUESTENBERG {with signs of aver sion and astonishmerU), 
What have I not been forced to hear, Octavio ! 
What sentiments ! what fierce, uncurb'd defiance ! 
And were this spirit universal — 

OCTAVIO. 

Hm! 

You are now acquainted with three-fourths of the 
army. 

QUESTENBERG. J 

VMiere must we seek then for a second host J 

To have the custody of this ? That Illo i 

Thinks worse, I fear me, tlian he speaks. And then 
This Butler too — he cannot even conceal 
The passionate workings of his ill intentions. 

OCTAVIO. 

Quickness of temper- — irritated pride ; 
'Twas nothing more. I cannot give up But! r 
134 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



125 



I know a spell that will soon dispossess 
The evil spirit in him. 

QUESTENBERG {walking upand down in evident disquiet.) 

Friend, friend ! 
O ! this is worse, fur worse, than we had sufler'd 
Ourselves to dream of at Vienna. There 
Wo saw it oidy with a courtier's eyes, 
F.yes dazzled by the splendor of the throne. 
\Ve had not seen the War-chief, the Coininandor, 
The man all-powerful in his camp. Here, here, 
'Tis quite another thing. 

Here is no Emperor more — the Duke is Emperor. 
Alas, my friend ! alas, my noble friend ! 
This walk which you have ta'en me through the camp 
Strikes my hopes prostrate. 

OCTAVIO. 

Now you see yourself 
Of what a perilous kind the office is. 
Which you deliver to me from the Court. 
The least suspicion of the General 
Costs me my freedom and my life, and would 
But hasten his most desperate enterprise. 

aUKSTENBERG. 

Where was our reason sleeping when we trusted 
This madman with tlie sword, and placed such power 
]n such a hand ? I tell you, he '11 refuse. 
Flatly refuse, to obey the Imperial ordere. 
Friend, he can do 'I, and what he can, he will. 
And then the impunity of his defiance — 
Oh .' what a proclamation of our weakness ! 

OCTAVIO. 

D' ye think too, he has brought his wife and daughter 

Without a purpose hither ? Here in camp ! 

And at the very point of time, in wliich 

We 're arming for the war ? That he has taken 

These, the last pledges of his loyalty. 

Away from out the Emperor's domains — 

Tins is no doubtful token of the nearness 

Of some eruption ! 

aUESTEiVBERG. 

How shall we hold footing 
Beneath this tempest, which collects itself 
And threat.s us from all quarters? The enemy 
Of the empire on our borders, now already 
The master of the Danube, atid still farther, 
And farther still, extending every hour ! 
In our interior the alarum-bells 
Of insurrection — peasantry in arms — 
All orders discontented — and the army, 
Just in the moment of our expectanon 
Of aidance from it — lo ! this very army 
Seduced, run wild, lost to all discipline, 
Loosen'd, and rent asunder from the slate 
And from their sovereign, the blind instrument 
Of the most daring of mankind, a weapon 
Of fearful power, which at his will he wields ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Nay, nay, frienfl ! let us not despair too soon. 
Men's woiQs are ever bolder than their deeds: 
And many a resolute, who now appears 
Wade up to all extremes, will, on a sudden 
Find in his breast a heart he wot not of, 
I^t but a single honest man speak out 
The true name of his crime ! Remember too, 
We stand not yet so wiiolly unprolecled. 
Counts Altringer and Galas have maintain'd 



Their little army faithful to its dutj, 

And daily it becomes more inuncrous. 

Nor can he take us by surprise : you know 

I hold him all encompass'd by my listeners. 

Whate'er he does, is mine, even while 'tis doing — 

No step so small, but instantly I hear it ; 

Yea, his own mouth discloses it. 

QUESTENBERG. 

'Tis quite 
Incomprehensible, that he detects not 
The foe so near ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Beware, you do not think, 
That I, by lying arts, and complaisant 
Hypocrisy, have skulked into his graces: 
Or with the substance of smooth professions 
Nourish his all-confiding friendship ! No — 
Compell'd alike by prudence, and that duty 
Which we all owe our country, and our sovereign. 
To hide my genuine feelings from him, yet 
Ne'er have I duped him with base counterfeits! 

QUESTENBERG. 

It is the visible ordinance of Heaven. 

OCTAVIO. 

I know not what it is that so attracts 

And links him both to me and to my son. 

Comrades and friends we always were — long hab 

Adventurous deeds perform 'd in company. 

And all those many and various incidents 

Wiiich store a soldier's memory with affections, 

Had bound us long and early to each other — 

Yet I can name the day, when all at once 

His heart rose on me, and his confidence 

Shot out in sudden growth. It was the morning 

Before the memorable fight at Lutzner. 

Urged by an ugly dream, I sought him out, 

To press him to accept another charger. 

At distance from the tents, beneath a tree, 

I found him in a sleep. When I had waked him 

And had related all my bodings to him, 

Long time he stared upon me, like a man 

Astounded ; thereon fell upon my neck. 

And manifested to me an emotion 

That far ouistripp'd the worth of that small service. 

Since then his confidence has follow'd me 

With the same pace that mine has fied from hira. 

QUESTENBERG. 

You lead your son into the secret ? 

OCTAVIO. 

No: 

QUESTENBERG. 

Wiat! and not warn him either what bad hands 
His lot has placed him in ? 

OCTAVIO. 

I must perforce 
Leave him in wardship to his innocence. 
His young and open soul — dissimulation 
Is f(ireign to its habits! Ignorance 
Alone can keep alive the cheerful air, 
The unembarrass'd sense and light free spirit 
That make the Duke secure. 

QUESTENBERG (anxiouslij). 
My honor'd friend ! most highly do I deem 

Of Colonel Piccolomini — yet — if 

Reflect a little 

135 



126 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



OCTAVIO. 

I must venture it. 
Hush ! — There he conies ! 



SCENE IV. 



Max. Piccolomini, Octavio Piccolomini, 
questenberg. 

MAX. 

Ha ! there he is himself. Welcome, my father ! 

[He embraces his father. As he tur7is round, he 

observes Questenberg, and draivs back with 

a cold and reserved air. 
You are engaged, I see. I '11 not disturb you. 

OCTAVIO. 

How, Max. ? Look closer at this visitor. 
Attention, Max., an old friend merits — Reverence 
Belongs of right to the envoy of your sovereign. 

MAX. (drily). 
Von Questenberg ! — Welcome — if you bring with you 
Aught good to our head-quarters. 

QUESTENBERG {seizing his hand). 

Nay, draw not 
Your hand away, Count Piccolomini ! 
Not on mine ovvti accoimt alone I seized it. 
And nothing common will I say therewith. 

[ Taking the hands of both. 
Octa\-io — Max. Piccolomini ! 

sa\nor names, and full of happy omen ! 

Ne'er will her prosperous genius rum from Austria, 
While two such stars, with blessed influences 
Beaming protection, shine above her hosts. 

MAX. 

Heh ! — Noble minister ! You miss j'our part. 

You came not here to act a panegyric. 

You 're sent, I know, to find fault and to scold us — 

1 must not be beforehand with my comrades. 

OCTAVIO (to Max.). 
He comes from court, v^hero people are not quite 
So well contented with the Duke, as here. 

MAX. 

What now have they contrived to find out in him ? 

That he alone determines for himself 

What he himself alone doth understand ! 

Well, therein he does right, and will persist in 't. 

Heaven never meant him for that passive thing 

That can be struck and hammer'd out to suit 

Another's taste and fancy. He '11 not dance 

To every tune of every minister : 

It goes against his nature — he can't do it. 

He is possess'd by a commanding spirit, 

And his too is the station of command. 

And well for us it is so ! There exist 

Few fit to rule themselves, but few that use 

Tlieir intellects intelligently. — Then 

Well for the whole, if there be found a man, 

WTio makes himself what nature destined him. 

The pause, the central point to thousand thousands — 

Stands fix'd and stately, like a firm-built column, 

Where all may press with joy and confidence. 

Now such a man is Wallenstein ; and if 

Another belter suits the court — no other 

But such a one as he can serve the army 

aUESTE.NBERG 

■fhe army ? Doubtless .' 



OCTAVIO {to Questenberg). 

Hash ! Suppress it, friend ! 
Unless some end were ansvver'd by the utterance.— 
Of him there you '11 make nothing. 

MAX. {continuing). 

In their distress 
They call a spirit up, and when he comes. 
Straight their flesh creeps and quivers, and they 

dread him 
More than the ills tor which they call'd him up. 
The imcommon, the sublime, must seem and be 
Like things of every day. — But in the field. 
Ay, there the Present Being makes itself felt 
The personal must command, the actual eye 
Examine. If to be the chieftain asks 
All that is great in nature, let it be 
Likewise his privilege to move and act 
In all the correspondencies of greatness. 
The oracle within him, that which lives, 
He must invoke and question — not dead boolcs, 
Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers. 



r 



1 



My son ! of those old narrow ordinances 
Let us not hold too hghtly. They are weights 
Of priceless value, which oppress'd mankind 
Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors. 
For always formidable was the league 
And partnership of free power with free will. 
The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds. 
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes 
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid. 
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it 

reaches. 
My son ! the road, the human being travel 
That, on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow 
The river's course, the valley's pla^'ful windings. 
Curves roimd the corn-field and the hill of ^^nes, 
Honoring the holy bounds of property ! 
And thus secure, though late, leads to its end. 

QUESTENBERG. 

O hear your father, noble youth ! hear him. 
Who is at once the hero and the man. 



My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee ! 
A war of fifteen years 
Hath been thy education and thy school. 
Peace hast thou never witness'd ! There exists 
A higher than the warrior's excellence. 
In war itself war is no ultimate purpose. 
The vast and sudden deeds of \-iolence. 
Adventures wild, and w'onders of the moment. 
These are not ihey, my son, that generate 
The Calm, the Blissful, and the enduring Mighty ! 
Lo there I the soldier, rapid architect I 
Builds his light tov\"n of canvas, and at once 
The whole scene moves and bustles momently. 
With arms, and neighing steeds, and mirth and quarre 
The motley market fills ; the roads, the streams 
Are crowded with new freights, trade stirs and hurries 
But on some morrow morn, all suddenly. 
The tents drop down, the horde renews its march. 
Dreary, and solitary as a church-yard 
The meadow and down-trodden seed-plot lie 
And the year's harvest is gone utterly 
136 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



127 



O let the Emperor make peace, my father ! 
Most gladly woulJ I give the blood-slaiii'd laurel 
For the first violet* of the leafless spring, 
Pluck'd iji those quiet llelds where I iiave journey 'd ! 

OCTAVIO. 

WTiat ails thee ? What so moves thee all at once ? 

MAX. 

Peace have I ne'er beheld ? I have beheld it. 

From thence am I come hither : O ! that sight. 

It glimmers still before me, like some landscape 

Left in the distance, — some delicious landscape ! 

My road conducted me through countries where 

The war has not yet reach'd. Life, life, my father — 

My venerable father, Life has charms 

Which wc have ne'er experienced. Wc have been 

But voyaging along its barren coasts, 

Like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates, 

That, crowded in the rank and narrow sliip. 

House on the wild sea with wild usages, 

Nor know aught of the main land, but the bays 

Where safeliest they may venture a lliicvcs' landing. 

Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals 

Of fair and exquisite, O ! nothing, nothing. 

Do we behold of diat in our rude voyage. 

OCTAVIO (attentive, with an appearance of 
uneasiness). 
And so your journey has reveal'd tills to you ? 

MAX. 

'Tvvas the first leisure of my life. O tell me, 

What is the meed and purpose of the toil. 

The painful toil, vvhioli robb'd me of my j'outh. 

Left me a heart unsoul'd and solitary, 

A spirit uninform'd, unornamented, 

For the camp's stir and crowd and ceaseless larum, 

The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet. 

The unvaried, still returning hour of duty. 

Word of command, and exercise of arm.s — 

There 's nothing here, there 's nothing in all this 

To satisfy the heart, the gasping heart ! 

Mere bustling nothingness, where the soul is not — 

This cannot be the sole felicity. 

These cannot be man's best and only pleasures ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey. 

MAX. 

! day thrice lovely ! when at length the soldier 

Returns home into Hfe ; when he becomes 

A fellow-man among his fcllow--men. 

The colors are unfurl'd, the cavalcade 

Marshals, and now the buzz is hush'd, and hark ! 

Now the soft peace-march heats, homo, brothers, home ! 

The caps and helmets are all garlanded 

With green Iwughs, the la.st plundering of the fields. 

The city gates fly open of themselves. 

They need no longer the petard to tear them. 

The ramparts are all fill'd with men and women. 

With peaceful men and women, that send onwards 

Kisses and welcomings upon the air, 

Uliich they make breezy w ith aflcctionate gestures. 

From all the towers rings out the merry peal. 



The joyous vespers of a bloody day. 

hapjiy man, O fortunate! for whom 

The well-known door, liie faithful arms are open, 
The faithful tender arms with mute embracing. 
auESTE.N'BERG {apparenlli/ much afferlcd). 
O ! that you should speak 
Of such a distant, distant lime, and not 
Of the to-morrow, not of this to-day. 

MAX {turning round to him, quick and vcliemenf). 
Wlicre lies the fault but on you in Vienna! 

1 will deal openly with you, Questenberg. 
Just now, as first I saw you standing here, 
(I '11 own it to you freely) indignation 
Crowded and press'd my inmost soul together. 
'Tis ye that hinder peace, ye! — and the warrior, 
It is the warrior that must force it from you. 

Ye fret the General's life out, blacken him. 

Hold him up as a rebel, and Heaven knows 

What else slill worse, because he spares the Saxons, 

And tries to awaken confidence in the enemy ; 

Which yet 's the only way to peace : for if 

War intermit not during war, hwu then 

And whence can peace come ? — Your own plaguea 

fall on you ! 
Even as I love what 's virtuous, hate I you. 
And here make I this vow, here pledge myself; 
My blood shall spurt out for this Wallenstein, 
And my heart drain oflT, drop by drop, ere ye 
Shall revel and dance jubilee o'er his ruin. {Exit 



' In the originni. 

Den blut'gen Lorbecr geb ich bin mif Frcuden 
Fiirs erste Veilchen. das der Miprz uns bringt. 
Das diirfUge Pfand der neuverjlingten Erde. 



SCENE V. 

Questenberg, Octavio Piccolomi.m 

questenberg. 
Alas, alas ! and stands it so ? 

[ Then in pressing and impatient tones 
VVliat, friend ! and do we let him go away 
In this delusion — let him go away ? 
Not call him back immediately, not open 
His eyes upon the spot ? 

OCTAVIO (recovering himself out of a deep study) 
He has now open'd mine, 
And I see more than pleases me. 

QUESTENBERG. 

What is it ? 

OCTAVIO. 

Curse on this journey ! 

QUESTENBERG. 

But why so ? What is it ? 

OCTAVIO. 

Come, come along, friend ! I must follow up 
The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes 
Are open'd now, and I must use them. Come ! 

[Draws Questenberg on tvilh hirru 

QUESTENBERG. 

What now ? Where go you then ? 

OCTAVIO. 

To her herself 

QUESTENBERG. 

OCTAVIO (iniemipling him, and correcting himself) 
To the Duke. Come, let us go — 'Tis done, '.is done 
I see the net that is thrown over him. 
Oh ! he returns not to me as he went 

QUESTENBERG 

Nay. but explain yourself. 

137 



128 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



OCTAVIO. 

And that I should not 
Foresee it, not prevent this journey ! Wherefore 
Did I keep it from him 1 — You were in the right. 
[ should have vvarn'd him ! Now it is too late. 

aUESTENBERG. 

But wJial 's too late ? Bethink yourself, my friend, 
That you are talking absolute riddles to me. 

OCTAVIO {more collected). 
Come ! to the Duke's. 'Tis close upon the hour, 
Which he appointed you for audience. Come ! 
A curse, a threefold curse, upon this journey ! 

[He leads Questenberg oJjF. 



SCENE VI. 

Changes to a spacious Chamber in the House of the 
Duke of Friedland. — Servants employed in putting 
the tables and chairs in order. During this enters 
Seni, like an old Italian doctor, in black and clothed 
somewhat fantastically. He carries a white staff, 
with which he marks out the quarters of the heaven. 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Come — to it, lads, to it ! Make an end of it. I hear 
the sentry call out, " Stand to your arms !" They will 
be there in a minute. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

Why were we not told before that the audience 
would be held here ? Nothing prepared — no orders 
— no instructions — 

THIRD SERVANT. 

Ay, and vihy was the balcony-chamber counter- 
manded, that with the great worked carpet ? — there 
one can look about one. 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Nay, that you must ask the mathematician there. 
He says it is an unlucky chamber. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

Poh ! stuffand nonsense ! That 's what I call a hum. 
A chamber is a chamber ; what much can the place 
signify in the affair ? 

SENI {vdth gravity). 
My son, there 's nothing insignificant. 
Nothing ! But yet in every earthly thing 
J'^irst and most principal is place and time. 

FIRST SERVANT (JO the SCCOlvl). 

Say nothing to him, Nat. The Duke himself must 
let him have his own will. 

BENI {counts the chairs, half in a loud, half in a low 

voice, till he comes to eleven, which he repeals). 
Eleven ! an evil number ! Set twelve chairs. 
Twelve ! twelve signs hath the zodiac : five and seven, 
J'he holy numbers, include themselves in twelve. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

And what may you have to object against eleven? 
I should like to know that now. 

SENI. 

Eleven is transgression ; eleven oversteps 
The ten commandments. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

That 's good ! and why do you call five a holy 
number ? 

SENI. 

Five is the soul of man : for even as man 
Is mingled up of good and evil, so 



The five is the first number that's made up 
Of even and odd. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

The foolish old coxcomb ! 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Ey! let him alone though. 1 like to hear him, 
there is more in his words than can be seen at firs* 
sight. 

THIRD SERVANT. 

Off, they come. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

There ! at the side-door. 

[Tliey hurry off. Seni follows slowly. A Page 
brings the staff of command on a red cushion, 
and places it on the table near the Duke's chair. 
They are announced from without, and the 
wings of the doorjly open. 



SCENE VII. 

Wallenstein, Duchess. 

wallenstein. 
You went then through Vienna, were presented 
To the Queen of Hungary ? 1 

DUCHESS. 9 

Yes; and to the Empress too, 
And by both Majesties were we admitted 
To loss the hand. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And how was it received, 
That I had sent for wife and daughter hither 
To the camp, in winter-time ? 

DUCHESS. 

I did even that 
Which you commission'd me to do. I told them. 
You had determined on our daughter's marriage 
And wish'd, ere yet you went into the field, 
To show the elected husband his betrothed. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And did they guess the choice which I had made ? 

DUCHESS. 

They only hoped and wish'd it may have fallen 
Upon no foreign nor yet Lutheran noble. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And you — what do you wish, Elizabeth ? 

DUCHESS. 

Your will, you know, was always mine. 
WALLENSTEIN {after a pause). 

Well then ? 
And in all else, of what kind and complexion 
Was your reception at the court ? 

[The Duchess casts her eyes on the ground, and 
remains silent. 
Hide nothing from me. IIow were you received ? 

DUCHESS. . 

O ! my dear Lord, all is not what it was. «? 

A canker-womi, my Lord, a canker-worm f 

Has stolen into the bud. * 

t 

WALLENSTEIN. , 

Ay ! is it SO ? 
Wliat, they were lax ? they fail'd of the old respect 

DUCHESS. 

Not of respect No honors were omitted, 
No outward courtesy ? but in tne piace ^^^^& 

Of condescending, confidential kindness, BH 

Familiar and endearing, there were given me '" 
13S 



ade? 

■J 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



129 



Only lliesc honors and lliat solemn courtesy. 

Ah I aiid the tenderness which was put on, 

It was the guise of piiy, not of favor. 

Nil Albrechl's wife, Duke Albrechl's princely wife, 

Count Harracli's noble daughter, should not so — 

IS"ol wholly so should she have been received. 

WALr.ENSTEIN. 

Ves, yes ; they have ta'en oflence. My latest con- 
duct. 
They rail'd at it, no doubt. 

DUCHESS. 

O that they had ! 
I have been long accustom 'd to defend you. 
To heal and pacify dislcmper'd spirits. 
No ; no one rail'd at you. They wrapp'd them up, 
O Heaven ! in such oppres.sive, solemn silence ! — 
Here is no cvery-day misundcrslanding, 
No transient pique, no cloud that passes over : 
Something most luckless, most unhealable, 
Has taken place. The Queen of Hungary 
Used (brmerly to call me her dear auni, 
And ever at departure to embrace me — 

WALI.E.VSTEIN. 

Now she omitted it ? 

DLCiiEss {wiping away her tears, offer a pause). 
She did embrace me. 
But then first when I had already taken 
RIy formal leave, and when the door already 
Had closed uiwn me, then did she come out 
In haste, as she had suddenly bethought herself, 
And press 'd me to her bosom, more with anguish 
Than tenderness. 

WALLE.VSTEIN (scizcs hcr hand soothingly). 
Nay, now collect yourself. 
And what of Eggcnbcrg and Lichtenslein, 
And of our other friends there ? 

DUCHESS {shaking her head). 

I saw none. 

WAI.I.ENSTEIN". 

The ambassador fiom Spain, v\ho once was wont 
To plead so warmly for me ? — 

DUCHESS. 

Silent, silent! 

WAI.I.ENSTEIN-. 

riicse suns then are eclipsed for us. Henceforward 
Must we roll on, our own (ire, our owii light. 

DUCHESS. 

And were it — were it, my dear Lord, in that 
VVhich moved about the court in buzz and whisper, 
But in the country let it.self be heard 
Aloud — in that which Father Lamormain 

In simdry hints and 

WAI.I.ENSTEIN' {eagerly). 

Lamormain ! what said he ? 

DUCHESS. 

Tliat you're accused of having daringly 

O'erstepp'd the powers intrusted to you, charged 

With traitorous contempt of the Emperor 

And his supreme behests. The proud Bavarian, 

Fie and the Spaniards stand up your accusers — 

That there's a storm collecting over you 

Of far more fearful menace than that former one 

Which whirl'd you headlong down at Regensburg. 

And peojjle talk, said he, of^ .Vh I — 

[Slijli'ig extreme emotion. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Proceed ! 
10 N 



I caimot utter it ! 

WAI.I.ENSTEIN. 

Proceed ! 

DUCHESS. 

They talk 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Well ! 

DUCHESS. 

Of a second {mtchcs hcr voice and hesitates). 

WALLENSTEI.V. 

Second 

DUCHESS. 

More disgraceful 
Dismission. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Talk they ? 
[Strides across the Chamber in vehement agitafto 
O ! they force, they thrust me 
With violence against my own will, onward ! 

DUCHESS {presses near to him, in entreaty). 
O ! if there yet be time, my husband ! if 
By giving way and by submission, this 
Can be averted — my dear I^ord, give way ! 
W^in down your proud heart to it ! Tell that heart, 
It is your sovereign Lord, your Emperor, 
Before whom you retreat. O let no longer 
I_x)w tricking malice blacken your good meaning 
With venomous glosses. Stand you up 
Shielded and helm'd and weapon'd with the truth. 
And drive before you into uttermost shame 
These slanderous liars ! Few firm Iriends have we— 
You know it ! — The swift growth of our good fortune 
It hath but set us up a mark for hatred. 
What are we, if the sovereign's grace and favor 
Stand not before us ? 



SCENE VIII, 

Enter the Countess Tertskv, leading in her hand ths 
Princess Thekla, richly adorned with Brilliants. 

Countess, Thekla, Wallenstein, Duchess. 

countess. 
How, sister! What, already upon business! 

[Observing the countenance of the DuCHESS 
And business of no pleasing kind I see. 
Ere he has gladden'd at his child. The firet 
Moment belongs to joy. Here, Friedland ! father ! 
This is thy daughter. 

[TheivLa approaches with a shy and timid air, and 
bends herself as about to kiss his hand. He receives 
her in his ariJis, and remains standing for some 
time lost in the feeling of hcr presence. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Yes ! pure and lovely hath hope risen on me • 
I take her as the pledge of greater fortune. 

DUCHESS. 

'T was but a little child when j'ou departed 
To raise up that great army for the Emperor : 
And after, at the close of the campaign. 
When you return'd home out of Pomerania, 
Your daughter was already in the convent. 
Wherein she has remain'd till now. 



WALLENSTEIN. 



The while 



13d 



130 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



We in tlie field here gave our cares and toils 
To make her great, and fight her a free way 
To the loftiest earthly good ; lo ! mother Nature 
Within the peaceful silent convent walls 
Has done her part, and out of her free grace 
Hath she bestow'd on the beloved child 
The godlike ; and now leads her thus adorn'd 
To meet her splendid fortune, and my hope. 

DUCHESS {(0 ThEKLA). 

Thou wouldst not have recogiiized thy father, 
Wouldst thou, my child ? She counted scarce eight 

years. 
When last she saw your face. 

THEKLA. 

O yes, yes, mother ! 
At the first glance ! — My father is not alter'd. 
The form that stands before me falsifies 
No feature of the image that hath lived 
So long within me ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The voice of my child ! 

[Then aflcr a pause. 
I was indignant at my destiny. 
That it denied me a man-child to be 
Heir of my name and of my prosperous fortune. 
And re-illume my soon extinguish'd being 
In a proud line of princes. 
I wrong'd my destiny. Here upon this head, 
So lovely in ils maiden bloom, will I 
Let fall the garland of a life of war. 
Nor deem it lost, if only I can wreath it, 
Transmitted to a regal ornament. 
Around these beauteous brows. 

[He clasps her in his arms as Piccolomini enters. 



SCENE IX. 



Enter Ma.x. Piccolomini, and some time after Count 
Tertsky, the others remaining as before. 

COUNTESS. 

There comes the Paladin who protected us. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Max. ! Welcome, ever welcome ! Always wert thou 
The morning-star of my best joys ! 

MAX. 

My General 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Till now it W'as the Emperor who rewarded thee, 
I but the instrument. This day thou hast bound 
The father to tliee. Max. ! the fortunate father, 
And tliis debt i'ricdland's self must pay. 

MAX. 

My prince ! 
You made no common hurry to transfer it. 
I come with shame : yea, not without a pang! 
For scarce have I arrived here, scarce deliver'd 
The mother and tlic daughter to your arms. 
But tlicro is brought to me from your equerry 
A splendid richly-plated hunting-dre.ss 

So to remunerate me for my troubles 

Yes, yes, remunerate me ! Since a trouble 
It must be, a mere office, not a favor 
Winch I leapt forward to receive, and which 
I came already with full heart to thank you for. 



No ! 't was not so intended, that my business 
Should be my highest best good-fortime ! 

[Tertsky enters, and delivers letters to the DuKK 
which he breaks open hurryingly. 
countess {to Max.). 
Remunerate your trouble ! For his joy 
He makes you recompense. 'Tis not unfitting 
For you, Count Piccolomini, to feel 
So tenderly — my brother it beseems 
To show himself for ever great and princely. 

THEKLA. 

Then I too must have scruples of his love ; 
For his munificent hands did ornament me 
Ere yet the father's heart had spoken to me. 

MAX. 

Yes; 'tis his nature ever to be giving 
And making happy. 

[He grasps the hand of the Duchess with still in- 
creasing warmth. 

How my heart pours out 
Its all of thanks to him! O! how I seem 
To utter all things in the dear name Friedland. 
While I shall live, so long will I remain 
The captive of this name : in it shall bloom 
My every fortune, every lovely hope. 
Inextricably as in some magic ring 
In this name hath my destiny charm-bound me ! 
countess (luho during this time has been anxiously 
ivalching the Duke, and remarks that he is lost in 
thought over the letters). 
My brother wishes us to leave him. Come. 
WALLENSTEIN {turns himself round quick, collects him- 
self and speaks with cheerfulness to the DucHESS). 
Once more I bid thee welcome to the camp. 
Thou art the hostess of this court. You, Max., 
Will now again administer your old office. 
While we perform the sovereign's business here. 
[Max. Piccolomini offers the Duchess his arm ; ike 
Countess accompanies the Princess. 
TERTSKY {calling after him). 
Max., we depend on seeing you at the meeting 



SCENE X. 



WALLENSTEIN, CoUNT TeRTSKY. 

WALLENSTEIN {in deep thought to himself). 
She hath seen all things as they are — It is so. 
And squares completely with my other notices. 
They have determined finally in Vienna, 
Have given me my successor already; 
It is the king of Hungary, Ferdinand, 
The Emperors delicate son I he 's now their savior 
He 's the new star that 's rising now ! Of us 
They think themselves already fairly rid, A 

And as we were deceased, the heir already 1 

Is entering on possession — Tlierefore — dispatch ! 
[As he turns round he observes Tertsky, and givet 
him a letter. 
Count Altringer will have himself excused. 
And Galas too — I like i\ot tliis ! 
tertsky. 

And if 
Thou loiterest longer, all will fall away. 
One following the other. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Altringer 
140 



THE PICCOLOMIOT. 



131 



Is master of the Tyrol passes. I must forlluviih 
Send some ono to him, that he let m)t in 
The Spaniards on me from tlie Milanese. 

Well, and the old Sesin, that ancient trader 

In conlrahand nosjoiiations, ho 

Has shown himself again of late. What brings he 

f-'Tom the Count Thur I 

TERTSKY. 

The Coimt communicates, 
Ho has found out the Swedish chancellor 
At Ilalhersladt, where the convention's held. 
Who says, you 've tired him out, and that he '11 have 
No furtlier dealings \vith you. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And why so ? 

TERTSKV. 

He says, you are never in earnest in your speeches ; 
That you decoy the Swedes — to make ibols of them; 
Will league yourself wit!) Saxony against them. 
And at last make yourself a riddance of them 
With a paltry sum of money. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

So then, doubtless. 
Yes, doubtless, this same modest Swede expects 
That I shall yield him some iiiir German tract 
For his prey and booty, that ourselves at last 
On our own soil and native territory, 
May be no longer our owti lords and masters ! 
An excellent scheme I No, no ! They must be oflf. 
Off, off! aw'ay ! we want no such neiglibors. 

TERTSKY. 

Nay, yield them up that dot, tliat speck of land — 
It goes not from your portion. If you win 
The game, what matters it to you w'ho pays it ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Off with them, off! Thou understand'st not this. 

Never shall it be said of me, I parcell'd 

My native land away, dismembcr'd Germany, 

Betray'd it to a foreigner, in order 

To come with stealthy tread, and fdch away 

My owTi share of the plunder — Nev^er! never! — 

No foreign power shall strike root in the empire, 

And least of all, these Goths ! these hunger-wolves ! 

Who send such envious, hot and greedy glances 

Tow-ards the rich blessings of our German lands ! 

I'll have their aid to ca.st and draw my nets. 

But not a single fish of all the draught 

Shall they come in for. 

TERTSIiY. 

You will deal, however. 
More fairly with the Saxons ? They lose patience 
While you shift ground and make so many curves. 
Say, to what purpose all these masks ? Your friends 
Are plunged in doubts, baffled, and led a'^tray in you. 
Tnere's Oxenstein, there's Aruheim — neither knows 
What he should think of your procrastinations. 
And in the end I prove the liar ; all 
Passes through me. I have not even your hand- 
writing. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I never give my handwriting ; thou knowest it. 

TERTSKY. 

But how can it be known that you 're in earnest, 

If the act follows not upwn the word ? 

You must yourself acknowledge, that in all 

Your intercourses hitherto with the enemy. 

You might have done with safety all you have done. 



Had you meant nothing further than to gull him 
For tlie Fmperor's service. 

WALLENSTEIN {nfler a pause, dtirin/r which he 
looks narrowhi on 'J'ertsky). 

And from whence dost than know 
That I 'm not gulling him (or the Emperor's service ? 
Whence knowe.'^t thou that I 'm not gulling all of you? 
Dost thou know me so well ? When made 1 thee 
The intendant of my secret purposes ? 
I am not conscious that I ever open'd 
My inmost thoughts to thee. The F.mperor, it is true, 
Hath dealt with me amiss ; and if I would, 
I could repay him with usurious interest 
For the evil ho hath done me. It delights me 
To know my power ; but whether I shall use it. 
Of that, I should have thought that thou couldst 

speak 
No wiselier than thy fellows. 

TERTSICY. 

So hast thou always play'd thy game with us. 

[Enter Ilio 



SCENE XI. 



IlLO, WALLENSTEIN, TeRTSKY. 
WALLENSTEIN. 

How stand affairs without ? Are they prepared ? 

I LLC. 

You'll find them in the very mood you wish 
They know about the Emperor's requisitions, 
And are tumultuous. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

How hath Isolan 
Declared himself? 

ILLO. 

He's yours, both soul and body 
Since you built up again his Faro-bank. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And which way doth Kolatlo bend ? Ilast thou 
Made sure of Tiefenbach and Deodate ? 

ILLO. 

What Piccolomini does, that they do too. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

You mean, then, I may venture somewhat with them 

ILLO. 

— If you are assured of the Piccolomini. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Not more assured of mine own self 

TERTSKY. 

And yet 
I would you trusted not so much to Octavio, 
The fox ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thou teachest me to know my man ? 
Sixteen campaigns I have made with that old warrior 
Besides, I have his horoscope : 
We both are born beneath like stars — in short, 

[ VV7//t an air of mystery 
To this belongs its own particular aspect. 
If therefore thou canst warrant me the rest • 

ILLO. 

There is among them all but this one voice. 
You must not lay down the command. I hear 
They mean to send a deputation to you 

WALLENSTEIN. 

If I 'm in aught to bind myself to thera 
They too must bind themselves to me. 
19 141 



132 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Of course. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Their words of honor ihey must give, tlieir oaths, 
Give them in writing to me, promising 
Devotion to my service uncondilional. 

ILLO. 

Why not ? 

TERTSKY. 

Devotion unconditional^ 
The exception of their duties towards Austria 
They'll always place among the premises. 
With this reserve 

WALLENSTEIN {shaking his head). 
All unconditional .' 
No premises, no reserves. 

ILLO. 

A thought has struck me. 
Does not Count Tertsky give us a set banquet 
This evening ? 

TERTSKY. 

Yes ; and all the Generals 
Have been invited. 

ILLO {to WALLENSTEIN). 

Say, will you here fully 
Commission me to use my own discretion ? 
I '11 gain for you the Generals' words of honor. 
Even as you wish. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Gain me their signatures! 
How you come by them, that is your concern. 

ILLO. 

And if I bring it to you, black on white. 
That all the leaders who are present here 
Give themselves up to you, without condition ; 
Say, will you theri — theji will you show yourself 
In earnest, and with some decisive action 
Make trial of your luck ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The signatures! 
Gain me the signatures. 

ILLO. 

Seize, seize the hour. 
Ere it slips from you. Seldom comes the moment 
In life, which is indeed sublime and weighty. 
To make a great decision possible, 
O ! many things, all transient and all rapid, 
Must meet at once : and, baply, they thus met 
May by that confluence be enforced to pause 
Time long enough for wisdom, though too sliort, 
Far, far too short a time for doubt and scruple ! 
This is that moment. See, our army chieftains, 
Our best, our noblest, are assembled around you, 
Their king-like leader ! On your nod they wait. 
TTie single threads, which here your prosperous for- 
tune 
Hath woven together in one potent web 
Instinct with destiny, O let them not 
Unravel of themselves. If you permit 
These chiefs to separate, so unanimous 
Bring you them not a second time together. 
Tis the high tide th<\f heaves the stranded ship. 
And every individual's spirit waxes 
In the great stream of multitudes. Behold 
They are still here, here still ! But soon the war 
Bursts them once more asunder, and in small 
Particular anxieties and interests 
Scatters their spirit, and the sympathy 



Of each man with the whole. He who to-day 
Forgets himself, forced onward with the stream 
Will become sober, seeing but himself, 
Feel only his own weakness, and with speed 
Will face about, and march on in the old 
High road of duty, the old broad trodden road. 
And seek but to make shelter in good plight. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The time is not yet come. 

TERTSKY. 

So you say always. 
But when will it be time ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

^Vhen I shall say it. 

ILLO. 

You '11 wait upon the stars, and on their hours. 
Till the earthly hour escapes you. O, believe n c, 
In your own bosom are your destiny's stars. 
Confidence in yourself, prompt resolution, 
This is your Venus ! and the soul malignant, 
The only one that harmeth you, is Doubt. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thou speakest as thou undersiand'st. How oft 
And many a time I 've told thee, Jupiter, 
That lustrous god, was setting at thy birth. 
Thy visual power subdues no mysteries ; 
Mole-eyed, thou mayest but burrow in the earth, 
Blind as that subterrestrial, who with wan, 
Lead-color'd shine lighted thee into life. 
The common, the terrestrial, thou mayest see. 
With serviceable cunning knit together 
The nearest with the nearest; and therein 
I trust thee and believe thee ! but whate'er 
Full of mysterious import Nature weaves 
And fashions in the depths — the spirit's ladder. 
That from this gross and visible world of dust 
Even to the starry world, with thousand rounds. 
Builds itself up ; on which the unseen powers 
Move up and down on heavenly ministries — 
The circles in the circles, that approach 
The central sun with ever-narrowing orbit — 
These see the glance alone, the unsealed eye. 
Of Jupiter's glad children born in lustre. 

[He walks across the chamber, then returns, aiid 
standing still, proceeds. 
The heavenly constellations make not merely 
The day and nights, sumtner and spring, not merelj 
Signify to the husbandman the seasons 
Of sowing and of harvest. Human action. 
That is the seed too of contingencies, , 

Strew'd on the dark land of futurity 
In hopes to reconcile the powers of fate. 
Whence it behoves us to seek out the seed-time, 
To watch the stars, select their proper hour?. 
And trace with searching eye the heavenly houses 
Whether the enemy of growth and thriving 
Hide himself not, malignant, in his corner. 
Therefore permit me my own time. Meanwhile 
Do you your part. As yet I cannot say 
Wliat / shall do — only give way I will not ^ 

Depose me too they shall not. On tnese points ^ 
You may rely. 

PAGE {entering). -j^ 

My Lords, the Generals. ) 



WALLENSTEIN 



Let them come in. 



142 



TIIE PICCOLOMINI. 



133 



SCENE xn. 

Wallenstein. Tertsky.Tllo. — To Oiem enter Qles- 

TENBERG, OCTAVIO aud MaX. PlCCOLOMINI, BuT- 

I.ER, Isoi-ANI, Maradas, wul three other Generals. 
Wallenstein motions Questenbero, rvho in con- 
sequence takes the chair directly opposite to him; the 
others follote, arrangins; themselves according to 
their rank. There reigns a momentary silence. 

wallensteln. 
I have understowl, 'tis Inie, the sum and import 
Of your instructions, Questenberg; have weigh'd 

them, 
And form'd my final, absolute resolve : 
Yet it seems fitting, that the Generals 
Should hear the will of the Emperor from your mouth. 
May't please you then to open your commission 
Before these noble Chieftains ? 

QUESTENBERG 

I am ready 
To obey you ; but will first entreat your flighncss, 
And all these noble Chieftains, to consider, 
The Imperial dignity and sovereign right 
Speaks Irom my mouth, and not my ow n presumption. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

We excuse all preface. 

at'ESTENBERG. 

When his Majesty 
The Emperor to his courageous armies 
Presented in the person of Duke Friedland 
A most experienced and renovvn'd commander, 
He did it in glad hope and confidence 
To give thereby to Ilie fortune of the war 
A rapid and auspicious change. The onset 
Was favorable to his royal wishes. 
Bohemia was deliver'd from the Saxons, 
The Swede's career of conquest check'd ! These lands 
Began to draw brcalh freely, as Duke Friedland 
From all the streams of Germany forced hither 
The scaltcr'd armies of the enemy ; 
Hither invoked as round one magic circle 
The Rhinegrave, Bcrnhard, Banner, Oxenstein, 
Yea, and that never-conquer'd King himself; 
Here finally, bclbre the eye of Niimberg, 
The fearful game of battle to decide. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

May 't please you, to the point. 

QUESTENBERG. 

In IVlimberg's camp the Swedish monarch left 
His fame — in Liitzen's plains his life. But who 
Stood not astounded, when victorious Friedland 
After this day of triumph, this proud day, 
March'd toward Bohemia with the speed of flight, 
And vanish'd from the theatre of war; 
While the young Weimar hero forced his way 
Into Franconia, to the Danube, like 
Some delving winter-stream, which, where it rushes, 
Makes its own channel ; with such sudden speed 
He march'd, and now at once 'fore Uegenspurg 
Stood to the affright of all good Catholic Christians. 
Then did Bavaria's well-deserving Prince 
Entreat swift aidance in his extreme need ; 
The Emperor sends seven horsemen to Duke Fried- 
land, 
Seven horsemen couriers sends he with the entreaty: 
He superadds h:s own, and supplicates 
Where as the sovereign lord he can command. 
N2 



In vain his supplication! At this moment 
The Duko luai-s only his old hate and grudge. 
Barters the general good to gratify 
Private revenge — and so falls Regenspurg. 

WALLENSTEIN 

Max., to w hat period of the war alludes he ? 
My recollection fails me here ! 



He means 



When we were in Silesia. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

Ay ! is it so ? 
But what had we to do there ? 



To beat out 
The Swedes and Saxons from the province. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

True, 
Tn tliat description which the Minister gave 
I secm'd to have forgotten the whole war. 

[To QUESTENBERO, 

Well, but proceed a little. 

QUESTENBERG. 

Yes ; at length 
Beside the river Oder did the Duke 
Assert his ancient fame. TJiwn the fields 
Of Steinau did the Swedes lay down their arms. 
Subdued without a blow. And here, with others 
The righteousness of Heaven to his avenger 
Deliver'd that long-practised stirrer-up 
Of insurrection, that curse-laden torch 
And kindler of this war, Matthias Thur. 
But he had fallen into magnanimous hands , 
Instead of punishment he Ibund reward. 
And with rich presents did the Duke dismiss 
The arch-foe of his Emperor. 

WALLENSTEIN {laughs). 

I know, 
I know you had already in Vienna 
Your windows and balconies all forestall'd 
To see him on the executioner's cart. 
I might have lost the battle, lost it too 
With infamy, and still retain'd your graces- 
But, to have cheated them of i spectacle, 
Oh ! thai the good folks of Vu'nna never, 
No, never can forgive me ! 

QUESTENBERG. 

So Silesia 
Was freed, and all things loudly call'd the Duke 
Into Bavaria, now press'd liard on all sides. 
And ho did put his troops in motion: slowly. 
Quite at his ease, and by the longest road 
He traverses Bohemia ; but ere ever 
He hath once seen the enemy, faces round, 
Breaks up the march, and takes to winter-quarters 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The troops were pitiably destitute 
Of every necessary, every comfort. 
The winter came. What thinks his Majesty 
His troops are made of? A n't we men ? subjected 
Like other men to wet, and cold, and all 
The circumstances of necessity? 
O miserable lot of the poor soldier! 
Wherever he comes in, all flee before him. 
And when he goes away, the general curse 
{■'ollows him on liis route. All must be seized. 

143 



1^4 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Nothing is given him. And compell'd to seize 
From every man, he 's every man's abhorrence. 
Behold, here stand my Generals. Karaffa! 
Count Deodate ! Butler ! Tell this man 
How long the soldiers' pay is in arrears. 

BUTLER. 

Already a full year. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And 'tis the hire 
That constitutes the hireling's name and duties, 
The soldier's pay is the soldier's covenant.* 

QUESTENBERG. 

Ah ! this is a far other tone from that, 

In which the Duke spoke eight, nine years ago. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Yes! 'tis my fault, I know it : I myself 
Have spoilt the Emperor by indulging him. 
Nine years ago, during the Danish war, 
I raised him up a force, a mighty force. 
Forty or fifty thousand men, that cost him 
Of his own purse no doit. Through Saxony 
The fury goddess of the war march'd on, 
E'en to the surf-rocks of the Baltic, bearing 
The terrors of his name. That was a time ! 
In the whole Imperial realm no name like mine 
Honor'd with festival and celebration — 
And Albrecht Wallenstein, it was the title 
Of the third jewel in his crown! 
But at the Diet, when the Princes met 
At Regensburg, there, tliere the whole broke out. 
There 'twas laid open, there it was made known. 
Out of what money-bag I had paid the host 
And what was now my thank, what had I now. 
That I, a faithful servant of the Sovereign, 
Had loaded on myself the people's curses. 
And let the Princes of the empire pay 
The expenses of this war, that aggrandizes 
The Emperor alone — What thanks had I ? 
What ? I was ofTer'd up to their complaints, 
Dismiss'd, degraded ! 

aUESTENBERG. 

But your Highness knows 
What little freedom he possess'd of action 
In that disastrous Diet. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Death and hell ! 
I had that which could have procured him freedom. 
No! since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me 
To serve the Emperor at the empire's cost, 
I have been taught far other trains of thinking 
Of the empire, and the diet of the empire. 
From the Emperor, doubtless, I received this staff 
But now I hold it as the empire's general — 
For the common weal, the universal interest, 
And no more for that one man's aggrandizement! 
But to the point. What is it that's desired of me ? 

QtlESTENBERG. 

First, his Imperial Majesty hath will'd 



* The original is not translatable into English ; 

Und sein Sold 

Muss dem Soldaten werden, darnach hcisst er. 
It might perhaps have been thus rendered : 

And that for which he sold his services. 
The soldier must receive. 
But a raise or doubtPul etymolo!;y is no more than a dull pun. 



That without pretexts of delay the army 
Evacuate Bohemia. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

In this season ? 
And to what quarter wills the Emperor 
That we direct our course ? 

aUESTENBERG. 

To the enemy. 
His Majesty resolves, that Regensburg 
Be purified from the enemy ere Easter, 
That Luthcranism may be no longer preach'd 
In that cathedral, nor heretical 
Defilement desecrate the celebration 
Of that pure festival. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

My generals, 
Can this be realized ? 

ILLO. 

'Tis not possible. 

BUTLER. 

It can't be realized. 

QUESTENBERG. 

The Emperor 
Already hath commanded Colonel Suys 
To advance toward Bavaria. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What did Suys ? 

QUESTENBERG. 

That which his duty prompted. He advanced 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Wliat ! he advanced ? And I, his general, 
Had given him orders, peremptory orders. 
Not to desert his station ! Stands it thus 
With my authority ? Is this the obedience 
Due to my office, which being thrown aside, 
No war can be conducted ? Chieftains, speak. 
You be the judges, generals ! What deserves 
That officer, who of his oath neglectful 
Is guilty of contempt of orders ? 

ILLO. 

Death. 
WALLENSTEIN {raising his voice, as all, but Illo, had 

remained silent, and seemingly scrupxdous). 
Count Piccolomini ! what has he deserved ? 

MAX. PICCOLOMINI (after a long pause). 
According to the letter of the law, 
Death. 

ISOLANI. 

Death. 

BUTLER. 

Death, by the lavs-s of war. 
[QUESTENBERG rises from his seat, Wallensteii» 
follows ; all the rest rise. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

To this the law condemns him, and not I. 
And if I show him favor, 'twill arise 
From the reverence that I owe my Emperor 

QUESTENBERG. 

If SO, I can say nothing further — here .' 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I accepted the command but on conditions : 

And this the first, that to the diminution 

Of my authority no human being. 

Not even the Emperor's self should be entitled 

To do aught, or to say aught, with the army 

If I stand warranter of the event, 

141 



THE PICCOLOMINl. 



135 



Placing my honor and my head in pledge, 
Needs must I have lull niasiery in all 
The means thereto. What reuder'd this Gustavus 
Resistless, and uncomiuer'd ii^hju earth > 
Tliis — that he was the monarch in his army! 
A monarch, one who is indeed a monarch, 
Was never yet suhdued but by his equal. 
l?ut to the [wint ! The best is yet to come. 
Attend now, generals! 

QITESTE.VBERG. 

The Prince Cardinal 
Begins his route at the approach of spring 
From the Milanese ; and leads a Spanish army 
Through Germany into the Netherlands. 
That he may march secure and unimpeded, 
'Tis the Emperor's will you grant him a detachment 
Of eight horse regiments from tlie army here. 

WALLENSTEI.V. 

Yes, yes ! I understand ! — Eight regimen t.*' ' Well, 
Right well concerted, father Lamormain ! 
Eight thousand horse! Yes, yes! 'Tis as it should be! 
1 see it coming. 

aUESTENBF.RG. 

There is nothing coming. 
All stands in front : the counsel of state-prudence. 
The dictate of necessity ! 

WALLEXSTEIX. 

What then ? 
What, my Lord Envoy ? May I not be sufFer'd 
To imderstand, that follis are tired of seeing 
The sword's hilt in my grasp : and that your court 
Snatch eagerly at this pretence, and use 
The Spanish title, to drain off my forces, 
To lead mto the empire a new army 
Unsubjected to my control ? To throw me 
Plumply aside, — I am still too powerful lor you 
To venture that. My stipulation runs. 
That all the Imperial forces shall obey me 
Where'er the German is the native language. 
Of Spanish troops and of Prince Cardinals 
That take their route, as visitors, through the empire. 
There stands no syllable in my stipulation. 
No syllable ! And so the politic court 
Steals in a tiptoe, and creeps round behind it ; 
first makes me w'eaker, then to be dispensed with, 
Till it dares strike at length a bolder blow 
And make short work with me. 
What need of all these crooked ways. Lord Envoy ? 
Straight forward, man! Ilis compact with me pinches 
The Emperor. lie would that I moved off! — 
Well !— I will gratify him ! 

[Here there commences an agitation among the 
Generals, which increases continually. 
It grieves me for my noble officers' sakes ! 
I see not yet, by w'hat means they will come at 
The moneys they have advanced, or how obtain 
TTie recompense their services demand. 
Still a new leader brings new claimants forward, 
And prior merit superannuates quickly. 
There serve here many foreigners in the army. 
And were the man in all else brave and gallant, 
I was not wont to make nice scrutiny 
After his pedigree or catechism. 
This will be otherwise, i' the time to come. 
Well — me no longer it concerns. [He seals himself. 



MAX. riCCOLOMlNI. 

Forbid it Heaven, that it should come to this! 
Our troops will swell in dreadful fermentation — 
The Emperor is abused — it camiot be. 

ISOLANI. 

It cannot be ; all goes to instant wreck. 

WALI.E.NSTEIN. 

Thou hast said truly, faithful I.solani ! 
What itx' with (oil and foresight have built UD 
Will go to wreck — all go lo instant wreck. 
What then ? another chieftain is soon found. 
Another army likewise (who dares doubt it T) 
Will flock from all sides lo the Emperor, 
At the first beat of his recruiting drum. 

[During thi.i speech, Isolani, Teutskv, Illo, 

and Maiiadas talk confusedly with great 

agitation. 

MAX. PICCOLOMINl (,busily and passionately going 
from one to another, and soothing them. 
Hear, my commander! Hear nio, generals! 
Let me conjure you, Duke ! Deterniiiio nothing. 
Till we have met and repre.sented to you 
Our joint remonstrances. — Nay, calmer! Friends! 
I hope all may be yet set right again. 

TERTSKV. 

Away ! let us away ! in the antechamber 

Find we the others. [They go 

BUTLER (to QUESTENBERG). 

If good counsel gain 
Due audience from your wisdom, my Lord Envoy ! 
You will be cautious how you show yourself 
In public for some hours to come — or hardly 
Will that gold key protect you from maltreatment 

[Conimolions heard from without 

WALLENSTEIN. 

A salutary counsel Thou, Octavio ! 

Wilt answer for the safety of our guest. 
Farewell, Von Questenberg ! 

[QuESTEXRERG IS oloiit to speok. 
Nay, not a word. 
Not one word more of that detested subject! 
You have perform 'd your duty — We know how 
To separate the office from the man. 

[As Questenberg is going off with Octavio; 
GoETZ, TiEFENBACH, KoLATTO, press in, 
several other Generals following them. 

GOETZ. 

Where 's he who means to rob us of our general ? 

TIEFENBACH {at the same time). 
What are we forced to hear? That thou wilt leave us? 

KOi.ATTO {at the same time). 
We will live with thee, we will die with thee. 

WALLENSTEIN {with stalcUness, and pointing to Ii.LO). 
There ! the Feld-Marshal knows our will. [ Exit. 
[ While all are going off the Stage, the curtain 
drops. 



ACT II. 

SCENE L 

Scene — A small Chamber. 

Illo and Tertsky. 

TERTSKV. 

Now for this evening's business ! IIow intend you 
To manage with the generals at the banquet ? 
145 



i36 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Attend ! We frame a formal declaration, 

Wherein we to the Duke consign ourselves 

Collectively, to be and to remain 

His both with life and limb, and not to spare 

The last drop of our blood for him, provided 

So doing we infringe no oath or duty. 

We may be under to the Emperor. — Mark ! 

This reservation we expressly make 

In a particular clause, and save the conscience. 

Now hear ! This formula so framed and worded 

Will be presented to them for perusal 

Before the banquet. No one will find in it 

Cause of offence or scruple. Hear now further ! 

After the feast, when now the vap'ring wine 

Opens the heart, and shuts the eyes, we let 

A counterfeited paper, in the wliich 

This one particular clause has been left out, 

Go round for signatures. 

TERTSKY. 

How ! think you then 
That they'll believe themselves bound by an oath, 
Which we had trick'd them into by a juggle ? 

ILLO. 

We shall have caught and caged them ! Let them then 
Beat their wings bare against the wires, and rave 
Loud as they may against our treachery ; 
At court their signatures will be believed 
Far more than their most holy aflirmations. 
Traitors they are, and must be ; therefore wisely 
Will make a virtue of necessity. 

TERTSKY. 

Well, well, it shall content me ; let but something 
Be done, let only some decisive blow 
Set us in motion. 

ILLO. 

Besides, 'tis of subordinate importance 
How, or how far, we may thereby propel 
The Generals. 'Tis enough that we persuade 
The Duke that they are liis — Let lum but act 
In his determined mood, as if he had them. 
And he will have them. Where he plunges in. 
He makes a whirlpool, and all stream down to it. 

TERTSKY. 

His policy is such a labyrinth. 
That many a time wlien I have thought myself 
Close at his side, he 's gone at once, and left me 
Ignorant of the ground where I was standing. 
He lends the enemy his ear, permits me 
To write to them, to Arnheim ; to Sesina 
Himself comes forward blank and imdisguised ; 
Talks with us by the hour about his plans, 

And when I think I have him — off at once 

He has slipp'd from me, and appears as if 
He had no scheme, but to retain his place. 

ILLO. 

He give up his old plans ! I '11 tell you, friend ! 
His soul is occupied with nothing else, 
Even in his sleep — They are his thoughts, his dreams, 
That day by day he questions for this purpose 
The motions of the planets 

TERTSKY. 

Ay ! you know 
Thi.s night, that is now coming, he with Seni 
Shuts himself up in the astrological tower 
I'o make joint observations — lijr I hear, 



It is to be a night of weight and crisis ; 

And something great, and of long expectation. 

Is to make its procession in the heaven. 

ILLO. 

Come ! be we bold and make dispatch. The work 
In this next day or two must thrive and grow 
More than it has for years. And let but only 

Things first turn up auspicious here below 

Mark what I say — the right stars too will show them- 
selves. 
Come, to the Generals. All is in the glow. 
And must be beaten while 'tis malleable. 

TERTSKY. 

Do you go thither, Elo. I must stay, 
And wait here for the coiuitess Tertsky. Know, 
That we too are not idle. Break one string, 
A second is in readiness. 

ILLO. 

Yes! Yes! 
I saw your lady smile with such sly meaning. 
What 's in the wind ? 



TERTSKY. 

A secret. 



Hush! she comes 
[E.rit Illo. 



SCENE II. 



{The Countess s/eps out from a Clout). 
Count and Countess Tertsky. 

TERTSKY. 

Well — is she coming ? — I can keep him back 
No longer. 

countess. 
She will be there instantly, 
You only send him. 

TERTSKY. 

I am not quite certain, 
I must confess it, Countess, whether or not 
We are earning the Duke's thanks hereby. You know 
No ray has broke out from him on this point. 
You have o'erruled me, and yourself know best 
How far you dare proceed. 

countess. 

I take it on me. 
[Talking to herself, while she is advancing 
Here 's no need of full powers and commissions — 
My cloudy Duke ! we understand eacli other — 
And without words. What, could I not unriddle. 
Wherefore the daughter should be sent for hither, 
^Vhy first he, and no other, should be chosen 
To fetch her hither ? This sham of betrothing her 

To a bridegroom,* when no one knows — No! no! 

This may blind others ! 1 see through thee, Brother • 
But it beseems thee not, to draw a card 
At such a game. Not yet ! — It all remains 

Mutely deliver'd up to my finessing 

Well — thou shall not have been deceived, Duke 

Friedland ' 
In her who is thy sister. 

SERVANT (enters). 

The commanders ! 

TERTSKY (to the CoUNTESS). « 

Take care you heat his fancy and affections — 

* In Germany, after honorable addresses have been paid and 
formally accepted, the lovers are called Bride and Bridegroom, 
even though the marriage should not lake place Ull years after- 
wards. 

146 



TIIE PICCOLOMINI. 



137 



Possess him with a reverie, and send him, 
Absent and dreaming, to the banquet; that 
He may not boggle at the signature. 

COUNTESS. 

Take you care of your guests I — Go, send him hiilier. 

TERTSKY. 

All rests upon his undersigning. 

COUNTESS {inlcrrupling him). 
Go to your guests ! Go 

ILLO (comes hack). 

Where art staying, Tertsky ? 
The house is full, and all expecting you. 

TERTSKY. 

Instantly ! Instantly ! 

[To the COU.NTESS. 
And let him not 
Stay here too long. It niiglit awake suspicion 
In the old man 

COUNTESS. 

A truce with your precautions ! 
[Exeunt Tertsky and Illo. 



SCENE III. 



Countess, Max. Piccolo.mini. 
MA.x. [peeping in on the stage shylij). 
Aunt Tertsky ! may I venlure ? 

[Advances to the middle of the stage, and looks 
around him with uneasines.t. 

She 's not here ! 
WTiere is she ? 

countess. 
Look but somewhat narrowly 
In yonder corner, lest perhaps she lie 
Conceal'd behind that screen. 

MA.X. 

There lie her gloves ! 
[Snatches at them, but the Countess takes them 
herself. 
You unkind Lady ! You refuse me this — 
You make it an amusement to torment me. 

COUNTESS. 

And this the thank you give me for my trouble ? 

MAX. 

O, if you felt the oppression at my heart I 
Since we 've been here, so lo conslrnin myself — 
With such poor stealth to hazard words and glances — 
These, these are not my habits ! 

COU.NTESS. 

You have still 
Many new habits to acquire, young friend ! 
But on this proof of your obedient temper 
I must continue to insist ; and only 
On this condition can I play the agent 
for your concerns. 

MAX. 

But wherefore comes she not ? 
Where is she ? 

COUNTESS. 

Into my iiands you must place it 
Whole and entire. Whom could you find, indeed, 
More zealously affected to your interest I 
IS'o sold on earth must know it — not your father. 
He must not, above all. 

MAX. 

Alas! what danger? 



Here is no face on which I might concentre 
All the enraptured soul siirs up within me. 

Lady I tell me. Is all changed around mo ? 
Or is it only I ? 

I find myself. 
As among strangers ! Not a trace is left 
Of all my former wishes, former joys. 
Whore has it vanish'd to I There was a time 
When even, methoiight, with such a world as this 

1 was not discontented. Now, how flat! 
How stale ! No life, no bloom, no flavor in it ! 
My comrades arc intolerable lo me. 

My father — Kvon lo him I can say nothing. 
My arms, my military duties — O! 
They are such \\ earying toys ! 

COUNTESS. 

But, gentle friend ! 
I must entreat it of your condescension. 
You would be pleased to sink your eye, and favor 
With one short glance or two this poor stale world 
Where even now much, and of much moment, 
Is on the eve of its completion. 

MAX. 

Something, 
I can't but know, is going forward round me. 
I see it gathering, crowding, driving on, 
In wild uncusiomary movements. Well, 
In due time, doubtless, it will reach even me. 
Where think you I have been, dear lady ? Nay, 
No raillery. The turmoil of the camp. 
The spring-tide of acquaintance rolling in, 
The pointless jest, the empty conversation, 
Oppre.ss'd and sliffon'd me. I gasp'd for air — 
I could not breathe — 1 was constrain'd lo fly, 
To seek a silence out for my full heart ; 
And a pure spot wherein to feel my ha[>pines8. 
No smiling, Countess ! In the church was 1. 
There is a cloister here lo the heaven's gate,* 
Thither I went, there found myself alone. 
Over the altar hung a hoiy mother; 
A wretched painting 'twas, yet 'twas the friend 
That I was seeking in this moment. Ah, 
How ofl have I beheld that glorious form 
In splendor, 'mid ecstatic worehippers ; 
Yet, still it moved me not ! and now at once 
Was my devotion cloudless as my love. 

COUNTESS. 

Enjoy your fortune and felicity ! 

Forget the world around you. Meantime, friendship 

Shall keep strict vigils for )'0U, anxious, active. 

Only be manageable when that friendship 

Points you the road to full accomplishment. 

How long may it be since you declared your passioil? 

MAX. 

This morning did I hazard the first word. 

COUNTESS. 

This morning the first time in twenty days ? 

MAX. 

'Twas at that hunting-castle, betwixt here 

And Nepomuck, where you had join'd us, and — 

That was the last relay of the whole journey I 



* I am doubtful whether this be the dedication of the cloister, 
nr the ii.imc of one of the ciiy ^alos, near whirh it stood. I 
have tr.nnslntcd it in llin former sense; but fenrlnl of having 
riiiulo some blunder, I add the original. — Es isl ein Kiuster hior 
lur HiinintlspJurU. 

147 



138 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



In a balcony we were standing mute, 

And gazing out upon the dreary field : 

Before us the dragoons were riding onward, 

The safeguard which the Duke had sent us — heavy 

The inquietude of parting lay upon me. 

And trembling ventured I at length these words : 

This all reminds me, noble maiden, that 

To-day I must take leave of my good fortune. 

A few hours more, and you will find a father, 

Will see yourself surrounded by new friends. 

And I henceforth shall be but as a stranger. 

Lost in the many — " Speak with my aunt Tertsky !" 

With hurrying voice she interrupted me. 

She falter'd. I beheld a glowing red 

Possess her beautiful cheeks, and from the ground 

Raised slowly up, her eye met mine — no longer 

Did I control myself 

[The Princess Thekla appears at the door, and 

remains standing, observed by the Countess, 

but not by Piccolomini. 

With instant boldness 
I caught her in ray arms, my mouth touch'd hers ; 
There was a rustling in the room close by ; 
It parted us — 'Twas you. What since has happen'd, 
You know. 

COUNTESS {after a pause, icith a stolen glance 

at TlIEKLA). 

And is it your excess of modesty ; 
Or are you so incurious, that you do not 
Ask me too of my secret ? 

MAX. 

Of your secret ? 

COUNTESS. 

Why, yes ! When in the instant after you 
1 stepp'd into the room, and found my niece there, 
What she in this first moment of the heart 
Ta'en with surprise — 

MAX. (with easerness). 
Well? 



SCENE IV. 

Thekla {hurries fortmrd). Countess, Max. 

Piccolomini. 

THEKLA {to the Countess). 

Spare yourself the trouble : 
That hears he better from myself 

MAX. {stepping backward). 

My Princess! 
What have you let her hear me say, aiuit Tertsky ? 

thekla {to the Countess). 
Has he been here long ? 

countess. 

Yes ; and soon must go. 
Where have you stay'd so long ? 

THEKLA. 

Alas! my mother 
Wept so again ! and I — I see her suffer. 
Yet cannot keep myself from being happy. 

MAX. 

Now once agam I have courage to look on you. 
To-day at noon I could not. 
The dazzle of the jewels that play'd round you 
Hid the beloved from me. 

THEKLA. 

Then you saw me 
With your eye only — and not with your heart ? 



This morning, when I found you in the circle 
Of all your kindred, in your father's arms, 
Beheld myself an alien in this circle, 
O ! what an impulse felt I in that moment 
To fall upon his neck, to call him father ! 
But his stern eye o'erpower'd the swelling passion- 
It dared not but be silent. And those brilliants. 
That like a crowii of stars enwreathcd your brows. 
They scared me too ! O wherefore, wherefore should he 
At the first meeting spread as 'twere the ban 
Of excommunication round you, — wherefore 
Dress up the angel as for sacrifice. 
And cast upon the light and joyous heart 
The mournful burthen of his station ? Fitly 
May love dare woo for love ; but such a splendor 
Might none but monarchs venture to approach. 

THEKLA. 

Hush ! not a word more of this mummery • 
You see how soon the burthen is thrown off 

[To the Countess. 
He is not in spirits. Wherefore is he not ? 
'Tis you, aimt, that have made him all so gloomy! 
He had quite another nature on the journey — 
So calm, so bright, so joyous eloquent. 

{To Max. 
It was my wish to see you always so, 
And never otherwise ! 

MAX. 

You find yourself 
In your great father's arms, beloved lady ! 
All in a new world, which does homage to you 
And wliich, were't only by its novelty, 
Delights your eye. 

THEKLA. 

Yes ; I confess to you 
That many things delight me here : this camp, 
This motley stage of warriors, which renews 
So manifold the image of my fancy, 
And binds to life, binds to reality, 
What hitherto had but been present to me 
As a sweet dream ! 

MAX. 

Alas ! not so to me. 
It makes a dream of my reality. 
Upon some island in the ethereal heights 
I 've lived for these last days. This mass of men 
Forces me down to earth. It is a bridge 
That, reconducting to my former life. 
Divides me and my heaven. 

THEKLA. 

The game of life 
Looks cheerful, when one carries in one's heart 
The unalienable treasure. 'Tis a game. 
Which having once review'd, I turn more joyous 
Back to my deeper and appropriate bliss. 

[Breaking off, and in a sportive tone 
In this short time that I 've been present here. 
What new unheard-of things have I not seen! 
And yet they all must give place to the wonder 
Wliich this mysterious castle guards. 

countess {recollecting';. 

And what 
Can this be then? Methought I was acquainted 
With all the dusky comers of this house 
148 



THE PICCOLOMLNI. 



139 



TllEKLA {Slllilillf;). 

Ay, but the road thereto is waleli'd by spirits : 
Two grilliiis still staiul sentry at the door. 

COUNTESS {laughs}. 
The astrological tower! — How happens it 
That this same sanetunr)-, whose access 
Is to all others so inipraclicable, 
Opens belbre you even at your approach ? 

TIIEKLA. 

A dwarfish old man with a friendly face 

And snow-white hairs, whose gracious services 

Were mine at first sight, open'd me the doors. 

MA.\. 

That is the Duke's astrologer, old Seni. 

THKKLA. 

He question'd me on many points ; for instance, 
When 1 was born, what month, and on what day, 
Whether by day or in the night. 

COUiNTESS. 

He vvish'd 
To erect a figure for your horoscope. 

THEKLA. 

My hand too he examined, shook his head 

With much sad meaning, and the lines, methought, 

Did not square over-truly with his wishes. 

COU.NTESS. 

Well, Princess, and what found you in this tower? 
My highest privilege has been to snatch 
A side-glance, and away ! 

THEKLA. 

It was a strange 
Sensation that came o'er me, when at lirst 
From the broad sunshine I stepp'd in ; and now 
The narrowing line of day-light, lliat ran after 
The closing door, was gone ; and all about me 
'Tw-as pale and dusky night, wiih many shadows 
Fantastically cast. Here six or seven 
Colossal statues, and all kings, stood round me 
In a half-circle. Each one in his hand 
A sceptre bore, and on his head a star ; 
And in the tower no other light was there 
But from these stars : all seeni'd to come from them 
" These are the planets," said that low old man, 
" They govern worldly fates, and for that cause 
Are imaged here as kings. He farthest from you. 
Spiteful, and cold, an old man melancholy, 
With bent and yellow forebcud, ho is Saturn. 
He opposite, the king wiih the red light, 
An arm'd man for the battle, that is Mars : 
And both these bring but little luck to man." 
But at his side a lovely lady slood, 
The star upon her head was soft and bright, 
And that was Venus, the bright star of joy. 
On the left hand, lo ! Mercury, with wings. 
Quite in the middle glitlcr'd silver bright 
A cheerful man, and with a monarch's mien ; 
And this was Jupiter, my father's star; 
And at his side I saw the Sun and Moon. 

MA.X. 

O never rudely will I blame his faith 

In the might of stars and angels I 'Tis not merely 

The human being's Pride that peoples space 

With life and mystical predominance: 

Since likewise for the stricken heart of Love 

This visible nature, and this common world, 

Is all too narrow : yea, a deeper import 



Lurks in the legend told my infant years 

Than lies upon that truth, we live to learn. 

For fable is Love's world, his home, bus birth-place 

Delightedly dwells he 'niong fays and talismans. 

And spirits ; and delightedly believes 

Divinities, being liimself divine. 

The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 

The fair humanities of old religion. 

The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, 

That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring. 

Or chasms and wai'ry depths ; all these have vanish 'd. 

They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 

But still the heart dolh need a language, still 

Doth the old iastinct bring back the old names, 

And to yon starry world they now are gone, 

Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth 

VVitli man as witli their friend ;* and to the lover 

Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky 

Shoot influence down : and even at this day 

'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great. 

And Venus who bruigs every thing that's fair! 

THEKLA. 

And if this bo the science of the stars, 

I too, with glad and zealous industry, 

Will learn acquaintance with this cheerful faith. 

It is a gentle and affectionate thought. 

That in immeiisurable heights above ns. 

At our first birth, the wreath of love was woven. 

With sparkling stars for flowers. 

COUNTESS. 

Not only roses, 
But thorns too hath the heaven ; and w-ell for you 
Leave they your wreath of love inviolate : 
What Venus twined, the bearer of glad fortune, 
The sullen orb of Mars soon tears to pieces. 

MAX. 

Soon will his gloomy empire reach its close. 

Blest be the General's zeal : into the laurel 

Will he inweave the olive-branch, presenting 

Peace to the shouting nations. Then no wish 

Will have remain'd for his great heart ! Enough 

Has he perform 'd for glory, and can now 

Live for himself and his. To his domains 

Will he retire ; he has a stately seat 

Of fairest view at Gitschin ; Reichenberg, 

And Friedland Castle, both lie plea.santly — 

Even to the foot of the huge mountains here 

Stretches the chase and covers of his forests : 

His ruling passion, to create the splendid. 

He can indulge without restraint; can give 

A princely patronage to every art. 

And to all worth a sovereign's protection. 

Can build, can plant, can watch the starry courses — 

COUNTESS. 

Yet I would have you look, and look again. 
Before you lay aside your arms, young friend ! 
A gentle bride, as she is, is well worth it. 
That you should woo and win her with the sword. 

MAX. 

O, that the sword could win her ! 

COU.NTESS. 

What was that ? 



* No more of talk, whoro god or angel guest 
With man, as with his friend liuniliur, used 
To sit indulgent. Paradise Lost, B. IX 

20 149 



140 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Did you hear nothing? Seem'd, as if I heard 
Tumult and larum in the banquet-room. 

[Exit Countess. 



SCENE V. 
Thekla and Max. Piccolomini. 

THEKLA (as soon as the Countess is out of sight, in a 

quick low voice to Piccolomini). 
Do n't trust them ! They are false ! 

MAX. 

Impossible ! 

THEKLA. 

Trust no one here but me. I saw at once, 
They had a purpose. 

MAX. 

Purpose ! but what purpose ? 
And how can we be instrumental to it ? 

THEKLA. 

I know no more than you ; but yet believe me : 
There's some design in this! To make us happy, 
To realize our union — trust me, love ! 
They but pretend to wish it. 

MAX. 

But these Tertskys 

Why use we them at all ? Wliy not your mother ? 
Excellent creature ! she deserves from us 
A full and fiUal confidence. 

THEKLA. 

She doth love you, 
Doth rate you high before all others — but — 
But such a secret — she would never have 
The courage to conceal it from my father. 
For her own peace of mind we must preserve it 
A secret from her too. 

MAX. 

Why any secret ? 
I love not secrets. Mark, what I will do. 
I'll throw me at your father's feet — let him 
Decide upon my Ibrlunes ! — He is true. 
He wears no mask — he hates all crooked ways — 
He is so good, so noble ! 

THEKLA {falls on his neck). 
That are you ! 

MAX. 

You knew him only since this morn, but I 
Have lived ten years already in his presence. 
And who knows whether in this very moment 
He is not merely waiting for us both 
To own our loves, in order to unite us ? 

You are silent ? 

You look at me with such a hopelessness I 
What have you to object against your father? 

THEKLA. 

I ? Nothing. Only he 's so occupied — 
He has no leisure time to think about 
The happiness of us two. [Taking his hand ienderhj. 

Follow me ! 
Let us not place too great a faith in men. 
These Tertskys — we will still be grateful to them 
For every kindness, but not trust them further 
Than they deserve ; — and in all else rely — 
On our own hearts ! 

MAX. 

! shall we e'er be happy ? 



THEKLA. 

Are we not happy now ? Art thou not mine ? 

Am I not thine ? There lives within my soul 

A lofty courage — 't is love gives it me ! 

I ouglit to be less open — ought to hide 

My heart more from tliee — so decorum dictates 

But where in this place couldst thou seek for truth, 

If in my mouth thou didst not find it ? 



SCENE VI. 



To them enters the Countess Tertsky 

countess {in a pressing manner). 

Come ! 
My husband sends me for you — It is now 
The latest moment. 

[They not appearing to attend to what ihe soij» 
she steps between them. 
Part you ! 

THEKLA. 

O, not yet ! 
It has been scarce a moment. 
countess. 

Ay ! Then time 
Flies swiftly with your Highness, Princess niece ' 

MAX. 

There is no hurrj', aunt. 

coumtess. 

Away ! away ! 
The folks begin to miss you. Twice already 
His father has ask'd for him. 

THEKLA. 

Ha ! his father ! 
countess. 
You understand lliat, niece ! 

THEKLA. 

Why needs he 
To go at all to that society ? 
'Tis not his proper company. They may 
Be worthy men, but he's too young for them. 
In brief he suits not such society. 

COUNTESS. 

You mean, you 'd rather keep him wholly here ? 

THEKLA (with energy). 
Yes ! you have hit it, aunt ! That is my meaning 
Leave him here wholly ! Tell the company — 

COUNTESS. 

What ? have you lost your senses, niece ? — 
Count, you remember the conditions. Come ' 

MAX. (to Thekla). 
Lady, I must obey. Farewell, dear lady! 
[Thekla turns away from him with a quick moiiOTk 
What say you then, dear lady ? 

thekla [without looking at him). 

Nothing. Go ! 

MAX. 

Can I, when you are angry 

[He draws up to her, their ei/es meet, she standi 
silent a moment, then throws herself into hi» 
arms ; he presses her fast to his heart. 

COUNTESS. 

Off! Heavens ! if any one should come . 

Hark ! What 's that noise ! it comes this way. Off' 

Max. tears himself awai/ out of her arms, and goes. 
The Countess accompanies him. Thekla 
150 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



Ill 



follow I him with her eyes at first, valhs rest- 
Icssli/ 'uroas llw room, then stops, ami remains 
stumlim;, lost in thoufrht. A -juitarlies on the 
table, she seizes it as hi/ a sudden emotion, and 
after she has phii/ed a irhilc an irreixiilar and 
melamhohj siimphoni/, she falls gradually into 
Vie music, and sings. 

TiiKKiA [plays and sings). 
Tlio cloud dolh galhor, ihc greenwood roar, 
Tlie damsel paces along the shore ; 
The billows they niml)le with might, with might ; 
And she flings out her voice to the darksome night; 

Her bosom is swelling with sorrow ; 
The world it is emi)ty, Ihc heart will die, 
There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky : 
Thou Holy One, call thy child away! 
've lived an<l loved, and that was to-day — 

Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.* 



SCENE vn. 

Countess (returns), Thekla. 

COUNTESS. 

Fie, lady niece ! lo throw yourself upon him. 

Like a poor gift to one who cares not for it, 

And so must be flung after him ! For you, 

Duke Friedland's only child, I should have thought. 

It had been more beseeming to have shown yourself 

More chary of your person. 

THEKLA {rising). 

And w^hat mean you ? 



* I TounH it not in my power to translate this song wiih literal 
fidelity, prcservins at the same time the Alcaic Movement ; and 
have therefore added the original with a prose translation. Some 
of my readers may be more fortunate. 

TiiEKLA (spielt vnd singi). 
Per Eichwald brauset. die Wolkpn zichn. 
Pas Msredlcin wnndelt nn Ufers Oriin, 
Es hricht sirh die Welle mil Macht, niit Macht, 
Und sie singl hinaiis in die tinstre Nacht, 

Das AuEe von Weinen cctiiibet . 
Das Herz ist gestorhen, die Welt ist leer, 
TJnd weiter giebt sie doni Wunsche nichts mehr. 
Du Hcilige, rufedoin Kind zururk, 
Ich liahe genossun das irdische Gllick, 

Ich habe gelebt und geleibet. 

LITERAL TRANSLATIOIV. 

TITEKLA {plays and sings). 
The oak-forest bellows, the clouds gather, the damsel walks 
to nnj fro on the green of the shore: the wave breaks with 
might, with might, anil she sines out into the dark night, her 
i-ye discolored with weeping : the heart is dead, the world is 
empty, and further gives it nothing more to the wish. Thou Hcdy 
f 'ne, Cflll thy child home. I have enjoyed the happiness of this 
world, I have lived and have loved. 

I cannot but add here an imitation of this song, with which 
the author of "The Tale of Rosamund Gray and Blind Miir- 
pirel" has favored me. and which appears to me to have caught 
the happiest manner of our <dd ballads. 

The clouds are blackening, the storms threat'ning. 

The cavern doth mutter, the greenwood monn; 
Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching, 
Thus in the dark night she singeth alone. 
Her eye upward roving: 
The world is empty, the heart is dead surely. 

In this wnrlil plainly all seemeth amiss ; 
To thy heaven, Holy One. take home thy little one. 
I have partaken of all earth's bliss 
Botli living und loving. 
O 



COUNTESS. 

I mean, niece, that you should not have forgotten 
Who you are, and who he is. But perchance 
That never once occurr'd to you. 

THEKLA. 

What then ? 

COUNTESS. 

That you 're iho daughter of the Prince, Duko 
Friedlund. 

THEKLA. 

Well — and what farther ? 

COUNTESS 

Wliat ? a pretty question ! 

THEKLA. 

He was horn that which we have but become 
He's of an ancient Lombard family 
Son of a reigning princess. 

COUNTESS. 

Are you dreaming ? 
Talking in sleep? An excellent jest, forsooth! 
We shall no doubt riglit courteously entreat him 
To honor with his hand the richest heiress 
In Europe. 

THEKLA. 

That will not be necessary. 

COUNTESS. 

Methinks 'twere well though not to run the hazai-d 

THEKLA. 

His father loves him : Count Octavio 
Will interpose no difficulty 

COUNTESS. 

His! 
Ilis father! His .' but yours, niece, what of yours? 

THEKLA. 

Why I begin to think you feai- his father, 
So anxiously you hide it from the man ! 
His father, his, I mean. 

COUNTESS {looks at her as scrutinizing). 
Niece, you are false. 

THEKLA. 

Are you then wounded ? O, be friends with me ! 

COUNTESS. 

You hold your game for won already. Do not 
Triumph too soon I — 

THEKLA {interrupting her, and attempting to soothe 
her). 
Nay, now, be friends with me 

COUNTESS. 

It is not yet so far gone. 

THEKLA 

I believe you. 

COUNTESS. 

Did you stippose your fttlier had laid out 

His most important life in toils of war, 

Denied himself each quiet earthly bliss. 

Had banish'd slumber from his tent, devoted 

His noble head to care, and for this only. 

To make a happier pair of you? At length 

To draw you from your convent, and conduct 

In easy Iriimiph to your arms the man 

That chanced to iilease your eyes ! All this, methinks 

He might have purchased at a cheaper rate. 

THEKLA. 

That which ho did not plant for me might yot 
IJear me fair fruitage of iis own accord. 
And if my friendly and afleclionate fate, 

irA 



142 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Out of his fearful and enormous being, 
Will but prepare the joys of life for me — 

COUN'TESS. 

Thou see'st it with a lovelorn maiden's eyes. 
Cast thine eye round, bethink tljee who thou art. 
Into no house of joyance hast thou stepp'd, 
For no espousals dost thou find the walls 
Deck'd out, no guests the nuptial garland wearing. 
Here is no splendor but of arms. Or think'st thou 
That all these thousands are here congregated 
To lead up the long dances at tliy wedding ! 
Thou see'st thy father's forehead full of thought, 
Thy mother's eye in tears : upon the balance 
Lies the great destiny of all our house. 
Leave now the puny wish, the girlish feeling, 

thrust it far behind thee ! Give thou proof, 
Thou'rt the daughter of the Mighty — his 
Who where he moves creates the wonderful. 
Not to herself the woman must belong, 
Annex'd and bound to alien destinies : 

But she performs the Ijest part, she the wisest, 
Who can transmute the alien into self, 
Meet and disarm necessity by choice ; 
And what must be, take freely to her heart, 
And bear and foster it with mother's love. 

THEKLA. 

Such ever was my lesson in the convent. 

1 had no loves, no wishes, knew myself 
Only as his — his daughter, his, the Mighty ! 
His fame, the echo of whose blast drove to me 
From the far distance, waken'd in my soul 
No other thought than this — I am appointed 
To offer up myself in passiveness to him. 

COUNTESS. 

That is thy fate. Mould thou thy wishes to it 
1 and thy mother gave thee the example. 

THEKLA. 

My fate hath shown me hiin, to whom behoves it 
That I should offer up myself In gladness 
Him will I follow. 

COUNTESS 

Not thy fate hath shown him ! 
Thy heart, say rather — 'twas thy heart, ray child ! 

THEKLA. 

Fate hath no voice but the heart's impulses. 
I am all his ! His present — his alone, 
Is this new life, which lives in me ? He hath 
A right to his own creature. What was I 
Ere his fair love infused a soul into me ? 

COUNTESS. 

Thou wouldst oppose thy father then, should he 
Have otherwise determined with thy person ? 

[Thekla remains silent. The Countess continues. 
Thou mean'st to force him to thy liking ? — Child, 
His name is Friedland. 

thekla. 
My name too is Friedland. 
He shall have found a genuine daughter in me. 

COUNTESS. 

What ! he has vanquish'd all impediment, 
And in the wilful mood of his own daughter 
Shall a new struggle rise for him ? Child ! child ! 
As yet thou hast seen thy fiither's smiles alone ; 
The eye of his rage thou hast not seen. Dear child, 
J will not frighten thee. To that extreme, 
1 trust, it ne'er shall come. His will is yet 



Unknown to me : 't is possible his aims 
May have the same direction as thy wish. 
But this can never, never be his will 
That thou, the daughter of his haughty fortune? 
Should 'st e'er demean thee as a love-sick maiden ; 
And like some poor cost-nothing, fling thyself 
Toward the man, who, ;/ that high prize ever 
Be destined to await him, yet, with sacrifices 
The highest love can bring, must pay for it. 

[Exit Countess 

THEKLA {who during the lust speech had been standing 

evidently lost in her reflections). 
I thank thee for the hint. It turns 
My sad presentiment to certainty. 
And it is so ! — Not one friend have we here, 
Not one true heart ! we 've nothing but ourselves ! 

she said rightly — no auspicious signs 
Beam on this covenant of our affections. 
This is no theatre, where hope abides : 

The dull thick noise of war alone stirs here ; 
And Love himself, as he were arm'd in steel, 
Steps for;h, and girds him for the strife of death. 

[Music from the banqitet-room is heard 
There 's a dark spirit walking in our house, 
And swiftly will the Destiny close on us. 
It drove me hither from my calm asylum, 
It mocks my soul with charming witchery. 
It lures me forward in a seraph's shape ; 

1 see it near, I see it nearer floating. 

It draws, it pulls me with a godlike power — 
And lo ! the abyss — and thither am I moving — 
I have no power within me not to move ! 

[The music from the banquet-room becomes louder 
O when a house is doom'd in fire to perish. 
Many and dark, heaven drives his clouds together. 
Yea, shoots his lightnings down from sunny heights, 
Flames burst from out the subterraneous chasms, 
*And fiends and angels mingling in their fury, 
Sling fire-brands at the burning edifice. 

[£x(t- Thekla. 



SCENE vin 



A large Saloon lighted up with festal Splendor ; in 
the m.idst of it, and in the Centre of the Stage, a 
Tahle richly set out, at which eight Generals are 
sitting, among whom are Octavio Piccolomini, 
Tertsky, and Maradas. Right and left of this, 
but farther bach, tv:o other Tables, at each of which 
six Persons are placed. The Middle Door, which 
is standing open, gives to the Prospect a fourth 
Table, with the same Number of Persons. More 
forward stands the Sideboard. The whole front of 
the Stage is kept open for the Pages and Servants in 
wailing. All is in motion. The Band of Music 
belonging to Tertskv's Regiment march across the 
Stage, and draw rip round the Tables. Before they 
are quite off from the Front of the Stage, Max. 
Piccolomini appears, Tertsky advances towards 



« There are few, who will not have taste enough to laush 
at the two concluding lines of this soliloquy ; and still fewer, I 
would fain hope, who would not have been more disposed to 
shudder, had I given a faithful translation. For the readera 
of German I have added the original • 

Blind-vviithend schleudert selhsl der Gott der Freude 
Den Pechkranz in das btennenda Gebcpude. 
152 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



143 



him with a Paper, Isolani comes up to meet him 
viith a Biakcr or Service-Cup. 

Tertsky, IsoLAXi, Max. Piccolomini. 

ISOLANI. 

Here brother, what we love ! Wiy, where hast been ? 

Off to thy phue— quirk ! Tcrlsky here has given 

The mother's hohday wine up to free booty. 

Here it goes on as at the Heidelberg castle. 

Already hast thou lost the best. They're giving 

At yonder table ducal crowns in shares; 

There Sternberg's lands and chattels are put up, 

With Eggenberg's, Siawata's. Lichtenstoin's, 

And all the great Bohemian feodalities. 

Be nimble, lad! and something may turn up 

For tliee — who knows ? off— to thy place ! quick ! 

march ! 
riEFE.NBACH and GoETZ {call out from the second and 
third tables). 
Count Piccolomini ! 

TERTSKY. 

Stop, ye shall have him in an instant. — Read 
This oath lierc, whether as 't is here set forth, 
The wording satisfies you. They 've all read it, 
Each in his turn, and each one will subscribe 
His individual signature. 

MAX. {reads). 
" [ngratis sersnre nefas." 

ISOLAM. 

That sounds to my ears very much like Latin, 
A nd being interpreted, pray what may 't mean ? 

TERTSKY. 

No honest man will serve a thankless master. 

MAX. 

" Inasmuch as our supreme Commander, the illus- 
trious Duke of Friedland, in consequence of the man- 
ifold affronts and grievances which he has received, 
had expressed his determination to quit the Emperor, 
but on our unanimous entreaty has graciously con- 
sented to remain still with the army, and not to part 
from us without our approbation thereof, so we, col- 
lectively and each in particular, in the stead of an oath 
personally taken, do hereby oblige ourselves — like- 
wise by him honorably and faithfully to hold, and in 
nowise whatsoever from him to part, and to be ready 
to shed for his interests the last drop of our blood, so 
far, namely, as our oath to the Emperor will permit. 
{These last words are repealed by Isolani.) In testi- 
mony of which we subscribe our names." 

TERTSKY. 

Now ! — arc you willing to subscribe this paper ? 

ISOLAM. 

Why should he not ? All officers of honor 
Can '^o It, ay, must do it. — Pen and ink here ! 

TERTSKY. 

Nay, let it rest till after meal. 

ISOLANI (dramng Max. along). 
Come, Max. 
[Both seat themselves at their table. 



SCENE IX. 

Tertsky, Neumann. 
TERTSKY {beckons to Neumann vtho is waiting at the 

side-table, and steps forward with him to the edge of 

the stage). 
Have you the copy with you, Neumann ? Give it 
It may be changed for the other I 

NEUMANN. 

I have copied it 
Letter by letter, lino by line ; no eye 
Would e'er discover other difference, 
Save only the omission of that clause. 
According to your Excellency's order. 

TERTSKY. 

Right ! lay it yonder, and away with this — 
It has pcrform'd its business^to the fire with it- - 
[Neumann lai/s the copy on the table, and steps 
back asrain to the side-table. 



SCENE X. 



Illo {comes out from the second chamber), Tertskv 

ILLO. 

How goes it with young Piccolomini ? 

TERTSKY. 

All right, I think. He has started no objection. 

ILLO. 

He is the only one I fear about — 

He and his father. Have an eye on both ! 

TERTSKY. 

How looks it at your table ? you forget not 
To keep them warm and stirring ? 

ILLO. 

O, quite cordial, 
Tliey are quite cordial in the scheme. We have them. 
And 'tis as I predicted too. Already 
It is the talk, not merely to maintain 
The Duke in station. " Since we 're once for all 
Together and unanimous, why not," 
Says Montecuculi, " ay, why not onward. 
And make conditions with the Emperor 
There in his own Vienna ? " Trust me. Count, 
Were it not for these said Piccolomini, 
We might have spared ourselves the cheat. 

TERTSKY. 

And Butler 
How goes it there ? Hush ! 



SCENE XI. 



To them enter Butler from the second table. 

BUTLER. 

Don't disturb yourselves. 
Field Marshal, I have understood you perfectly. 
Good luck be to the scheme ; and as for me, 

[ With an air of myslei y. 
You may depend upon me. 

ILLO {ivilh vivacity). 

May we, Butler ? 

BUTLER. 

With or without the clause, all one to me ! 
You understand me ? My fidelity 
The Duke may put to any proof — I 'm with him ! 
Tell him so ! I 'm the Emperor's officer, 

153 



144 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



As long as 't is his pleasure to remain 

The Emperor's general ! and Friedland's servant, 

As soon as it shall please him to become 

His own lord. 

TERTSKY. 

You would make a good exchange. 
No stern economist, no Ferdinand, 
Is he to whom you plight your services. 

BUTLER (with a hauglily look). 
I do not put up my fidelity 
To sale, Count Tertsky ! Half a year ago 
I would not have advised you to have made me 
An overture to that, to which I now 
Offer myself of my own free accord. — 
But that is past ! and to the Duke, Field Marshal, 
I bring myself together with my regiment. 
And mark you, 'tis my humor to believe. 
The example which I give will not remain 
Without an influence. 

ILLO. 

Who is ignorant, 
Tliat the whole army look to Colonel Butler, 
As to a light that moves before them ? 



Ey? 
Then I repent me not of that fidelity 
Which for the length of forty years I held. 
If in my sixtieth year my old good name 
Can purchase for me a revenge so full. 
Start not at v^'hat I say, sir Generals ! 
My real motives — they concern not you. 
And you yourselves, I trust, could not expect 
That this your game liad crook'd mi) judgment — or 
That fickleness, quick blood, or such like cause, 
Has driven the old man from tlie track of honor, 
Which he so long had trodden. — Come, my friends ! 
I 'm not tliereto determined with less firmness, 
Because I know and have look'd steadily 
At that on which I have determined. 

ILLO. 

Say, 
And speak roundly, what are we to deem you ? 



A friend ! I give you here my hand ! I 'm your's 

With all I have. Not only men, but money 

Will the Duke want. — Go, tell him, sirs ! 

I've earn'd and laid up somewhat in his service. 

I lend it him; and is lie my survivor. 

It has been already long ago bequeath'd him. 

He is my heir. For me, I stand alone 

Here in the world ; naught know I of the feeling 

That binds the husband to a wife and children. 

My name dies with me, my existence ends. 

ILLO. 

'Tis not your money that he needs — a heart 
Like yours weighs tons of gold dowTi, weighs down 
millions ! 

BUTLER. 

I came a simple soldier's boy from Ireland 
To Prague — and with a master, whom I buried. 
From lowest stable duty I climb'd up. 
Such was llie fate of war, to this high rank, 
The plaything of a whimsical good fortune. 
And Wallcnstein too is a child of luck ; 
love a fortune that is like my own. 



ILLO. 

All powerful souls have kindred with each other 

BUTLER. 

This is an awful moment ! to the brave. 
To the determined, an auspicious moment. 
The Prince of Weimar arms, upon the Maine 
To found a mighty dukedom. He of Halberstadt, 
That Mansfeld, wanted but a longer life 
To have mark'd out with his good sword a lordship 
That should reward his courage. Who of these 
Equals our Friedland ? there is nothing, nothing 
So high, but he may set the ladder to it ! 

TERTSKY 

That 's spoken like a man ! 

BUTLER. 

Do you secure the Spaniard and Italian — 
I '11 be your warrant for tlie Scotchman Lesly. 
Come, to the company! 

TERTSKY. 

Where is the master of the cellar? Ho ! 

Let the best wines come up. Ho ! cheerly, boy ! 

Luck conies to-day, so give her hearty welcome. 

lExeunt, each to his tabU- 



SCENE xn. 



77(6 Master of the Cellar advancing with Neuma.nn. 
Servants passing bacJ;wards and forwards. 
master of the cellar. 
The best wine ! O : if my old mistress, his lady 
mother, could but see tliese wild goings on, she would 
turn herself round in her grave. Yes, yes, sir officer, 
'tis all down the hill with this noble house ! no end, 
no moderation! And (his marriage with the Duke's 
sister, a splendid connexion, a very splendid connex- 
ion I but I will tell you, sir oflicer, it looks no good. 

NEUMANN. 

Heaven forbid! Why, at this very moment the 
whole prospect is in bud and blossom ! 

master of the CELLAR. 

You think so ? — Well, well ! much may bo said 
on that head. 

FIRST SERVANT {COmCS). 

Burgundy for the fourth table. 

MASTER or THE CELLAR. 

Now, sir lieutenant, if this an't the seventieth 
flask — 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Why, the reason is, that German lord, Tiefen- 
bach, sits at that table. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR {continuing his discourse 
to Neumann). 

They are soaring too high. They would rival 
kings and electors in their pomp and splendor; and 
wherever the Duke leaps, not a minute does my gra- 
cious master, the count, loiter on the brink (to the 

Servants.) — What do you stand there listening for ? I 
will let you know you have legs presently. Off! see 
to the tables, see to the flaslis ! Look there ! Count 
Palfi has an empty glass before him ! 
runner (comes). 

The great service-cup is wanted, sir; that rich 
gold cup with the Bohemian arms on it. The Count 
says you know which it is. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

Ay ! that was made for Frederick's coronation by 
154 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



145 



Ihe artist William — there was not such another prize 
in the whole booty al I'raguc. 

RUNNER. 

Tlie same I — a health is lo go round in him. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR {shaking /lis head while he 
filches and rinses Ihe cups). 
Tins w ill be soineaiing for the talc-bearers— tliis 
goes to Vienna. 

NEU.MANN. 

Permit me lo look al it. — Well, this is a cup in- 
deed! How heavy! as well as it may be, being all 
gold. — And what neat things arc emlx)s.sed on it! 
how natural and elegant they look! — There, on 
that first quarter, let nio see. That proud Amazon 
there on horseback, she that is taking a leap over 
tlie crosier and mitres, and carries on a wand a hat 
Itigether with a banner, on which there 's a goblet 
represented Can you tell me what all this signifies ? 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

Tlie woman whom you see here on horseback, is 
the Free Election of liie Bohemian Crown. That is 
signified by the round hat, and by that fieiy steed on 
wliich she is riding. The hat is the pride of man ; 
for he who cannot keep his hat on before kings and 
emperors is no free man. 

NEWMANN. 

But what is the cup there on the banner ? 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

The cup signifies the freedom of the Bohemian 
Church, as it was in our forefathere' times. Our fore- 
fathers in the wars of the Hussites forced from the 
Pope this noble privilege : for Ihe Pope, you luiow, 
will not grant the cup to any layman. Your true 
Moravian values nothing beyond the cup ; it is his 
costly jewel, and has cost the Bohemians their precious 
blood in many and many a battle. 

NEWMANN. 

And what says that chart that hangs in the air 
there, over it all ? 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

That signifies the Bohemian letter-royal, which we 
forced from the Emperor Rudolph — a precious, never 
to be enough valued parchment, that secures to the 
new church the old privileges of free ringing and 
open psalmody. But since ho of Steirmark has ruled 
over us, that is at an end ; and after the battle at 
Prague, in which Count Palatine Frederick lost crown 
and empire, our faith hangs upon the pulpit and the 
altar — and our brethren look at their homes over 
their shoulders; but tlie letter-royal the Emperor 
himself cut to pieces with liis scissars. 

NEUMA.VN. 

Wliy, my good master of Ihe cellar ! you are deep 
read in the chronicles of your country ! 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

So were my forefathers, and for that reason were 
the minstrels, and served under Procopius and Ziska. 
Peace be with their ashes ! Well, well ! they fought 
lor a good cause though — There ! carry it up ! 

NEWMANN. 

Stay! let me but look at this second quarter. Look 
there! That is, when at Prague Casllc the Imperial 
Counsellors, Mariinitz and Stawata, were hurled 
down head over heels. Tis oven so! there stands 
('■Mint Thur, who commands it 

[Runner takes the service-cup and goes ojf wilJt it. 



MASTER OF THE CEI.I.AIt. 

O let me never more hear of that day. It was the 
thrce-and-twentieth of May, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand, six hundred, and eighteen. It seems 
to mo as it were but yesterday — from that imlucky 
day it all began, all the heart-aches of the country. 
Since that day it is now sixteen years, and there has 
never once been peace on the carlh. 

[Ilenllh drunk aloud at the second table 
The Prince of Weimar! Hurra! 

[Al Ihe third and fourth lahle 
Long live Prince William ! Long live Duke Bernard ! 
Hurra ! 

[Music strikes up 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Hear 'em! Hear 'cm ! What an uproar! 

SECOND SERVANT (coiHcs ill runnin<;). 
Did you hear ? They have drunk the prince of 
Weimar's health. 

THIRD SERVANT. 

The Swedish Chief Commander! 

FIRST SERVANT {speaking at the same time). 
Tlie Lutheran! 

SECOND SERVANT. 

Just before, when Count Dcodate gave out the 
Emperor's health, they were all as mum as a nibbling 
mouse. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

Po, po! When the wine goes in, strange things 
come out. A good servant hears, and hears not ! — 
You should be nothing but eyes and feet, except 
when you are called to. 

SECOND SERVANT. 

[To the Runner, to irhom he gives sccretlij a flash 
of mne, keeping his eije on the Master of the 
Cellar, standing helwevn him and the Runner. 
Quick, Thomas ! before the Master of the Cellar 
runs this waj' — 't is a flask of Frontignac ! — Snapped 
it up at the tliird table — Canst go off with it ? 
RUNNER {hides il in his pocket). 
All right ! 

[Exit the Second Servant. 
THIRD SERVANT {aside to the First). 
Be on the hark, Jack ! that we may have right 
plenty to tell lo father Quivoga — He will give us 
right plenty of absolution in return for it. 

FIRST SERVANT. 

For that very purpose I am always having some- 
thing to do behind Illo's chair. — He is the man foi 
speeches to make you stare with! 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR {lO NeUMANN). 

^Vho, pray, may that swarthy man be, he with the 
cross, that is chatting so confidentially with Esterhats? 

NEWMANN. 

Ay ! he too is one of lliose to whom ihey confide 
too much. He calls himself Maradas, a Spaniard is 
he. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR {impatiently). 

Spaniard ! Spaniard ! — I tell you. friend, nothing 
good comes of those Spaniards. All these outlandish 
fellows* are little better than rogue.s. 



11 



02 



* There is a humor in the ori|!in!ii which cannot be given in 
the translation. " Die ff c/mAch allc," etc. which word in cla»- 
sicul German means the Italians alone; hut in ils first sense, 
and at present in the vulvar use of the word, signifies furttignera 
in general. Our word wahmts, I suppi>so, moans oullandi^^ 
nuts — WallsD DUCC8, in Gcrmaa "Welschi' Niissc." T 

iiiii 



146 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



NEWMANN. 

Fy, fy ! you should not say so, friend. There are 
among them our very best generals, and those on 
whom the Duke at this moment relies the most. 

MASTER OF THE CELLAR. 

[Taking the flash out of the Runner' s pocket. 
My son, it will be broken to pieces in your pocket. 
[Tertsk y hurries in, fetches away the jmper, and 
calls to a Servant for Pen and Ink, and goes to 
the back of the Stage. 
MASTER OF THE CELLAR {lo the Servants). 
The Lieutenant-General stands up.-^Be on the 
watch. — Now ! They break up. — Off, and move back 
the forms. 

[They rise at all the tables, the Servayits hurry off 
the front of the Stage to the tables ; part of the 
guests come forward. 



SCENE XIII. 



OcTAVio PiccoLOMiNi enters into conversation with 
Maradas, and both place themselves quite on the 
edge of the Stage on one side of the Proscenium. 
On the side directly opposite. Max. Piece lomlmi, by 
himself, lost in thought, and taking no part in any 
thing that is going forward. The middle space be- 
tween both, but ra'her more distant from the edge of 
the Stage, is filed np by Butler, Isolani, Goetz, 
TiEFENBACH, and Kolatto. 
isolani {itMle the Company is coming forward). 
Good night, good night, Kolatto ! Good night, Lieu- 
tenant-General ! — I should rather say, good morning. 

goetz {to TiEFENBACH). 

Noble brother ! (making the usual compliment after 
meals). 

TIEFENBACH. 

Ay! 'twas a royal feast indeed. 

GOETZ. 

Yes, my Lady Countess understands these matters. 
Her mother-in-law. Heaven rest her soul, taught her! 
— Ah! that was a housewife for you ! 

TIEFENBACH. 

'XTierp was not her like in all Bohemia for setting 
out a table. 

OCTAVIO {aside to Maradas). 

Do me the favor to talk to me — talk of what you 
^vill — or of nothing. Only preserve the appearance 
at least of talking. I would not wish to stand by 
myself, and yet I conjecture that there will be goings 
on here worthy of our attentive observation. {He 
continues to fix his eye on the whole following scene). 
ISOLANI (071 the point of going). 

Lights! hghts! 

tBrtsky {advancing with the Paper to Isolani). 

Noble brother; two minutes longer! — Here is 
somethmg to subscribe. 

isolani. 

Subscribe as much as you like — but you must ex- 
cuse me from reading it, 

TERTSKY. 

There is no need. It is the oath, which you have 
already read. — Only a few marks of your pen ! 

[Isolani hands over the Paper to Octavio respect- 
fully. 

TERTSKY. 

Nay, nay, first come first setved. There is no pre- 



cedence here. (Octavio runs over the Paper with 
apparent indifference. Tertsky watches him at some 
distance). 

GOETZ {to Tertsky) 
Noble Count ! with your permission — Good night 

TERTSKY. 

Where 's the hurry ? Come, one other composing 
draught. {To the servants) — Ho! 

GOETZ. 

Excuse me — an't able. 

TERTSKY. 

A thimble-full ! 

GOETZ. 

Excuse me. 

TIEFENBACH {sitS doW7t). 

Pardon me, nobles I — This standing does not agree 
with me. 

TERTSKY. 

Consult only your own convenience, General ! 

TIEFENBACH. 

Clear at head, sound in stomach — only my legs 
won't carry me any longer. 

isolani {pointing at his corpulence). 
Poor legs ! how should they ? such an unmerciful 
load ! (Octavio subscribes his name, and reaches over 
the Paper to Tertsky, who gives it to Isolani ; and 
he goes to the table to sign his name). 

tiefenbacil 
'Twas that war in Pomerania that first brought it 
on. Out in all weathers — ice and snow — no help for 
it. — I shall never get the better of it all the days of 
my life. 

GOETZ. 

Why, in simple verity, your Swede makes no nice 
inquiries about the season. 

TERTSKY {observing Isolam, whose hand trembles 
excessively, so that he can scarce direct his pen). Have 
you had that ugly complaint long, noble brother? — 
Dispatch it. 

ISOLANL 

The sins of youth ! I have already tried the cha- 
lybeate waters. Well — I must bear it. 

[Tertsky g'/fes the Paper to Maradas ; he steps 
to the table to subscribe. 

OCTAVIO (advancing lo Butler). 
You are not over-fond of the orgies of Bacchus, 
Colonel ! I have observed it. You would, I think, 
find yourself more to your liking in the uproar of a 
battle, than of a feast. 

BUTLER. 

I must confess, 'tis not in my way. 

OCTAVIO (stepping nearer tohimfriendlily). 
Nor in mine either, I can assure you ; and I am 
not a little glad, my much-honored Colonel Butler, that 
we agree so well in our opinions. A half-dozen good 
friends at most, at a small round table, a glass of 
genuine Tokay, open hearts, and a rational conversa 
tion — that 's my taste ! 

BUTLER. 

And mine too, when it can be had. 

[The paper comes to Tiefenbach, vtho glances 
over it at the same time viith Goetz and 
Kolatto. Maradas in the mean time re- 
turns to Octavio. All this takes phue. thr 
conversation with Butler prorccdftig un- 
interrupted. 

I5fi 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



147 



OCTAVIO {introiiiiciiiff Mahahas Io Boti.er. 
Don Balthasar Maradas I likewise a man of our 
stomp, and long ago your admirer. [Butler bows. 
OCTAVIO {conlinuinff). 
You are a stranger here — 't was but yesterday you 
arrived — you are ignorant of the ways and means 
here. 'T is a w retched place — I know, at our age, 
one loves to be snug and quiet — What if you moved 
your lotlgings? — Come, be my visitor. (Butler makes 
a low bow). Nay, without compliment ! — For a friend 
like you, I have still a corner remaining. 
BUTLER (fiddly). 
Your obliged humble servant, my Lord Lieu- 
lenant-General ! 

[The paper conies io Butler, who goes to the fable 
to subscribe it. The front of the stage is va- 
cant, so that both the Piccolominis, each on 
the side wiiere he had been from the com- 
mencement of the scene, remain alone. 
OCTAVIO {after having some time watched his son in 
silence, advances somewhat nearer to him). You were 
long absent from us, friend ! 

MAX. 

I urgent business detained me. 

OCTAVIO. 

And, I observe, you are still absent ! 

MAX. 

You know this crowd and bustle always makes 
me silent. 

OCTAVIO (advancing still nearer). 

May I be permitted to ask W'hat the business was 
that detained you ? Terlsky knows it without 
asking ! 

MAX. 

VVhat does Tertsky know ? 

OCTAVIO. 

He was the only one who did not miss you. 
ISOLAM (who has been attending to them from some 
distance, steps up). 
Well done, father! Rout out his baggage : Beat 
up his quarters ! there is something there that should 
not be. 

TERTSKY (with the paper). 
Is there none wanting ? Have the whole sub- 
scribed ? 

OCTAVJO. 

All. 

TERTSKY (calling aloud) 
Ho ! Who subscribes 1 

BUTi.r'i (Io Tertsky). 
Count the names There ought to be just thirty 

TERTSKY. 

Here is a cros? 

tiefenbach. 
That 's my /nark. 

ISOLANI. 

He cannot write ; but his cross is a good cross, 
and is honored by Jews as well as Christians. 
OCTAVIO (presses on to Max.). 
Come, General ! let us go. It is late. 

TERTSKY. 

One Piccolomini only has signed. 

ISOLAM (pointing to Max.). 

■ IjOok ! that is your man, that statue there, who 
has had neither eye, ear, nor tongue for us the whole 
evening. (Max. receives the paper from Tertsky, 
which he looks upon vacantly). 



SCENE XIV. 

To these enter Illo from the inner room. He has in 
his hand the golden service-cup, and is extremely 
distempered with dritiknng : Goetz and Butler 
follow him, endeavoring to keep him back. 

ILLO. 

What do you want ? Let me go. 

goetz arid butler. 
Drink no more, Illo ! For heaven's sake, drink no 
more. 

iLLO (goes up to OcTAVio, and shakes him cordially 
by the hand, and then drinks). 
Octavio ! I bring this to you ! Let all grudge be 
drowned in this friendly bowl ! I know well enough, 
ye never loved me — Devil take me ! — and I never 
loved you! — I am always even with people in that 
w ay ! — Let what 's ])ast be past — that is, you under- 
stand — forgotten ! 1 esteem you infinitely. {Em- 
bracing him repeattdly). You have not a dearer 
friend on earth than I — but that you know. The 
fellow that cries rogue to you calls me villain — and 
I '11 strangle him ! — my dear friend ! 

TERTSKY {whispering to him). 
Art in thy senses ? For heaven's sake, Illo, think 
where you are ! 

ILLO (aloud). 
What do you mean ? — There are none but friends 
here, are there ? (Looks round the whole circle with a 
jolly and triumphant air.) Not a sneaker among us, 
thank Heaven ! 

TERTSKY (to Butler, eagerly). 
Take him off with you, force him off, I entreat 
you, Butler ! 

BUTLER {to Illo). 
Field Marshal ! a word with you. {Leads him to 
the sideboard.) 

illo (cordially). 
A thousand for one ; Fill — Fill it once more up 
to the brim. — To this gallant man's health ! 
isoLANi (to Max., who all the while has been staring 
on the paper with fxed but vacant eyes). 
Slow and sure, my noble brother ? — Hast parsed 
it all yet ? — Some w ords yet to go through ? — Ha ! 
MA.x. (waking as from a dream). 
Wliat am I to do ? 

TERTSKY, and at the same time isolani. 
Sign your name. (Octavio directs his eyes on him 
with intense anxiety). 

MAX. (returns the paper) 
Let it stay till to-morrow. It is business — to-day 1 
am not sufficiently collected. Send it to me to- 
morrow. 

TERTSKY. 

Nay, collect yourself a little. 

ISOLANI. 

Awake, man ! awake ! — Come, thy signature, and 
have done with it ! What ? Thou art the youngest 
in the whole company, and wouldsi be wiser than 
all of us together ? Look there ! thy fathei has 
signed — we have all signed. 

TERTSKY (to Octavio). 
Use your influence. Instruct him. 
octavio. 
My son is at the age of discretion. 

illo (leaves the service-cup on the sideboard . 
What 's the dispute ? 

21 157 



148 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



TERTSKY. 

He declines subscribing the paper. 

MAX. 

I say, it may as well stay till to-morrow. 

ILLO. 

It cannot stay. We have all subscribed to it — 
and so must you. — You must subscribe. 

Illo, good night ! 

ILLO. 

No ! You come not off so ! The Duke shall learn 
who are his friends. {All collect round Illo and 
Max.) 

MAX. 

What my sentiments are towards the Duke, the 
Duke knows, every one knows — what need of this 
wild stuff? 

ILLO. 

This is the thanks the Duke gets for his partiality 
to Italians and foreigners. — Us Bohemians he holds 
for little better than dullards — nothing pleases him 
but what 's outlandish. 

TERTSKY {in extreme embarrassment, to the Command- 
ers, who at Illo's words give a sudden start, as 
preparing to resent them). 

It is the wine that speaks, and not his reason. 
Attend not to him, I entreat you. 

ISOLANI {with a bitter laugh). 
Wine invents nothing : it only tattles. 

ILLO. 

He who is not with me is against me. Your tender 
consciences ! Unless they can slip out by a back- 
door, by a puny proviso 

TERTSKY {interrupting him). 
He is stark mad — don't listen to him! 

ILLO {raising his voice to the highest pitch). 
Unless they can slip out by a proviso. — What of 
the proviso ? The devil take this proviso ! 
MAX. {has Ids attention roused, and looks again into the 
paper). 

What is there here then of such perilous import ? 
You make me curious — I must look closer at it. 
TERTSKY {in a low voice to Illo). 
What are you doing, Illo ? You are ruining us 

TIEFEN'BACII {tO KOLATTO). 

Ay, ay ! I observed, that before we sat down to 
supper, it was read differently. 

GOETZ. 

Why, I seemed to think so too. 

ISOLANI. 

Wliat do I care for that ? Where there stand other 
names, mine can stand too. 

TIEFENBACH. 

Before supper there was a certain proviso therein 
or short clause concerning our duties to the Em- 
peror. 

BUTLER {to one of the Commanders). 

For shame, for shame ! Bethink you. What is the 
main business here ? The question now is, whether 
we shall keep our General, or let him retire. One 
must not take these things too nicely and over-scru- 
pulously. 

ISOLANI {to one of the Generals). 

Did the Duke make any of these provisoes when 
he gave you your regiment ? 

TERTSKY {to GOETZ). 

Or when he gave you the office of anny-pur- 
veyancer, which brbigs you in yearly a thousand 
pistolei! . 



He is a rascal who makes us out to be rogues. If 
there be any one that wants satisfaction, let him say 
so, — I am his man. 

TIEFENBACH. 

Softly, softly ! 'T was but a word or two. 
MAX. {having read the paper gives it back). 
Till to-morrow, therefore ! 

ILLO {stammerivg vilh rage and fury, loses all com.' 
viand over himself, and presents the paper to Max. 
with one hand, and his sword in the other) 

Subscribe — Judas ! 

ISOLANL 

Out upon you, Illo ! 

ocTAVio, TERTSKY, BUTLER {all together). 
Down with the sword! 
MAX, {rushes on him suddenly and disarms him, then 

to Count Tertsky). 
Take him off to bed. 

[Max. leaves the stage. Illo cursing and raving is 
held back by some of the Officers, and amidst 
a universal confusion the Curtain drops. 



ACT III. 

SCENE I. 

A Chamber in Piccolomini's Mansion. — It is Night. 

OcTAVio PiccoLOMiNi. A Valet de Chambre, with 
Lights. 

OCTAVIO. 

And when my son comes in, conduct him hither. 

What is the hour ? 

VALET. 

/ 'T is on the point of morning. 

OCTAVIO. 

Set down the light. We mean not to tmdress 
You may retire to sleep. 

[Exit Valet. Octavio paces, musing, across the 
chamber ; Max. Piccolomini enters unob- 
served, and looks at his father for some mo- 
ments in silence. 

max. 
Art thou offended with me ? Heaven knows 
That odious business was no fault of mine. 
'T is true, indeed, I saw thy signature. 
Wliat thou hadst sanction'd, should not, it might seem. 
Have come amiss to me. But — 't is my nature — 
Tliou know'st that in such matters I must follow 
My own light, not another's. 

OCTAVIO {goes up to him, and embraces him). 
Follow it, 

follow it still further, my best son ! 
To-night, dear boy ! it hath more faithfully 
Guided thee than the example of thy father. 

MAX. 

Declare thyself less darkly. 

OCTAVIO. 

I will do so. 
For after what has taken place this night. 
There must remain no secrets 'twixt us two. 

[Both seat themselves, 
Max. Piccolomini ! w-hat thinkest thou of 
The oath that was sent round for signatures ? 

MAX. 

1 hold it for a thing of harmless import, 
Although I love not these set declarations. 

158 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



149 



OCTAVIO. 

And on no other ground hast thou refused 
The signature they lain liad wrested from thee ? 

MAX. 

It was a serious business 1 was absent — 

The aflair itself seeni'd not so urgent to ine. 

OCTAVIO. 

Be open, Max. Tliou hadst then no suspicion ? 

MAX. 

Suspicion I wliat suspicion ? Not the least. 

OCTAVIO. 

Tliank thy good Angel, I'iccolomini : 

He drew ihee back unconscious from the abyss. 

MAX. 

I iuiow not what thou meanest 

OCTAVIO. 

I will tell thee. 
Fain would they have extorted from thee, son, 
The sanction of thy name to villany ; 
Yea, with a single llourish of thy pen. 
Made ihee renounce thy dutj' and ihy honor! 

MAX {rises). 
Octavio . 

OCTAVIO. 

Patience ! Seat yourself. Much yet 
Hast thou to hear from me, friend .' — hast for years 
Lived in incompreliensible illusion. 
Before thine eyes is Treason drawing out 
As black a web as e'er was spun for venom : 
A power of hell o'erclouds thy understanding. 
I dare no longer stand in silence — dare 
Ko longer see thee wandering on in darkness, 
IS'or pluck the bandage from thine eyes. 

MAX. 

My father! 
Yet, ere thou spcakest, a moment's pause of thought! 
If your disclosures should appear to be 
Conjectures only — and almost I fear 
They will be nothing further — spare them ! I 
Am not in that collected mood at present, 
Th:it I could listen to them quietly. 

OCTAVIO. 

Tlie deeper cause thou hast to hate this light. 

The more impatient cause have I, my son. 

To force it on thee. To the innocence 

And wisdom of tliy heart I could have trusted thee 

With calm assurance — but I see the net 

Preparing — and it is thy heart itself 

Alarms me for thine innocence — that secret, 

[Fixing his eye sledfastly on his son's /ace. 
Which thou concealest, forces 7nine from me. 

[Max. attempls to answer, but hesitates, and casts 
his eyes to the ground embarrassed. 
OCTAVIO (after a pause). 

Know, then, they are duping thee! — a most foul 
game 

With thee and with us all — nay, hear me calmly — 

The LiuKe even now is playing. He a.ssumes 

'J'he ma.<ik, as if he would forsake the army ; 

.AiKJ in this moment makes he preparations 

Tliat army from the Emperor to steal. 

And carry it over to the enemy! 

MAX. 

That low Priest's legend I know well, but did not 
Expect to hear it from thy mouth. 

OCTAVIO. 

Tliat mouth, 



From which thou hearest it at this present moment, 
Doth warrant thee thai it is no Priest's legend. 



How mere a maniac they supposed the Duke! 
What, he can meditate ? — the Duke ? — can dream 
That ho can lure away full thirty thousand 
Tried troops and true, all honorable soldiers. 
More than a thousand nol)lemen among them. 
From oaths, from duty, from their honor lure them, 
And make them all unanimous to do 
A deed that brands them scoundrels ? 

OCTAVIO. 

Such a deed, 
With such a front of infamy, the Duke 
Noways desires — what he requires of us 
Bears a far gentler appellation. Nothing 
He wishes, but to give the Empire peace. 
And so, because the Emperor hates this peace. 
Therefore the Duke — the Duke will force him to it. 
All parts of the empire will ho pacify. 
And for his trouble will retain in payment 
(What he has already in his gripe) — Bohemia! 

MAX. 

Has he, Octavio, merited of us. 

That we — that we should think so vilely of him ? 

OCTAVIO. 

What we would think is not the question here. 
The affair speaks ibr itself — and clearest proofs! 
Hear me, my son — 'tis not unknown to thee. 
In what ill credit with the court we stand. 
But little dost thou know, or guess, what tricks. 
What base intrigues, what lying artilices. 
Have been employ'd — for this sole end — to sow 
Mutiny in the camp! All bands are loosed — 
Loosed all the bands, that link the officer 
To his liege Emperor, all that bind the soldier 
Affectionately to the citizen. 
Lawless he stands, and threateningly beleaguers 
The state he 's bound to guard. To such a height 
'Tis swoln, that at this hour the Emperor 
Before his armies — his ouai armies — trembles ; 
Yea, in his capital, his palace, fears 
The traitors' poniards, and is meditating 

To huriy off and hide his tender offspring 

Not from the Swedes, not from the Lutherans — 
No ! from his own troops hide and hurry them ! 

MAX. 

Cease, cease ! thou torturest, shalterest me. I know 
That oft we tremble at an empty terror ; 
But the false phantasm brings a real misery 

OCTAVIO. 

It is no phantasm. An intestine war. 
Of all the most unnatural and cruel, 
Will burst out into ilames, if instantly 
We do not fly and stifle it. The General^ 
Are many of them long ago won over; 
The subalterns are vacillating — wliole 
Regiments and garrisons are vacillating. 
To foreigners our sirong-holds are intrusted ; 
To that suspected Schafgotch is the whol? 
Force of Silosia given up : to Tertsky 
Five regiments, foot and horse — to Isolani, 
To lUo, Kinsky, Butler, the best troops. 



Likewise to botli of us. 



ia'i 



150 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



OCTAVIO. 

Because the Duke 
Believes he has secured us — means to lure us 
Still further on by splendid promises. 
To me he portions forth the princedoms, Glatz 
And Sagan ; and too plain I see the angel 
With vvliich he doubts not to catch thee. 



No! no! 



1 tell thee — no I 



OCTAVIO. 

O open yet thine eyes ! 
And to what purpose think'st thou he has call'd us 
Hither to Pilsen ? to avail himself 
Of our advice ? — O when did Friedland ever 
Need our advice ? — Be calm, and listen to me. 
To sell ourselves are we called hither, and 
Decline we that — to be his hostages. 
Therefore doth noble Galas stand aloof; 
Thy father, too, thou wouldst not have seen here, 
If higher duties had not held him fetter'd. 

MAX. 

He makes no secret of it — needs make none — 
That we 're called hither for his sake — he owns it. 
He needs our aidance to maintain himself— 
He did so much for us ; and 'I is but fair 
That we too should do somewhat now for him. 

OCTAVIO. 

And know'st thou what it is which we must do? 
That Illo's drunken mood betray 'd it to thee. 
Bethink thyself— what hast thou heard, what seen ? 
The counterfeited paper — the omission 
Of that particular clause, so full of meaning. 
Does it not prove, that they would bind us down 
To nothing good ? 

MAX. 

That counterfeited paper 
Appears to me no other than a trick 
Of Illo's own device. These imderhand 
Traders in great men's interests ever use 
To urge and hurry all things to the extreme. 
They see the Duke at variance with the court. 
And fondly think to serve him, when they widen 
The breach irreparably. Trust me, father, 
The Duke Itnows nothing of all this. 

OCTAVIO. 

It grieves me 
That I must dash to earth, that I must shatter 
A faith so specious ! but I may not spare thee ! 
For this is not a time for tenderness. 
Thou must take measures, speedy ones — must act. 
I therefore will confess to thee, that all 
Which I 've intrusted to thee now — that all 
Which seems to thee so unbelievable. 
That — yes, I will tell thee — (a pause) — Max. ! I had 

it all 
From his own mouth — from the Duke's mouth I had it. 

MAX. (in excessive agitation^ 
No ! — no ! — never ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Himself confided to me 
What I, 'tis true, had long before di.scover'd 
By other means — himself confided to me. 
That 'twas his settled plan to join the Swedes; 
And, at the head of the united armie* 
Compel the Emperor 



MAX. 

He is passionate : 
The Court has stung him — he is sore all over 
With injuries and affronts ; and in a moment 
Of irritation, what if he, for once, 
Forgot himself ? He 's an impetuous man. 

OCTAVIO. 

Nay, in cold blood he did confess this to me • 
And having construed my astonishment 
Into a scruple of his power, he show'd me 
His written evidences — show'd me letters. 
Both from the Saxon and the Swede, that gave 
Promise of aidance, and defined the amount. 

MAX. 

It cannot be ! — can not be ! — can not be ! 

Dost thou not see, it cannot ? 

Thou wouldst of necessity have shown him 

Such horror, such deep lothing — that or he 

Had taken thee for his belter genius, or 

Thou stood 'st not now a living man before me — 

OCTAVIO. 

I have laid open my objections to him, 
Dissuaded him with pressing earnestness ; 
But my ahhorrence, the full sentiment 
Of my whole heart — that I have still kept sacred 
To my own consciousness. 

MAX. 

And thou hast been 
So treacherous ? That looks not lilce my father ! 
I trusted not thy words, when thou didst tell me 
Evil of him ! much less can I now do it, 
That thou calumniatest thy own self 

OCTAVIO. 

I did not thrust myself into his secrecy 

MAX. 

Uprightness merited his confidence. 

OCTAVIO. 

He was no longer worthy of sincerity. 

MAX. 

Dissimulation, sure, was still less worthy 
Of thee, Octavio ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Gave I him a cause 
To entertain a scruple of my honor ? 

MAX. 

That he did not, evinced his confidence. 

OCTAVIO. 

Dear son, it is not always possible 
Still to preserve that infant purity 
Which the voice teaches in our inmost heart, 
Still in alarum, for ever on the watch 
Against the wiles of wicked men : e'en Virtue 
Will sometimes bear av\-ay her outward robes 
Soil'd in the wrestle with Iniquity. 
This is the curse of every evil deed, 
That, propagating still, it brings forth evil. 
I do not cheat my better soul with sophisms : 
I but perform my orders ; the Emperor 
Prescribes my conduct to me. Dearest boy. 
Far better were it, doubtless, if we all 
Obey'd the heart at all times ; but so doing. 
In this our present sojourn with bad men. 
We must abandon many an honest object. 
'Tis now our call to serve the Emperor; 
By what means he can best be served — the heart 
May whisper what it will — this is our call ' 

160 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



151 



It seems a thing appointed, that to-day 
1 shouhl not comprehend, not undci^tand thee, 
'riie Duke, tJiou say'st, did honestly pour out 
i lis lieart to tliee, but for an evil purpose ; 
And thou dishonestly hast cheated him 
Vor a fUKMl purpose ! Silence, I entreat thee — 
My friend, thou stealcsl not from me — 
Let me not lose my father ! 

OCTAVIO {suppressing resentment). 
As yet tliou know'st not all, my son. I have 
Yet somewhat to disclose to thee. [After a paiise. 

Duke Friedland 
llath made his preparations. He relies 
Ujxju his stars. He deems us unprovided, 
And thinks to fall uiwn us by surprise. 
Vea, in his dream of hope, he gra-sps already 
The golden circle in his hand. He errs. 
We too have been in action — he but grasps 
His evil fate, most evil, most mysterious ! 

MAX. 

nothing rash, my sire! By all that's good 
Let me invoke thee — no precipitation ! 

OCTAVIO. 

With light tread stole he on his evil way. 
And light tread hath Vengeance stole on after him. 
Unseen she stands already, dark behind him — 
But one step more — he shudders in her grasp ! 
Thou hast seen Questenberg with me. As yet 
Thou know'st but his ostensible commission : 
He brought with him a private one, my son ! 
And that was for me only. 

MAX. 

May I, know it ? 

OCTAVIO (seizes the patent). 

Max. ! 
[A pause. 

In this disclosure place I in thy hands 

The Empire's welfare and thy father's life. 
Pear to thy inmost heart is Wallenstcin : 
A powerful tie of love, of veneration. 
Hath knit thee to him from thy earliest youth. 
Thou nourishest the viish. — O let me still 
Anticipate thy loitering confidence ! 
The hope thou nourishest to knit thyself 
Yet closer to nnn 

MAX. 

Father 

OCTAVIO. 

O my son ! 

1 tru.st thy heart undoubtingly. But am I 
Equally sure of thy collectedness ? 

Wilt thou be able, with calm cotuitenance, 
To enter this man's presence, when that I 
Have trusted to thee his whole fate ? 

MAX. 

According 
AS thou dost trust me, father, with his crime. 

[OcTAvio takes a paper out of his escritoire, and 
gives it to him. 

MAX. 

What ? how ? a full Imperial patent ! 

OCTAVIO 

Read it. 
MAX. {just glances on it). 
Duke Friedland sentenced and condeiim'd ! 



OCTAVIO. 

Even SO. 
MAX. {throws down the paper). 
O tliis is too much ! O unhappy error ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Read on. Collect thyself 

MAX. {after he has read further, with a look of affright 
and astonishment on his father. 

How! what! Thou! thou 

OCTAVIO. 

But for the present moment, till the King 
Of Hungary may safely join the army, 
Is the command a-ssigii'd to me. 

MAX. 

And think'st thou 
Dost thou believe, tliat thou wilt tear it from him ? 
O never hope it! — Father! father! father! 
An inauspicious office is enjoin'd thee. 
This paper here — this! and will thou enforce it? 
The mighty in the middle of iiis host, 
Surrounded by his thousands, him wouldst thou 
Disarm — degrade ! Thou art lost, both thou and all 
of us. 

OCTAVIO. 

What hazard I incur thereby, I know. 
In the great hand of God I stand. The Almighty 
Will cover with his shield the Imperial house, 
And shatter, in his vvralli, the work of darlcness. 
The Emperor hath true servants still ; and even 
Here in the camp, there are enough brave men 
Who for the good cause will fight gallantly. 
The faithful have been warn'd — the dangerous 
Are closely vvatch'd. I wait but the first step, 
And then immediately 

MAX. 

What! on suspicion? 
Immediately ? 

OCTAVIO. 

The Emperor is no tyrant. 
The deed alone he'll punish, not the wish. 
The Duke hath yet his destiny in his power. 
Let him but leave the treason uncompleted, 
He will be silently displaced from oflice, 
And make way to his Emperor's royal son. 
An honorable exile to his castles 
Will be a benefaction to him rather 
Than punishment. But the first open step 

MAX. 

What callest thou such a step ? A wicked step 
Ne'er will he take ; but thou niightest easily, 
Yea, thou hast done it, misinterpret him. 

OCTAVIO. 

Nay, howsoever punishable were 

Duke Friedland's purposes, yet still the steps 

Which he hath taken openly, permit 

A mild constniction. It is my uitention 

To leave this paper wholly unenforced 

Till some act is committed which convicts him 

Of a high-treason, without doubt or plea, 

And that shall sentence him. 



But who the judge ? 



Thyself. 



For e\ er, then, tliia paper will lie idle 
'6J 



152 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



OCTAVIO. 

Too soon, I fear, its powers must all be proved. 
After the counter-promise of this evening, 
It cannot be but he must deem himself 
Secure of the majority with us ; 
And of the army's general sentiment 
He hath a pleasing proof in that petition 
Whicn tnou delivered'st to him from the regiments. 
Add this too — I have letters that the Rhinegrave 
Hath changed his route, and travels by forced marches 
To the Bohemian Forests. What this purports, 
Remains unknown ; and, to confirm suspicion, 
This night a Swedish nobleman arrived here. 

MAX. 

I have thy word. Thou 'It not proceed to action 
Before thou hast convinced me — me myself 

OCTAVIO. 

Is it possible ? Still, after all thou know'st, 
Canst thou believe still in liis innocence ? 

MAX. {^l)ith enthusiasm). 
Thy judgment may mistake ; my heart can not. 

[Moderates his voice and manner. 
These reasons might expound thy spirit or mine ; 
But they expound not Friedland — I have faith : 
For as he knits his fortunes to the stars, 
Even so doth he resemble them in secret, 
Wonderful, still inexplicable courses ! 
Trust me, they do him wrong. All will be solved. 
These smokes at once will kindle into llame — 
The edges of this black and stormy cloud 
Will brighten suddenly, and we sliall view 
The unapproachable glide out in splendor. 

OCTAVIO. 

I will await it. 



SCENE II. 

OcTAVio and Max. as before. To them the Valet of 
THE Chamber. 

OCTAVIO. 

How now, then ? 

VALET. 

A dispatch is at the door. 

OCTAVIO. 

So early ? From whom comes he then ? Who is it ? 

VALET. 

That he refused to tell me. 

OCTAVIO. 

Lead him in : 
And. hark you — let it not transpire. 

[Exit Valet ; the Cornet steps in. 

OCTAVIO. 

Ha ! Comet — is it you ? and from Count Galas ? 
Give me your letters. 

CORNET. 

The Lieutenant-General 
Trusted it not to lettei-s. 

OCTAVIO 

And what is it ? 

CORNET. 

He bade me tell you — Dare I speak openly here ? 

OCTAVIO. 

My son knows all 

CORNET. 

We have him. 



Wliora? 

CORNET. 

Sesina, 
The old negotiator. 

OCTAVIO (eagerly). 
And you have him ? 

CORNET. 

In the Bohemian Forest Captain Mohrbrand 
Found and secured him yester-morning early ; 
He was proceeding then to Regensburg, 
And on him were dispatches for the Swede. 

OCTAVIO. 

And the dispatches 

CORNET. 

The Lieutenant-General 
Sent them that instant to Viemia, and 
The prisoner with them. 

OCTAVIO. 

This is, indeed, a tiding ! 
That fellow is a precious casket to us. 
Inclosing weighty tilings. — Was much tound on him' 

CORNET. 

I think, six packets, with Count Tertsky's arms. 

OCTAVIO. 

None in the Ehike's own hand ? 



CORNET. 



Not that I know 



And old Sesina ? 



CORNET. 

He was sorely frighten'd, 
When it was told him he must to Vienna. 
But the Count Altringer bade him take heart. 
Would he but make a full and free confession. 

OCTAVIO. 

Is Altringer then with your Lord ? I heard 
That lie lay sick at Linz. 

CORNET. 

These three days past 
He's with my master, the Lieutenant-General, 
At Frauenberg. Already have they sixty 
Small companies together, chosen men ; 
Respectfully they greet you with assurances. 
That they are only wailing your commands. 

OCTAVIO. 

In a few days may great events take place. 
And when must you return ? 

CORNET. 

I wait your orders. 

OCTAVIO. 

Remain till evening. 

[Cornet signijies his assent and obeisance, and is 
going. 

No one saw you — ha ? 

cornet. 
No living creature. Through the cloister wicket 
The Capuchins, as usual, let me in. 

OCTAVIO. 

Go, rest your limbs, and keep yourself conceal'd 
I hold it probable, that yet ere evening 
I shall dispatch you. The development 
Of this affair approaclies : ere the day, 
That even now is dawning in the heaven, 

162 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



153 



Ere this eventful day hath sot, the lot 

That must decide our fortunes will be drawTi. 

[Exit Cornet. 



SCKNE III. 
OcTAVio and Max. Piccolomini. 

OCTAVIO. 

Well — and what now, son? All will soon be clear; 
For all, I 'm certain, went through that Sesina. 

MA.\. {who through the whde of the foregoivg scene 
has been in a violent and visible struggle of feelings, 
at length starts as one resolved). 

1 will piwcnro mo light a shorter way. 

Farewell. 

OCTAVIO. 

AVhere now ? — Remain here. 

MAX. 

To the Duke. 

OCTAVIO (alarmed). 
What 

MAX. (returning). 
If thou hast believed that I shall act 

A part in this thy play 

Thou hast miscalculated on me j^rievoiisly. 

My way must be straight on. True with the tongue, 

False with the heart — I may not, can not be : 

Nor can I suffer tliat a man should trust me — 

As his friend trust me — and tlien lull my conscience 

\Vith such low pleas as these : — " I ask'd liim not — 

He did it all at his own hazard — and 

My mouth has never lied to him." — No, no! 

What a friend takes me for, that I must be. 

— I'll to the Duke ; ere yet this day is ended, 

Will I demand of him that he do save 

His good name from the world, and with one stride 

Break through and rend this flno-siiun web of yours. 

He can, he will I — / still am his believer. 

Yet I'll not pledge myself, but that those letters 

May furnish you, perchance, with proofs against him. 

How far may not this Tertsky have proceeded — 

What may not he himself too have permitted 

Himself to do, to snare the enemy, 

The laws of war excusing ? Nothing, save 

His own mouth, shall convict him — nothing less ! 

And face to face will I go question him. 

OCTAVIO. 

Thou will I 

MAX. 

I will, as sure as this heart beats 

OCTAVIO. 

have, indeed, miscalculated on thee. 
I calculated on a prudent son. 
Who would have blest the hand beneficent 
That pluck'd him back from the abyss — and lo ! 
A fascinated being I discover. 
Whom his two eyes befool, whom passion wilders, 
Whom not the broadest light of noon can heal. 
Go, question him! — Be mad enough, I pray thee. 
The pur]K)se of thy father, of thy Emperor, 
Go, give it up free booty : — Force mo, drive me 
To an open breach before the time. And now, 
Now that a miracle of heaven had guarded 
My secret purpose even to this hour. 
And laid to sleep Suspicion's piercing eyes, 
Tjut me have lived lo see that mine owti son, 
F 



With frantic enterprise, annihilates 
My toilsome labore and state-policy. 

MA.X. 

Ay — this state-policy ! O how I curse it ! 

You will, some time, with your state-policy 

('ompel him to the measure : it may hapjien, 

Because you arc ddrrntiind that he is guilty, 

Guilty ye'U make him. All retreat cut off. 

You close up every outlet, hem him in 

Narrower and narrower, till at length ye force him 

\'es, ye, — ye force liim, in iiis dcsj)eration, 

To set fire to his prison. Father ! father ! 

That never can cud well — it can not — will not! 

And let it bo decided as it may, 

I see with boding heart the near approach 

Of an ill-starr'd, unlilest cataslro[)hc. 

For this great Monarch-spirit, if lie fall, 

Will drag a world into the ruin with him. 

And as a ship (tliat midway on the ocean 

Takes fire) at once, and willi a ihunder-biirst 

Explodes, and with itself shoots out its crew 

In smoke and ruin betwixt sica and heaven; 

So will he, falling, draw down in his fall 

All us, v\ho're fix'd and mortised to his fortune. 

Deem of it what thou wilt; but pardon me, 

That I must bear nic on in my own way. 

All must remain pure betwixt him and me; 

And, ere the day-light dawns, it must be known 

Which I must lose — my father, or my friend. 

[During his exit the curtain drops 



ACT IV. 

SCENE I. 

Scene, a Room fitted tip for astrological labors, and 
provided with ciles/ial Charts, with Globes, Tele- 
scopes, Quadrants, and other mathematical Instru- 
ments. — Seven Colossal Figures, rcjirescnting (he 
Planets, each with a transparent Star of a different 
Color on its head, stand in a semicircle in the Back- 
ground, so that ^fars and Saturn are nearest the 
Eye. — The Remainder of the Scene, and its Dispo- 
sition, is give?i in the Fourth Scene of the Second 
Act. — There must be a Curtain over the Figures, 
which may be dropped, and conceal them on occasicms. 

[In the Fifth Scene of this Act it must be dropped; but 
in the Seventh Scene, it must be again drawn up 
wholly or in part.] 

Wai.i.enstein at a black Table, on lohich a Spen/him 
Astrologicum is described with Chalk. Seni is taking 
Observations through a Wi7tdow. 

WAI.l.ENSTFIN. 

All well — and now let it be ended, Seni. — Come, 
The dawTi commences, and Mars rules the hour. 
We must give o'er the operation. Come, 
We know enough. 

SENI. 

Your Highness must permit me 
Just to contemplate Venus. She 's now rising : 
Like as a sun, so shines she in the east. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

She is at present in her perigee. 

And shoots down now her strongest influences. 

[Contemplating the figure on the Inbte. 
103 



154 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS, 



Auspicious aspect ! fateful in conjunction, 
At length the mighty three corradiale ; 
And the two stars of blessing, Jupiter 
And Venus, take between thern the malignant 
Slyly-malicious Mars, and thus compel 
Into my service that old mischief-founder : 
For long he view'd me hostilely, and ever 
With beam oblique, or perpendicular. 
Now in the Quartile, now in the Secundan, 
Shot his red lightnings at my stars, disturbing 
Their blessed influences and sweet aspects. 
Now they have conquer'd the old enemy. 
And bring him in the heavens a prisoner to me. 

SENi {who has come down from the window). 
And in a corner house, your Highness — think of that! 
That makes each influence of double strength. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And sun and moon, too, in the Sextile aspect. 
The soft light with the vehement — so I love it. 
Sol is the heart, Luna the head of heaven, 
Bold be the plan, fiery the execution. 

SEM. 

And both the mighty Lumina by no 
Maleficus afTronted. Lo I Saturnus, 
Innocuous, powerless, in cadente Dome. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The empire of Saturnus is gone by ; 

Lord of the secret birth of things is he ; 

Within the lap of earth, and in the depths 

Of the imagination dominates ; 

And his are all things that eschew the light. 

The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance, 

For Jupiter, the lustrous, lordelh now, 

And the dark work, complete of preparation, 

He draws by force into the realm of light. 

Now must we hasten on to action, ere 

The scheme, and most auspicious posture 

Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight ; 

For the heavens journey still, and sojourn not. 

[There are knocks at the door. 
There 's some one knocking there. See who it is. 

TERTSKY (from without). 
Open, and let me in. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ay — 'tis Tertsky. 
What is there of such urgence ? We are busy. 

TERTSKY (from without). 
Lay all aside at present, I entreat you. 
It suffers no delaying. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Open, Seni ! 
[While Seni opens the door for Tertsky, Wallen- 
STEIN draws the curtain over the figures. 

tertsky (enters). 
Hast thou already heard it ? He is taken. 
Galas has given him up to the Emperor. 

[Seni draws off the black table, and exit. 



SCENE n. 

WALLENSTEIN, CoUNT TeRTSKY. 
WALLENSTEIN (tO TeRTSKY). 

Who has been taken 1 — Who is given up ? 

TERTSKY. 

The man who knows our secrets, who knows every 



Negotiation with the Swede and Saxon, 

Through whose hands all and everything has pass'd — 

WALLENSTEIN (drawing back). 
Nay, not Sesina ? — Say, No ! I entreat thee. 

TERTSKY. 

All on his road for Regensburg to the Swede 
He was plunged down upon by Galas' agent. 
Who had been long in ambush lurking for him. 
There must have been found on him my whole packet 
To Thur, to Kinsky, to Oxenstiem, to Amheira : 
All this is in their hands ; they have now an insight 
Into the whole — our measures, and our motives. 



SCENE III. 
To them enters Illo. 



Has he heard it ? 



ILLO (to Tertsky). 

TERTSKY. 

He has heard it. 



ILLO (to WALLENSTEIN). 

Thinkest thou still 
To make thy peace with the Emperor, to regain 
His confidence ? — E'en were it now thy wish 
To abandon all thy plans, yet still they know 
What thou hast wish'd ; then forwards thou must 

press ; 
Retreat is now no longer in thy power. 

TERTSKY. 

They have documents against us, and in hands, 
Which show beyond all power of contradiction — 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Of my handwriting — no iota. Thee 
I punish for thy lies. 

ILLO. 

And thou believest. 
That what this man, that what thy sister's husband 
Did in thy name, will not stand on thy reck'ning ? 
His word must pass for thy word with the Swede, 
And not with those that hate thee at Vieima. 

TERTSKY. 

In writing thou gavest nothing — But bethink thee. 
How far thou ventured 'st by word of mouth 
With this Sesina ! And will he be silent ? 
If he can save himself by yielding up 
Thy secret purposes, will he retain them ? 

ILLO. 

Thyself dost not conceive it possible ; 
And since they now have evidence authentic 
How far thou hast already gone, speak ! — tell us, 
What art thou waiting for ? thou canst no longer 
Keep thy command ; and beyond hope of rescue 
Thou'rt lost, if thou rcsign'st it. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

In the army 
Lies my security. The army will not 
Abandon me. Whatever they may know. 
The power is mine, and they must gulp it down — 
And substitute I caution for my fealty. 
They must be satisfied, at least appear so. 

ILLO. 

The army, Duke, is thine now — for this moment — 
T is thine : but think with terror on the slow, 
The quiet power of time. From open violence 
The attachment of thy soldiery secures thee 
To-day — to-rnorrow; but grant'st thou them a respite 

164 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



155 



I'lilieard, unseen, they '11 undermine that love 
On which thou now tiost Iccl so tirni a fooling 
AVith wily theft will draw away from thee 
One after the other 

WALLENSTEtN. 

'Tis a cursed accident ! 

II.LO. 

Olt I I will call it a most blessed one, 
If it work on thee as it ought to do. 
Hurry thee on to action — to decision — 
The Swedish General 

WALLENSTEIN. 

He 's arrived I Know'st thou 
Wliat liis commission is 

ILLO. 

To thee alone 
Will he intrust tho purpose of his coming. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

A cursed, cursed accident ! Yes, yes, 
Sesina luiows too much, and won't be silent. 

TERTSKY. 

He's a Bohemian fugitive and rebel. 
His neck is forfeit Can he save himself 
At thy cost, think you ho will scruple it ? 
And if they put him to the torture, will ho. 

Will he, that daslardling, have strength enough 

WALLEXSTEIX (losl in thought). 
Their confidence is lost — irreparably ! 
And I may act what way I will, I shall 
Be and remain for ever in their thought 
A traitor to my country. How sincerely 
Soever I return back to my duty, 
It will no longer help me 

ILLO. 

Ruin thee. 
That it will do ! Not thy fidelity. 
Thy weakness will be deem'd the sole occasion — 

WALLENSTEIN (pacing up and down in extreme 
agitation). 
Wliat ! I must realize it now in earnest. 
Because I loy'd too freely with the thought ? 
Accursed he who dallies with a devil! 
And must I — I must realize it now — 
ISovv, while I have the power, it must take place ! 

ILLO. 

Now — now — ere they can ward and parry it ! 

WALLENSTEIN (looking at the paper of signatures). 
I have the General's w^ord — a written promise ! 
Max. Piccolomini stands not here — how 's that ? 

TERTSKY 

It was he fancied 

ILLO. 

Mere self-willedness. 
There needed no such thing 'twixt him and you. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

He is quite right — there needeth no such thing. 
Tlie regiments, too, deny to march lor Flanders — 
Have sent me in a paper of remonstrance. 
And openly resist the Imperial orders. 
The fu^t step to revolt 's already taken. 

ILLO. 

Believe nir, thou wilt find it far more easy 
To lead them over to ihe enetcy 
Thua lu llie Spaniard. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

I will hear, however. 
What the Swede has to say to me. 

ILLO (eagerly lo Tertskv). 

Go, call him ! 
He stands without the door in waiting. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Stay! 
Stay yet a little. It hath taken me 
All by surprise, — it came too quick upon me ; 
'Tis wholly novel, that an accident. 
With its dark lordship, and blind agency. 
Should force me on with it 



And after weigh it. 



ILLO. 

First hear him only, 
[Ej:cu7it Tertsky and. Illo 



SCENE IV. 



WALLENSTEIN (in soUloquy) 
Is it possible ? 
Is 't so ? I can no longer what I would ? 
No longer draw back at my liking ? I 
Must do the deed, because I thought of it. 
And fed this heart here with a dream ? Because 
I did not scowl teinplation from my presence. 
Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfilment, 
Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain, 
And only kept the road, the access open ? 
By the great God of Heaven ! It was not 
My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolve. 
I but amused myself with thinking of it. 
The free-will tempted me, the power to do 
Or not to do it. — Was it criminal 
To make the fancy minister to hope. 
To fill the air with pretty toys of air, 
And clutch fantastic sceptres moving t'ward me ! 
Was not the world kept free ? Beheld I not 
The road of duty close beside me — but 
One little step, and once more I was in it ! 
Wliere am I ? Wliither have I been transported ? 
No road, no track behind ine, but a wall, 
Impenetrable, insurmountable, 
Rises obedient to the spells I muttcr'd 
And meant not — my own doings tower behind me. 

[Pauses and remains in deep thought 
A punishable man I seem ; the guilt, 
Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me ; 
The equivocal demeanor of my life 
Bears witness on my prosecutor's party. 
And even my purest acts from purest motives 
Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss. 
Were I that thing for which I pass, that traitor, 
A goodly outside I had sure reserved. 
Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me 
Been calm and chary of my utterance ; 
But being conscious of the innocence 
Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, 
I gave way to my humors, to my passion : 
Bold were my words, because my deeds were 7iot. 
Now every planless measure, chance event. 
The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triump'*. 
And all the May-games of a heart o'ertlowing. 
Will they connect, and weave them all together 
Into one web of treason ; all will be plan. 
My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, 
22 165 



156 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Siep tracing step, each step a politic progress ; 
And oat of all they '11 fabricate a charge 
Sc specious, that I must myself stand dumb. 
I am caught in my own net, and only force, 
Naught but a sudden rent can liberate me. 

[Pauses again. 
How else ! since that the heart 's unbiass'd instinct 
Impell'd me to the daring deed, wliich now 
Necessity, self-preservation, orders. 
Stem is the On-look of Necessity, 
Not without shudder may a human hand 
Grasp the mysteriouf urn of destiny. 
My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom : 
Once suffer'd lo escape from its safe corner 
Within the heart, its nursery and birth-place, 
Sent forth into the Foreign, it belongs 
p'or ever to those sly malicious powers 
Whom never art of man conciliated. 

[Paces in agitation through the chamber, then pauses, 
and, after the pause, breaks out again into 
audible soliloquy. 
What is thy enterprise ? thy aim ? thy object ? 
Hast honestly confess'd it to thyself? 
Power seated on a quiet throne thou 'dst shake, 
Power on an ancient consecrated throne, 
Strong in possession, founded in old custom ; 
Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots 
Fix'd to the people's pious nureery-failh. 
This, this will be no strife of strength with strength. 
That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant. 
Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye. 
Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage 
In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible. 
The which I fear — a fearful enemy. 
Which in the human heart opposes me. 
By its coward fear alone made fearful to me. 
Not that, which full of life, instinct with power, 
Makes knowii its present being ; tliat is not 
The true, the perilously formidable. 
O no ! it is the common, tlie quite common. 
The thing of an eternal yesterday. 
What ever was, and evermore returns. 
Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling! 
tor of the wholly common is man made. 
And custom is his nurse ! Woe then to them. 
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old 
House furniture, the dear inlieritance 
From his forefathers ! For time consecrates ; 
And what is gray with age becomes religion. 
Be in possession, and thou hast the right. 
And sacred will the many guard it lor thee ! 

[To the Page, who here enters. 
The Swedish officer ? — Well, let him enter. 

[27(6 Page exit, Walle-nstein/jtcs his eye in deep 
thought on the door. 
Yet is it ptire — as yet ! the crime has come 
Not o'er this threshold yet — so slender is 
"I'he boundary that divideth life's two paths. 



SCENE V. 

Wallenstein and Wrangel. 

VVALLENSTEI\ {after having fxed a searching looJc on 

?iim). 
ifotir name is Wrangel ? 



WRANGEL. 

Gusiave Wrangel, General 
Of the Sudermanian Blues. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It was a Wrangel 
Who injured me materially at Stralsund, 
And by his brave resistance was the cause 
Of the opposition which that sea-port made. 

WRANGEL. 

It was the doing of the element 
With which you fought, my Lord ! and not my merit 
The Baltic Neptune did assert his freedom : 
The sea and land, it seem'd, were not to serve 
One and the same. 

WALLENSTEIN {makes the motion for him to take a seat, 

and seats himself). 

And where are your credentials ? 
Come you provided with full powers, Sir General ? 

WRANGEL. 

There are so many scruples yet to solve 

WALLENSTEIN (hating read the credentials). 
An able letter I — Ay — he is a prudent 
Intelligent master, whom you serve. Sir General ! 
The Chancellor writes me, that he but fulfils 
His late departed Sovereign's own idea 
In helping me to the Bohemian crown. 

WRANGEL. 

He says the truth. Our great King, now in heaven 

Did ever deem most highly of your Grace's 

Pre-eminent sense and military genius ; 

And always the commanding Intellect, 

He said, should have command, and be the King. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Yes, he might say it safely. — General Wrangel, 

[Taking his hand affectionately 
Come, fair and open. — Trust me, I was always 
A Swede at heart. Ey ! that did you experience 
Both in Silesia and at Nuremburg ; 
I had you often in my power, and let you 
Always slip out by some back-door or other. 
'Tis this for which the Court can ne'er forgive me. 
Which drives me to this present stop: and since 
Our interests so run in one direction. 
E'en let us have a thorough confidence 
Each in the other. 

WRANGEL. 

Confidence will come 
Has each but only first security. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The Chancellor still, I see, does not quite trust me ; 
And, I confess — the game does not lie wholly 
To my advantage — Without doubt he thinlis. 
If I can play false with the Emperor, 
Who is my Sov'reign, I can do the like 
With the enemy, and that the one too were 
Sooner to be forgiven me than the other. 
Is not this your opinion too. Sir General ? 

WRANGEL. 

I have here an office merely, no opinion. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The Emperor hath urged me to the uttermost 
I can no longer honorably serve him. 
For my security, in self-defence, 
I take this hard step, which my conscience blaraei 
16fi 



THE PICCOLOxMINI. 



157 



WRAXGKL. 

That I believe. So fur would no one go 
Who was nol forced lo it. [After a pause. 
VVliat may have impell'd 
Your pnncely Highness in this wise lo act 
Toward your Sovereign Lord and Emperor, 
Beseems not us to expound or criticise. 
The Swede is (ighting for his good old cause, 
With his good sword and conscience. This concur- 
rence, 
This oiiiX)rtuiuty, is in our favor, 
And all advantages in war are lawful. 
We take what oilers without questioning ; 
And if all have its due and just proportions 

WALI.ENSTEI.N. 

Of what then are ye doubting ? Of my will ? 

Or of my power ? I pledged me to the Chancellor, 

Would he Irust we willi sixteen thousand men. 

That I would instantly go over to them 

With eighteen thousand of the Emperor's troops. 

WHANGEL. 

Your Grace is Icnown to be a mighty war-cliief. 
To be a second Atlila and Pyrrhus. 
Tis talk'd of still with fresh astonishment, 
How some years past, beyond all human faith, 
You caird an army forth, like a creation ; 
But yet 

WALLENSTEI.V. 

But yet ? 

WRA.VGEL. 

But still the Chancellor thinks, 
It might yet be an easier thing from nothing 
To call forth sixty thousand men of battle. 
Than to persuade one sixtieth part of them — 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What now ? Out with it, friend ? 

WRANGEL. 

To break their oaths. 

WALLENSTEIN 

And he thinks sol — He judges like a Swede, 
And like a Protestant. You Lutherans 
I'iglit for your Bible. You arc interested 
About the cause ; and with your hrarls you follow 
Your banners. — .Vniong you, whoe'er deserts 
To the enemy, hath broken covenant 
With two Lords at one time. — Wc 've no such fan- 
cies. 

WRANGEL. 

Great God in Heaven ! Have then the people here 
No house and home, no fire-side, no altar ? 

WALLE.N'STEIX. 

I will explain that to you, how it stands : — 
The Austrian has a country, ay, and loves it, 
And has good cause to love it — but this army. 
That calls itself the Imperial, this that houses 
Here in Bohemia, this has none — no country ; 
This is an outcast of all foreign lands, 
Unclaim'd by town or tribe, to whom belongs 
Nothing, except iho universal sun. 

WRANGEL. 

But then the Nobles and the Officers? 
Such a liosertion, such a felony. 
It is without example, my Lord Duke, 
In tlie world's history. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

They are all mine — 
Mine unconditionally — mine on all terms. 
P3 



Nol me, your own eyes you nnist trust. 

[He giivs him the paptr cimlaining the rorilten 
oath. WuANGEL reads it Ihrottiih, am! , having 
read it, hii/s it on (he table, retnaining silejit. 
So then? 
Now comprehend you t 

WRANGEL. 

Comprehend w-ho can ! 
My Lord Duke; I will let the mask droji — yes! 
I 've full powers for a final settlement 
The Rliinegrave stands but four days' march from 

here 
With fifteen thousand men, and only waits 
For orders to proceed and join your army 
Those orders / give out, immediately 
We 're compromised. 

WALLENSTKIN 

Wliat asks the Chancellor? 
WRANGEL (co7tsideraf(iy). 
Twelve regiments, every man a Swede — my head 
The warranty — and all might prove at last 

Only false play 

WALLENSTEIN {Starling). 

Sir Swede ! 

WRANGEL {calmly proceeding). 

Am therefore forced 
T' insist thereon, that he do formally, 
Irrevocably break with the Emperor, 
Else not a Swede is trusted to Duke Friedland. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Come, brief, and open ! What is the demand ? 

WRANGEL. 

That he forthwith disarm the Spanish regiments 
Attach'd to the Emperor, that he seize Prague, 
And to the Swedes give up that city, with 
The strong pass Egra. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

That is much indeed ! 

Prague! — Egra's granted — But — but Prague.' — 

'T won't do. 
I give you every security 

Which you may ask of me in common reason — 
But Prague — Bohemia — these, Sir General, 
I can myself protect. 

WRANGEL. 

We doubt it not. 
But 't is not the protection that is now 
Our sole concern. We want security. 
That we shall not expend our men and money 
All to no purpose. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

'Tis but reasonable. 

WRANGEL. 

And till we are indemnified, so long 
Stays Prague in pledge. 

WALLENSTEIN 

Then trust you us so little ? 
WRANGEL {rising). 
The Swede, if he would treat well with the German, 
Must keep a sharp, look-out. We have been call'd 
Over the Baltic, we have saved the empire 
From ruin — with our best blood have we seal'd 
Tlic liberty of faith, and gospel truth. 
But now already is the benefaction 

No longer felt, the load alone is felt, 

Ye look askance with evil eye upon us. 
As foreigners, intruders in the empire, 

m 



158 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



And would fain send us, with some paltry sum 
Of money, home again to our old forests. 
No, no ! my Lord Duke ! no ! — it never was 
For Judas' pay, for chinliing gold and silver, 
That we did leave our King by the Great Stone.* 
No, not for gold and silver have there bled 
So many of our Swedish Nobles — neither 
Will we, with empty laurels for our payment. 
Hoist sail for our own country. Citizens 
Will we remain upon the soil, the which 
Our Monarch conquer'd for himself, and died. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Help to keep down the common enemy. 
And the fair border-land must needs be yours. 

WRANGEL. 

But when the common enemy lies vanqnish'd, 

Wlio knits together our new friendship then? 

We know, Duke Friedland . though perhaps the Swede 

Ought not f have known it, that you carry on 

Secret negotiations with the Saxons. 

Who is our warranty, that we are not 

The sacrifices in those articles 

Which 'tis thought needful to conceal from us? 

WALLENSTEIN {rises). 

Think you of something better, Gustave Wrangel ! 
Of Prague no more. 

WRANGEL. 

Here my commission ends. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Surrender up to you my capital ! 

Far liever would I face about, and step 

Back to my Emperor. 

WRANGEL. 

If time yet permits 

WALLENSTEIN. 

That lies with me, even now, at any hour. 

WRANGEL. 

Some days ago, perhaps. To-day, no longer ; 
No longer since Sesina 's been a prisoner. 

[wALLENPTEiN is strucTi, and silenced 
My Lord Duke, hear me — We believe that you 
At present do mean honorably by us. 
Since yesterday we 're sure of that — and now 
This paper warrants for the troops, there 's nothing 
Stands in the way of our full confidence. 
Prague shall not part us. Hear ! The Chancellor 
Contents himself with Albstadt ; to your Grace 
He gives up Ratschin and the narrow side. 
But Egra above all must open to us, 
Ere we can think of any junction. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

You, 
You therefore must I trust, and you not me ? 
1 will consider of your proposition. 

WRANGEL. 

I must entreat, that your consideration 
Occupy not too long a time. Already 
Has this negotiation, my Lord Duke ! 
Crept on into the second year. If nothing 
Is settled this time, will the Chancellor 
Consider it as broken off for ever. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

Ye press me hard. A measure, such as tliis. 
Ought to be thought of 

WRANGEL. 

Ay ! but think of this too. 
That sudden action only can procure it 
Success — think fu-st of this, your Highness. 

[Exit Wrangel 



SCENE VI. 
WALLENSTEIN, Tertsky, and Illo ixe-enter). 

ILLO. 

Is 'tall right? 

TERTSKY. 

Are you compromised ? 

ILLO. 

This Swede 
Went smiling from you. Yes ! you 're compromised 

WALLENSTEIN. 

As yet is nothing settled : and (well weigh'd) 
1 feel myself inclined to leave it so. 

TERTSKY. 

How ? WTiat was that ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Come on me what may come 
The doing evil to avoid an evil 
Can not be good ! 

TERTSKY. 

Nay, but bethink you, Duke. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

To live upon the mercy of these Swedes! 

Of these proud-hearted Swedes I — I could not bear it 

ILLO. 

Goest thou as fugitive, as mendicant ? 

Bringest thou not more to them than thou receivest 



* A great elone near Liitzen, since called the Swede's Stone, 
the body of their great king having been found at the foot of it, 
after llie battle «n which be lost lus life. 



SCENE VIL 
To these enter the Countess Tertsky. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Who sent for you ? There is no business here 
For women. 

COUNTESS. 

I am come to bid you joy. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Use thy authority, Tertsky ; bid her go. 

COUNTESS. 

Come I perhaps too early ? I hope not. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Set not this tongue upon me, I entreat you : 
You luiow it is the weapon that destroys mo. 
I am routed, if a woman but attack me : 
I cannot traffic in the trade of words 
With that mireasoning sex. 

COUNTESS. 

I had already 
Given the Bohemians a lung. 

WALLENSTEIN (sarcastically). 

They have one. 
In consequence, no doubt. 

COUNTESS {to the others). 

Ha ! what new scruple ? 

TERTSKY. 

The Duke will not. 

163 



TIIE PICOOLO^nNI. 



159 



COUNTESS. 

He vyill not what he must ! 

ILLO. 

It hcs with you now. Try. For I am silenced, 
When folks l)cgin to talk to me of conscience, 
And of fidelity. 

COU.VTESS. 

How ? then, when all 
Ijiy in the far-off distance, when the road 
Stretch'd out belbre tliine eyes inicrniinably. 
Then hadst thou courage and resolve ; and now, 
Now that the dream is being realized, 
The purpose ripe, the issue ascertain'd. 
Dost thou begin to play the dastard now ? 
Plann'd merely, 'tis a common felony; 
Accomplish'd, an immortal undertaking : 
And with success comes pardon hand in hand ; 
For all event is Uod's arbitrement. 
SERVANT (enters). 
The Colonel Piccolomini. 

COUNTESS (JiaslUy). 

— Must wait 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I cannot see him now. Another time. 

SERVANT. 

But for two minutes he entreats an audience : 
Of the most urgent nature is his business. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

\V\iO knows what he may bring us ! I will hear him, 

COUNTESS (laugha). 
Urgent for him, no doubt ; out thou mayest wait. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What is it ? 

COUNTESS. 

Thou shalt be inform'd hereafter. 
First let the Swede and thee be compromised. 

[Exit Servant. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ji there were yet a choice! if yet some milder 
Way of escape were possible — I slill 
Will choose it, and avoid the last extreme. 

COUNTESS. 

Desirest thou nothing further ? Such a way 

Lies still belbre thee. Send this Wrangel off 

Forget thou thy old hopes, cast far away 

.All thy past life ; determine to commence 

A new one. Virtue hath her heroes loo, 

As well as Fame and Fortune. — To Vienna — 

Hence — to the Kmperor — kneel before the throne ; 

Take a full coffer with thee — say aloud, 

Tliou didst but wish to prove thy fealty ; 

Thy whole intention but to dupe the Swede. 

ILLO. 

For that too 't is too late. They know too much : 
He woUid but bear his own head to the block. 

COUNTESS. 

1 (ear not that. Tliey have not evidence 

To attaint him legally, and they avoid 

Tlie avowal of an arbitrary power. 

They'll let the Duke resign without disturbance. 

I see how all will end. The King of Hungary 

Makes his appearance, and 'twill of it.self 

Be understood, that then the Duke retires. 

There will not want a formal declaration : 

llic young king will administer the oath 

To the whole army ; and so all returns 



To the ohl position. On some morrow momuig 

The Duke departs; and now 'tis stir and bustle 

Within his caslles. He will hunt, and build , 

Superintend his horses' pedigrees. 

Creates himself a court, gives golden keys. 

And introducelh strictest ceremony 

In fine proportions, and nice etiquette ; 

Keeps open table with high cheer ; in brief, 

Commenceth mighty King — in miniature. 

And while he prudently demeans himself, 

And gives himself no actual importance. 

He will be let appear whale'er lie likes : 

And who dares doubt, that Fried land will appear 

A mighty Prince to his last dying hour ? 

Well now, what then ? Duke Friedland is as others, 

A fire-new Noble, whom the war halh raised 

To price and currency, a Jonah's gourd. 

An over-night creation of court-favor, 

Wliich with an undislinguishablc ease 

Makes Baron or makes Prince. 

WALLENSTEIN {in extreme agitation) 

Take her away. 
Let in the young Count Piccolomini. 

COUNTESS. 

Art thou in earnest ? I entreat thee ! Canst thou 
Consent to bear thyself to thy own grave 
So ignominionsly to be dried up ? 
Thy life, that arrogated such a height, 
To end in such a nothing I To be nothing. 
When one was always nothing, is an evil 
That asks no stretch of patience, a light evil ; 
But 10 become a nothing, having been 

WALLENSTEIN [Starts up in violent agttalion). 
Show me a way out of this stiding crowd. 
Ye Powers of Aidaiice ! Show me such a way 
As I am capable of going. — I 
Am no tongue-hero, no fine virtue-prattler ; 
I cannot warm by thinking ; cannot say 
To the good luck that turns her back upon me, 
Magnanimously : " Go ; I need thee not." 
Cease I to work, I am annihilated. 
Dangers nor sacrifices will I shun. 
If so I may avoid the last extreme ; 
But ere I sink down into nothingness. 
Leave off so little, who began so great, 
Ere that the world confuses me with those 
Poor wretches, whom a day creates and crumbles, 
This age and after ages* sjieak my name 
With hate and dread ; and Friedland be redemption 
For each accursed deed ! 

COUNTESS. 

What is there here, then. 
So against nature ? Help me to perceive it ! 
O let not Superstition's nightly goblins 
Subdue thy clear bright spirit! Art thou bid 
To murder ? — with abhorr'd accursed poniard. 
To violate the breasts that nourish'd thee ? 
That lucre against our nature, that might aptly 
Make thy flesh shudder, and thy whole heart sicken.-f 



» Could 1 have haznrdod such a Germanism, as the use of 
the word after-world, for posterity, -•" Es spreche Welt und 
JsTaclLwelt mcincn Namen"— misht have been rendered with 
more literal fidelity :— Let world ana after-world speak out my 
name, etc. 

T I have not ventured to affront the fastidious Iclicacy of >uf 
age with the literal translation of this line, 

werth 
Die Eingeweido schaudernd aufzuregeo 
If.'l 



lt)0 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Yet not a few, and for a meaner object, 
Vave ventured even this, ay, and perform'd it. 
What is there in thy case so black and monstrous? 
Thou art accused of treason — wliether with 
Or without justice is not now the question — 
Thou art lost if thou dost not avail thee quickly 
Of the power which thou possessest^Friedland I Dulie ! 
Tell me, where lives that thing so meek and tame, 
That doth not all his living faculties 
Put forth in preservation of his life ! 
What deed so daring, which necessity 
And desperation will not sanctify ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Once was this Ferdinand so gracious to me : 

lie loved me ; he esteem'd me ; I was placed 

The nearest to his heart. Full many a time 

We, like familiar friends, both at one table, 

Have banqueted together. He and I — 

And the young lungs themselves held me the basin 

Wherewith to wash me — and is't come lo this? 

COUNTESS. 

So faithfully preservest thou each small favor. 

And hast no memory for contumelies ? 

Must 1 remind thee, how at Regensburg 

This man repaid thy faithful services ? 

All ranks and all conditions in the empire 

Tliou hadst wrong'd, to make him great, — ^hadst 

loaded on thee, 
On Ihcc, the hate, the curse of the whole world. 
No friend existed lor ihee in all Germany, 
And why! because Ihou hadst existed only 
For the Emperor. To the Emperor alone 
Clung Friedland in that storm which gather'd round 

him 
At Regensburg in the Diet — and he dropp'd thee ! 
He let thee fall ! He let thee fall a victim 
To the Bavarian, to that insolent! 
Deposed, stript bare of all thy dignity 
And power, amid the taunting of thy foes, 
Thou wert let drop into obscurity. — 
Say not, the restoration of thy honor 
Has made atonement for that first injustice. 
No honest good-will Was it ihat replaced thee ; 
The law of hard necessity replaced thee. 
Which they had fain opposed, but that they could not. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Not to their good wishes, that is certain. 
Nor yet to his aifection, I 'm indebted 
For this high office ; and if I abuse it, 
I shall therein abuse no confidence. 

COUNTESS. 

Affecrion ! confidence ! — They needed thee. 

Necessity, impetuous remonstrant ! 

^V]lo not with empty names, or shows of proxy. 

Is served, who'll have the thing and not thes3'mbol. 

Ever seeks out the greatest and the best. 

And at the rudder places Mm, e'en though 

She had been forced to take him from the rabble — 

She, this Necessity, it was that placed thee 

In this high oflicc ; it was she that gave tliee 

Thy letters-patent of inauguration. 

For, to the uttermost moment that they can, 

This race still help themselves at cheapest rate 

With slavish souls, with puppets ! At the approach 

Of extreme peril, when a hollow image 

Is found a hollow image and no more, 

Then falls the power into the mighty hands 



Of Nature, of the spirit giant-bom, 
WHio listens only to himself, knows nothuig 
Of stipulations, duties, reverences. 
And, like the emancipated force of fire, 
Unmaster'd scorches, ere it reaches them. 
Their fine-spun webs, their artificial policy. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

'Tis true ! they saw me always as I am — 
Always ! I did not cheat them in the bargain. 
I never held it worth my pains to hide 
The bold all-grasping habit of my soul. 



Nay rather — thou hast ever showTi thyself 

A formidable man, v^ithout restraint ; 

Hast exercised the full prerogatives 

Of thy impetuous nature, which had been 

Once granted to thee. Therefore, Duke, not thou, 

Who hast still remained consistent with thyself, , 

But they are in the wrong, who fearing thee. 

Intrusted such a power in hands they fear'd. 

For, by the laws of Spirit, in the right 

Is every individual character 

That acts in strict consistence with itself 

Self-contradiction is the only wrong. 

Wert thou another being, then, when thou 

Eight years ago pureuedst thy march with fire 

And sword, and desolation, through the Circles 

Of Germany, the universal scourge, 

Didst mock all ordinances of the empire. 

The fearful rights of strength alone exertedst, 

Trampledst lo earth each rank, each magistracy. 

All to extend thy Sultan's domuiation ? 

Then was the time to break thee in, to curb 

Thy haughty will, to teach thee ordinance. 

But no, the Emperor felt no touch of conscience 

What served him pleased him, and without a murmur 

He stamp'd his broad seal on these lawless deeds. 

Wnat at that time was right, because thou didst it 

For him, to-day is all at once become 

Opprobrious, foul, because it is directed 

Against him. — O most flimsy superstition ! 

WALLENSTEIN (risijig). 

I never saw it in this light before. 

'Tis even so. The Emperor perpetrated 

Deeds through my arm, deeds most unorderly. 

And even this prince's mantle, which I wear, 

I owe to what were services to him, 

But most high misdemeanors 'gainst the empire. 



Tlien betwixt thee and him (confess it, Friedland !) 
The point can be no more of right and duty. 
Only of power and the opportunity. 
That opportunity, lo ! it comes yonder 
Approaching with swift steeds ; then with a swing 
Throw thyself up into the chariot-seat. 
Seize with firm hand the reins, ere thy opponent 
Anticipate thee, and himself make conquest 
Of the now empty seat. The moment comes ; 
It is already here, when thou must write 
The absolute total of thy life's vast sura. 
The constellations stand victorious o'er thee, 
The planets shoot good fortune in fair junctions, 
And tell thee, " Novv's the time!" The starry course* 
Hast thou thy life-long measured to no purpose ? 
The quadrant and the circle, were Ihey playthings' 
[Pointing to the different objects in the roo^a. 
170 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



IGl 



The zodiacs, the rolling orbs of heaven, 

Hast piciureil on these walls, anil all around theo 

In dumb, foreboding synitH)ls hast thou placed 

These seven presiding l^ords of Destiny — 

For toys ? Is all this preparation iioihing ? 

Is there no marrow in this hollow art, 

That even to thj-self it doth avail 

Nolliing, and has no inlhience over thee 

In the great moment of decision? 

\\ALI.ENSTEIN {during this laxl. speech walJiS vp and 

down with inward slniggles, laboring with passion ; 

stops suddenly, stands still, tlicn interrupting ike 

Countess). 
Send Wrangel to me — I will instantly 
Dispatch tliree couriers 

ILLO {hurrying out). 

God in heaven be praised ! 

WALLEN STEIN. 

If is his evil genius and mine. 

Our evil genius ? It chastises him 

Through me, the iastrument of his ambition ; 

And I expect no less, than that Revenge 

E'en now is whetting for my breast the poniard. 

Who sows the serpent's teeth, let him not hope 

To reap a joyous harvest. Every crime 

Has, in the moment of iis perpetration, 

Its own avenging angel — dark misgiving, 

An ominous sinking at the inmost heart. 

He can no longer trust me — Then no longer 

Can I retreat — so come that which must come. — 

Still Destiny preserves its duo relations : 

The heart within us is its absolute 

Vicegerent. 

[To Tertskv. 
Go, conduct you Gustave Wrangel 
To my state-cabinet. — Myself will speak to 
The couriers. — And dispatch immediately 
A .servant for Octavio Piccolomini. 

[To the Countess, who cannot conceal her triumph. 
Ho exultation ! woman, triumph not ! 
For jealous are the Powers of Destiny. 
Joy premature, and shouts ere victoiy. 
Encroach upon their rights and privileges. 
We sow the seed, and they the growth determine. 
[Wltile he is making his exit, the curtain drops. 



Steps of extremity are not lliy province, 
Tlierelore have 1 sought out this pari for thee. 
Thou wilt this lime be of most service to mo 
By tiiy inertness. Tlie mean time, if forttmo 
Declare itself on my side, thou wilt know 
What is to do. 

Enter Max. Piccolomim. 
Now go, Octavio. 
This night must thou be off: take my own horses . 
Him here I keep with me — make short farewell — 
Trust me, I thiidi we all shall meet again 
In joy and thriving Ibrtunes. 

OCTAVIO {to his son). 

I shall see you 
Yet ere I go. 



ACT V. 

SCENE I. 

Scene, as in the preceding Act. 

Wallenstein, Octavio Piccolomini. 

WALLENSTEIN (Coming forv;ard in conversation). 
He sends me word from Linz, that he lies sick ; 
But I have sure intelligence, that ho 
Secretes himself at Frauenberg with Galas. 
Secure them both, and send them to me hither. 
Remember, thou takest on thee the command 
Of those same Spanish regiment.*, — constantly 
Make preparation, and be never ready ; 
And if they urge thee to draw out against me. 
Still answer yes, and stand as thou wert fctter'd. 
I know, that it is doing thee a service 
To keep thee out of action in this business. 
Thou lovest to linger on in fair appearances ; 



SCENE II. 
Wallensteix, Max. Piccolomini. 
MAX. (advances to him). 
My General ! 

WALf.ENSTEIN. 

That am 1 no longer, if 
Thou stylest thyself the Emperor's officer 

MAX. 

Then thou wilt leave the army, General ? 

wallexstei.v. 
I have renounced the service of the Emperor. 

MAX. 

And thou wilt leave the army ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Rather hope I 
To bind it nearer still and faster to me. 

[He seals himself 
Yes, Max., I have delay'd to open it to thee, 
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike. 
Youth's fortunate fcehng dolh seize easily 
The absolute right, yea, and a joy it is 
To exercise the single ai)prchension 
Where the sums square in proof; 
But where it happens, that of two sure evils 
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly 
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties. 
There 'tis a blessing to have no election, 
And blank necessity is grace and favor. 
— This is now- present : do not look behind thee. — 
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards ! 
Think not! judge not! prci>are thyself to act' 
The Court — it hath determined on my ruin. 
Therefore I will to bo beforehand with them. 
We'll join the Swedes — right gallant fellows are 

they, 
And our good friends. 

[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answei. 
I have ta'en thee by sur]>rise Answer me not. 
f grant thee time to recollect tnyself 

[He rises, and retires to the back of the stage 
Ma.x. remains for jl long time motionless, 
in a trance of excessive anguish. At his 
frst motion Wallenstein returns 2nd 
places himself before him. 

MA.X. 

INIy General, this day thou makest me 
Of age to speak in my own right and person. 
For till this day I have been spared the trouble 
To find out my own road. Thee have I follovv'd 
171 



162 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



With most implicit unconditional faith, 
Sure of the right path if I follow'd thee. 
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer 
Me to myself, and forcest me to make 
Election between thee and my own heart. 

WALLKNSTEIN, 

Soft cradled thee thy Fortune till to-day ; 
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport, 
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever 
With undivided heart. It can remain 
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads 
Start from each other. Duties strive with duties. 
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war 
Which is now Idndling 'twixt thy friend and him 
Who is thy Emperor. 

MAX. 

War ! is that the name ? 
War is as frightful as heaven's pestilence. 
Yet it is good, is it heaven's will as that is. 
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor 
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army ? 
O God of heaven ! what a change is this ! 
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion 
To thee, who like the fix'd star of the pole 
Wert all 1 gazed at on life's trackless ocean ? 
O ! what a rent t'nou makest in my heart ! 
The ingrain'd instinct of old reverence, 
The holy habit of obediency. 
Must I pluck live asunder from thy name ? 
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me — 
It always was as a god looking at me ! 
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed : 
The senses still are in thy bonds, although. 
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself 



WALLENSTEIN. 



Max., hear me. 



O ! do it not, I pray thee, do it not ! 
There is a pure and noble soul within thee, 
Knows not of this un blest, unlucky doing. 
Thy will is chaste, it is thy fancy only 
Which hath polluted thee — and innocence. 
It will not let itself be driven away 
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not. 
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce 
All human creatures to disloyalty 
Against the nobleness of their own nature. 
'T will justify the vulgar misbelief. 
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will. 
And trusts itself to impotence alone. 
Made powerful only in an lanknown power. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The world will judge me sternly, I expect it. 
Already have I said to my own self 
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids 
The extreme, can he by going round avoid it ? 
But here there is no choice. Yes — I must use 
Or suffer violence — so stands the case. 
There remains nothing possible but that 

MAX. 

O that is never possible for thee ! 

'T is the last desperate resource of those 

Cheap souls, to whom their honor, their good name 

Is their poor saving, Iheir last worthless keep, 

Which having staked and lost, they stake themselves 

In the mad rage of gaming. Thou art rich, 



And glorious ; with an unpolluted heart 

Thou canst make conquest of whate'er seems 

highest ! 

But he, who once hath acted infamy, 
Does nothing more in this world. 

WALLENSTEIN {grasps his liarid). 

Calmly, Max.! 
Much that is great and excellent will we 
Perform together yet. And if we only 
Stand on tiie height with dignity, 't is soon 
Forgotten, Max., by what road we ascended. 
Beheve me, many a crown shines spotless now. 
That yet was deeply sullied in the winning. 
To the evil spirit doth the earth belong, 
Not to the good. All, that the powers divine 
Send from above, are universal blessings : 
Their light rejoices us, their air refreshes, 
But never yet was man enrich'd by them : 
In their eternal realm no property 
Is to be struggled for — all there is general. 
The jewel, the all-valued gold we win 
From the deceiving Powers, depraved in nature 
That dvi'ell beneath the day and blessed sun-light. 
Not without sacrifices are they render'd 
Propitious, and there lives no soul on earth 
That e'er retired unsullied from their service. 

MAX. 

Whate'er is human, to the human being 

Do I allow — and to the vehement 

And striving spirit readily I pardon 

The excess of action ; but to thee, my General '. 

Above all others make I large concession. 

For thou must move a world, and he the master — 

He kills thee, who condemns thee to inaction 

So be it then ! maintain thee in thy post 

By violence. Resist the Emperor, 

And if it must be, force with Ibrce repel . 

I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it. 

But not — not to the traitor — yes I — the word 

Is spoken out 

Not to the traitor can I yield a pardon. 
That is no mere excess ! that is no error 
Of human nature — that is wholly different, 
O that is black, black as the pit of hell ! 

[Wallenstein betrays a sudden agitation 
Thou canst not hear it named, and wilt thou do it ? 

turn back to thy duty. That thou canst, 

1 hold it certain. Send me to Vienna : 

I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor. 
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He 
Shall see thee, Duke ! with my unclouded eye, 
And I bring back his confidence to thee. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It is too late. Thou knowest not what has happen'd 

MAX. 

Were it too late, and were things gone so far. 

That a crime only could prevent thy fall. 

Then — fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood 'sU 

Lose the command. Go from the stage c^f war. 

Thou canst with splendor do it — do it too 

With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others, 

At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee 

My destiny I never part from thine. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It is too late ! Even now, while thou art losing 
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones 
Left fast behind by my post couriers, 

172 



THE PICCOLOMLNI. 



163 



Who licar the on'.cr on to I'ruguc ami I'jira. 

[Max. stattds as convuhcd, kvV/i a gesture awl 
countenance exjtressing the most inteiue an- 
guish. 
Yield tliyself lo it. We act as we arc forced. 
/ cannoi give assent lo my own shame 
And ruin. Thou — no — ihoii canst not forsake me! 
So let us do, what must bo done, with dignity, 
With a firm step. What am I doing worse 
Than did (iimcd Ca'-sar at the Rubicon, 
When he the legions led against his country. 
The which his country had doliver'd to him ? 
Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost, 
As I were, if I but disarm'd myself 
I trace out something in mo of his spirit ; 
Give me his luck, that other thing I'll bear. 

[Max. quits him ahrupll.i). Wallenstein, s^irr/ctZ 
aiul overpowered, continues looking after him, 
and is still in this posture when Teiitsky 
enters. 



SCENE III. 
Wallenstei.n, Tkrtsky. 



TERTSKY. 

Max. Piccolomini just left you ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Where is Wrangel ? 

TERTSIvY. 

He is already gone. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

In such a hurry ? 

TERTSIiY. 

It is as if the earth had swallovv'd him. 

He had scarce left thee, when I went to seek him. 

I wish'd some words with him — liut he was gone. 

How, when, and wliere, could no one tell me. Nay, 

I half believe it was the devil himself; 

A human ctoaiure could not so at once 

Have vanish'd 

ILLO (enters). 
Is it true that thou wilt send 
Octavio ? 

TERTSKY. 

How, Octavio ! Whither send him I 

WALLENSTEIN. 

He goes to Fraunnberg, and will lead hither 
The Spanish and Italian regiments. 

ILLO. 

No! 
Nay, Heaven forbid ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And why should Heaven forbid ? 

ILLO. 

Him! — that deceiver! \Vouldst thou trust to him 
The soldiery? Him wilt thou lot slip from thee, 
Now, in the very instant lliat decides us 

TERTSKY. 

Thou wilt not do this ! — No I I pray thee, no ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ye are whimsical. 

ILLO. 

O but for this time, Duke, 
Yield to our warning! Let him not depart. 

WALLENSTEI.V. 

And why should I not trust him only this time, 



Who have always trusted him? What, tlicn, has 

happcn'd, 
That I should lose my good opinion of him ? 
In complaisance to your whims, not my own, 
I must, forsooth, give up a rooted judgment. 
Tiiink not I am a woman. Having trusted him 
E'en till to^lay, to-day loo will I trust him. 

TERTSKY. 

Must it be he — he only f Send another. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It must be he, whom I mys(df have cho.sen ; 
He is well fitted for the business. Therefore 
I gave It him. 

ILLO. 

Because he's an Italian — 
Therefore is he well fitted for the business ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I know you love them not — nor sire nor son — 

Because that I esteem them, love them — visibly 

Esteem them, love ihcm more than you and others, 

E'en as they merit. Therelore are they eye-blights 

Thorns in your foot-path. But your jealousies, 

In what alicct they me or my concerns ? 

Are they the worse to me because you hate them? 

Love or hate one another as you will, 

I leave to each man his own moods and likings ; 

Yet know the worth of each of you to me. 

ILLO. 

Von Questenberg, while he was here, was always 
Lurking about wiih this Octavio. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It happen'd with my knowledge and permission. 

ILLO. 

I know that secret messengers came to him 
From Galas 

WALLENSTEIN. 

That 's not true. 

ILLO. 

O thou art blind. 
With thy deep-seeing eyes ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thou wilt not shake 
My faith for me — my faith, whicli founds itself 
On the profbundest science. If 'tis false. 
Then the whole science of the stars is false ; 
For know, I have a pledge from Fate itself. 
That he is the most faithful of my friends. 

ILLO. 

Ilast thou a pledge, that this pledge is not false ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

There exist moments in the life of man. 
When he is nearer the great Soul of the woild 
Than is man's custom, and possesses freely 
The power of questioning his destiny : 
And such a moment 'twas, when in the night 
'Before the action in the plains of Liitzen, 
Leaning against a tree, thoughts crowding thoughia 
I look'd out far upon the ominofis plain. 
My whole life, past and future, in this moment 
Before my mind's eye glided in procession, 
And to the destiny of the next morning 
The spirit, fill'd with anxious presentiment. 
Did knit the most removed futurity. 
Then said I also to myself, " So many 
Dost thou command. They follow all thy stars 
And as on some great number set their AH 
Upon thy single head, and only man 
23 73 



164 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



The vessel of thy fortune. Yet a day 

Will come, when Destiny shall once more scatter 

All these in many a several direction: 

Few be they who will stand out faithful to thee." 

1 yearn'd to know which one was faithfullest 

Of all, this camp included. Great Destiny, 

Give me a sign ! And he shall be the man. 

Who, on the approaching morning, comes the first 

To meet me with a token of his love : 

And thinking this, I fell into a slumber. 

Then midmost in the battle was I led 

In spirit. Great the pressure and the tumult ! 

Then was my horse kill'd under me : I sank ; 

And over me away all unconcernedly. 

Drove horse and rider — and thus trod to pieces 

I lay, and panted like a djdng man ; 

Then seized me suddenly a savior arm : 

It was Octavio's — I awoke at once, 

'T was broad day, and Octavio stood before me. 

" My brother," said he, " do not ride to-day 

The dapple, as you're wont; but mount the horse 

Which I have chosen for thee. Do it, brother ! 

In love to me. A strong dream warn'd me so." 

It was the swiftness of this horse that snatch'd me 

From the hot pursuit of Bannier's dragoons. 

My cousin rode the dapple on that day. 

And never more saw 1 or horse or rider. 

ILLO. 

That was a chance. 

WALLEN'STEIN (sifrnificantly). 

There 's no such thing as chance. 
In brief, 'tis sign'd and seal'd that this Octavio 
Is my good angel — and now no word more. 

[He is retiring. 

TERTSKY. 

This is my comfort — i\Iax. remains our hostage. 

ILLO. 

And he shall never stir from here alive. 

WALLENSTEIN {Stops and turns himself round). 
Are ye not like the women, who for ever 
Only recur to their first word, although 
One had been talking reason by the hour ! 
Know, that the human being's thoughts and deeds 
Are not, like ocean billows, blindly moved. 
The inner world, liis mierocosmus, is 
The deep shaft, oat of which they spring eternally. 
They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit — 
No juggling chance can metamorphose them. 
Have I the human kernel first examined ? 
Then I know, too, the future will and action. 



SCENE IV. 



Scene — Ac}tamherinPiccoi.OMisi'sDwelling-House. 
Octavio Piccolomini, Isolani, entering. 

ISOLAN'I. 

Here am I — Well ! who comes yet of the others ? 

OCTAVIO {wi/h an air of mystery). 
But, first a word with you, Count Isolani. 

ISOLANI (assuming the same air of mystery). 
Will it explode, ha ? — Is the Duke about 
To make the attempt ? In me, friend, you may place 
Full confidence. — Nay, put me to the proof. 

OCTAVIO. 

That may happen. 



ISOLANI. 

Noble brother, I am 
Not one of those men who in words are valiant, 
And when it comes to action skulk away. 
The Duke has acted towards me as a friend. 

God knows it is so; and I owe him all 

He may rely on my fidelity. 

OCTAVIO. 

That will be seen hereafter. 

ISOLANI. 

Be on your guard. 
All think not as I think ; and there are many 
Who still hold with the Court — yes, and they say 
That those stolen signatures bind them to nothing 

OCTAVIO. 

I am rejoiced to hear it. 

ISOLANI. 

You rejoice ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Tliat the Emperor has yet such gallant servants, 
And loving friends. 

ISOLANL 

Nay, jeer not, I entreat you. 
They nre no such worthless fellows, I assure you. 

OCTAVIO. 

I am assured already. God forbid 

That I should jest ! — In very serious earnest, 

I am rejoiced to see an honest cause 

So strong. 

ISOLANI. 

The Devil! — what I — why, what means this 
Are you not, then For what, then, am I here 

OCTAVIO. 

That you may make full declaration, whether 
You will be call'd the friend or enemy 
Of the Emperor. 

ISOLANI (with an air of defiance). 
That declaration, friend, 
I '11 make to him in whom a right is placed 
To put that question to me. 

OCTAVIO. 

Whether, Count, 
That right is mine, this paper may instruct you. 

ISOLANI [stammering). 
\Yhy — why — what .' tliis is the Emperor's hand and 

seal ! [Reads 

" \Vliereas, the officers collectively 
Throughout our army will obey the orders 
Of the Lieutenant-general Piccolomini. 
As from ourselves" Hem! — Yes! so! — Yes' 

yes! — 
I — I give you joy. Lieutenant-general ! 

OCTAVIO. 

And you submit you lo the order ? 

ISOLANI. 

I- 

But you have taken me so by surprise — 
Time for reflection one must have 

OCTAVIO. 

Two minutes 

ISOLANI. 

My God ! But then the case is 

OCTAVIO. 

Plain and simplr> 
You must declare you, whether you determine 
To act a treason 'gainst your Lord and Sovereign, 
Or whether you will serve him faithf.illy. 
174 



TIIE PICCOLO]\nNI. 



165 



ISOLANI. 

Treason ! — My God ! — But who talks then of treason ? 

OCTAVIO. 

That is the case. Tlio Frinco-duko is a traitor — 

Means to lead over to the enemy 

The Emperor's army. — Now, Count! — brief and 

full- 
Say, will you break your oath to the Emperor ? 
Sell yourself to the enemy / — Say, will you i 

ISOLAXI. 

What mean you ? I — I break my oath, d' ye say, 

To his Imperial Majesty ? 

Did I say so >. — When, when have I said that ? 

OCTAVIO. 

You have not said it yet — not yet. Tliis instant 
1 wait to hear, Count, whether you will say it. 

ISOLANI. 

Ay ! that delights me now, that you yourself 
Bear witness for me that I never said so. 

OCTAVIO. 

And you renounce the Duke, then ? 

ISOLANI. 

If he's planning 
Treason — why, treason brealjs all bonds asunder. 

OCTAVIO. 

And are determined, too, to fight against him ? 

ISOLANI. 

He has done me service — but if he 's a villain, 
Perdition seize him I — All scores are rubb'd off 

OCTAVIO. 

I am rejoiced that you're so well-disposed. 
This night break off in the utmost secrecy 
With all the light-ann'd troops — it must appear 
As came the order from the Duke himself 
At Frauenberg's the place of rendezvous ; 
There will Count Galas give you further orders. 

ISOLANI. 

It shall be done. But you'll remember mo 

With the Emperor — how well-disposed you found me. 

OCTAVIO. 

I will not fail to mention it honorably. 

[Exit IsoLANi. A Servant enters. 
What, Colonel Butler ! — Show him up. 

ISOLANI {/eturning). 
Forgive me too my bearish ways, old father! 
Lord God I how should I know, then, what a great 
Person I had before me ? 

OCTAVIO. 

No excuses ! 

ISOLANI. 

I am a merry lad, and if at time 

A rash word might escape me 'gainst the court 

Amidst my wine — you luiow no harm was meant. 

[Exit. 

OCTAVIO. 

Vou need not be uneasy on that score. 
That ha-s succeeded. Fortune favor us 
With all the others only but as much ! 



SCENE V. 

OcTAVIO, PiCCOLOMINI, BuTLER. 
nUTLER. 

At your command, Lienlenant-General. 

OCTAVIO. 

Welcome, as honor'd friend and visitor. 
U 



BUTLER. 

You do me too nnich honor. 

OCTAVIO (flftcr both have sealed themseltxs). 
You have not 
Return'd the advances which I made you yesterday- 
Misunderstood them, as mere empty forms. 
That wish proceeded from my heart — I was 
In earnest with you — for 'tis now a time 
In which the honest should unite most closely. 

BUTLER. 

'Tis only the like-minded can unite. 

OCTAVIO, 

True ! and I name all honest inen Lke-minded. 

I never charge a man but with those acts 

To which his character deliberately 

Impels him ; for alas ! the violence 

Of blind misunderstandings often thrusts 

The very best of us from tlie right track. 

You came through Frauenberg. Did the Count Galaa 

Say nothing to you ? Tell me. He's my friend. 

BUTLER. 

Ilis words were lost on Jiie. 

OCTAVIO. 

It grieves me sorely. 
To hear it : for his counsel was most viise. 
I had myself the hke to offer. 

BUTLER. 

Spare 
Yourself the trouble — me th' embarrassment. 
To have deserved so ill your good opinion. 

OCTAVIO. 

The time is precious — lot us talk openly. 
You loiow how matters stand here. Wallenstein 
Meditates treason — I can tell you further — 
He has committed treason ; but few hours 
Have past, since he a covenant concluded 
With the enemy. The messengers are now 
Full on their way to Egra and to Prague. 
To-morrow he intends to lead us over 
To the enemy. But he deceives himself; 
For Prudence wakes — the Emperor has still 
Many and faithful friends here, and they stand 
In closest union, mighty though unseen. 
This manifesto sentences the Duke — 
Recalls the obedience of the army from him, 
And summons all the loyal, all the honest. 
To join and recognize in mo their leader. 
Choose — will you share with us an honest cause ? 
Or with the evil share an evil lot. 



His lot is mine. 



It is. 



BUTLER {rises). 

OCTAVIO. 

Is that your last resolve ? 

BUTLER. 



OCTAVIO. 

Nay, but bethink you, Colonel Butler ! 
As yet you have time. Within my faithful breast 
That rashly-utter'd word remains interr'd. 
Recall it, Butler! choose a better party: 
You have not chosen the right one. 
BUTLER (going). 

Any other 
Commands for me, Lieutenanl-General ? 

OCTAVIO. 

See your white hairs I Tlecall that word I 
175 



IGO 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



BUTLER. 

Farewell ! 

OCTAVIO. 

What ? Would you draw this good and gallant sword 
In such a cause ? Into a curse would you 
Transform the gratitude which you have earn'd 
By forty years' fidelity from Austria ? 

BUTLER (laughing with litlerness). 
Gratitude from the House of Austria ! [He is going. 
OCTAVIO {permits him to go as far as the door, then 

calls after him). 
Butler. 

BUTLER. 

What wish you ? 

OCTAVIO. 

How was't with the Count? 

BUTLER. 

Count? what? 

OCTAVIO {coldly). 
The title that you wish'd, I mean. 
BUTLER {starts in sudden passion). 
Hell and damnation ! 

OCTAVIO {coldli/). 

You petition'd for it — 
And your petition was repell'd — Was it so ? 

BUTLER. 

Your insolent scoff shall not go by unpunish'd. 
Draw! 

OCTAVIO. 

Nay! your swo rd to 'ts sheath! and tell me calmly, 
How all that happen'd. I will not refuse you 
Your satisfaction afterwards. — Calmly, Butler ! 

BUTLER. 

Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness 

For which I never can forgive myself 

Lieutenant-General ! Yes — I have ambition. 

Ne'er was I able to endure contempt. 

It stung me to the quick, that birth and title 

Should have more weight than merit has in the army. 

I would fain not be meaner than my equal. 

So in an evil hour I let myself 

Be tempted to that measure — It was folly ! 

But yet so hard a penance it deserved not. 

It might have been refused ; but wherefore barb 

And venom the refusal with contempt ? 

Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn 

The gray-hair'd man, the faithful veteran ? 

Why to the baseness of his parentage 

Refer him with such cruel roughness, only 

Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself? 

But Nature gives a sting e'en to the worm 

Which wanton Power treads on in sport and insult. 

OCTAVIO. 

You must have been calumniated. Guess you 
The enemy, who did you this ill service ? 

BUTLER. 

Be't who it will — a most low-hearted scoundrel, 
Some vile court-minion must it be, some Spaniard, 
Some young squire of some ancient fomily. 
In whose light I may stand, some envious knave, 
Stung to the soul by my fair self-earn'd honors ! 

OCTAVIO. 

But tell me ! Did the Duke approve that measure ? 

BUTLER. 

Himself impell'd me to it, used his interest 

In. my behalf with all the warmth of friendship. 



OCTAVIO. 

Ay ? are you sure of that ? 

BUTLER. 

I read the letter 

OCTAVIO. 

And so did I — but the contents were different. 

[Butler is suddenhj struck 
By chance I 'm in possession of that letter — 
Can leave it to your own eyes to convince you. 

[He gives him the letter 
butler. 
Ha ! what is this ? 

OCTAVIO. 

I fear me. Colonel Butler, 
An infamous game have they been playing with you 
The Duke, you say, impell'd you to this measure ? 
Now, in this letter talks he in contempt 
Concerning you, counsels the minister 
To give sound chastisement to your conceit. 
For so he calls it. 

[Butler reads through the letter, his knees tremhle 
he seizes a chair, and sinks down in it. 
You have no enemy, no persecutor ; 
There 's no one wishes ill to you. Ascribe 
Tlie insult you received to the Duke only. 
His aim is clear and palpable. He wish'd 
To tear you from your Emperor — he hoped 
To gain from your revenge what he well knew 
(What your long-tried fidelity convinced him) 
He ne'er could dare expect from your calm reason 
A blind tool would he malie you, in contempt 
Use you, as means of most abandon'd ends. 
He has gain'd his point. Too welt has he succeeded 
In luring you away from that good path 
On which you had been journeying forty years ! 

butler {his voice trembling). 
Can e'er the Emperor's Majesty forgive me ? 

OCTAVIO. 

More than forgive you. He would fain compensate 
For that affront, and most unmerited grievance 
Sustain'd by a deserving, gallant veteran. 
From his free impulse he confirms the present, 
Which the Duke made you for a wicked purpose. 
The regiment, which you now command, is your's. 
[Butler attempts to rise, si7iks down again. He 
labors inwardly with violent emotions ; tries 
to speak, and cannot. At length he takes his 
sword from the belt, and offers it to Picco- 
lomini. 

OCTAVIO. 

What wish you ? Recollect yourself, friend. 



Take it 



butler. 

OCTAVIO. 

But to what purpose ? Calm yourseT. 

BUTLER. 

O take it .' 
I am no longer worthy of this sword. 

OCTAVIO. 

Receive it then anew from my hands — and 
Wear it with honor for the right cause ever 

BUTLER. 

Perjure myself to such a gracious Sovereign ! 

OCTAVIO. 

You 'U make amends. fiSu,ick! breakofffrom the Duke 
176 



THE PICCOLOMINI. 



167 



Break off from him ! 

OCTAVIO. 

What now ? Betliink thyself. 
BUTLKR (no longer governing his emotion). 
Only break off from him i He dies ! he dies ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Come after me to Frauenberer, where now 
All who are loyal, are assembling under 
Counts Altringer and Galas. Many others 
I've brought to a remembrance of their duty. 
This night be sure that you escape from Pilsen. 

BUTLER (strides up and down in excessive agitation, 
then steps up to Octavio iciih resolved countenance). 
Count Piccolomini ! Dare that man speak 
Of honor to you, who once broke his troth ? 

OCTAVIO. 

He, who repents so deeply of it, dares. 

BUTLER. 

Then leave me here, upon my word of honor I 

OCTAVIO. 

What 's your design ? 

BCTLER. 

Leave me and my regiment 

OCTAVIO. 

I .have full confidence in you. But tell me 
What are you brooding ? 

BUTLER. 

That the deed will tell you. 
Ask me no more at present. Trust to me. 
Ye may trust safely. By the living God 
Ye give him over, not to liis good angel ! 
Farewell. [Exit Butler 

SERVANT (enters with a billet). 
A stranger left it, and is gone. 
The Prince-duke's horses wait for you below. 

[Exit Servant. 
OCTAVIO (reads). 
" Be sure make haste I Your faithful Isolan." 
— O that I had but left this town beiiind me. 
To split u]>on a rock so near the haven ! — 
Away ! This is no longer a safe place for me I 
Where can my son be tarrying ? 



SCENE VI. 



OcTAVio a7id Ma.\. Piccolomini. 

Max. enters almost in a state of derangement from 
extreme agitation, his ei/es roll wildly, his tvalk is 
unsteady, and he appears not to observe his father 
who stands at a distance, and gazes at him with a 
countenance expressive of coinjmssion. He paces 
vnth long strides through the chamber, then sla7ids 
still again, and at last throws himself into a chair, 
staring vacantly at the object directly before him. 

OCTAVIO (advances to him). 
I am going off, my son. 

[Receiving no answer, he takes his hand. 
My son, farewell. 

MAX. 

Farewell. 

OCTAVIO. 

Thou wilt soon follow me ? 



I follow thee ! 
Thy way is crooked — it is not my way. 

[OcTAVio drops his hand, and starts hack. 
O, hadst thou been but simple and sincere, 
Ne'er had it come to this — all had stood otherwise. 
He had not done that Ibul and iiorribie deed : 
The virtuous had retain'd their influence o'er him : 
He had not fallen into the snares of villains. 
Wherefore so like a lliiof, and thiefs accomplice, 
Didst creep behind him — lurking for thy prey ? 
O, unblcst falsehood ! Mother of all evil I 
Thou misery-making demon, it is thou 
Tiiat sink'st us in perdition. Simple truth, 
Su.stainer of the world, had saved us all I 
Father, I will not, I can not excuse thee ! 
Wallenstein has deceived me — O, most foully ! 
But thou hast acied not much better. 

OCTAVIO. 

Son! 
My son, ah I I forgive thy agony ! 

JIAX. (rises, and contemplates his father with looks of 

suspicion). 
Was 't possible ? hadst thou the heart, my father, 
Hadst thou the lieart to drive it to such lengths, 
With cold premeditated purpose ? Thou — 
Hadst thou the heart, to wish to see him guilty. 
Rather than saved ? Thou risest by his fall. 
Octavio, 't will not please me. 

OCTAVIO. 

God in Heaven ! 

»1AX. 

O, woe is me ! sure I have changed my nature. 
How comes suspicion here — in the free soul ? 
Hope, confidence, lielief, are gone ; for all 
Lied to me, all that I e'er loved or honor'd. 
No! no ! not all ! She — she yet lives for me, 
And she is true, and open as the heavens ! 
Deceit is everywhere, hypocrisy, 
Murder, and poisoning, treason, perjury : 
The single holy sjwt is our love. 
The only unprofaned in human nature. 

OCTAVIO. 

Max.! — we will go together. 'Twill be better. 

MAX. 

What ? ere I 've taken a last parting leave. 
The very last — no, never! 

OCTAVIO. 

Spare thyself 
The pang of necessary separation. 
Come with me I Come, my son ! 

[Attempts to take him with him 

MAX. 

No! as sure as God lives, no! 

OCTAVIO (more urgently). 
Come with me, I command thee ! 1, thy father. 

MAX. 

Command me what is human. I stay here. 

OCTAVIO. 

Max.! in the Emperor's name I bid thee come. 

MAX. 

No Emperor has power to prescribe 

Laws to the heart ; and woiddst thou wish to rob me 

Of the sole blessing which my fate has left me. 

Her sympathy ? Must then a cruel deed 

Be done with cruelty ? The unalterable 

177 



168 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Shall I perform ignobly — steal away, 
With stealthy coward tlight forsake her? No ! 
She shall behoUi my suflering, my sore anguish, 
Hear the complaints of the disparted soul. 
And weep tears o'er me. Oh ! the human race 
Have steely souls — but she is as an angel. 
From the black deadly madness of despair 
Will she redeem my soul, and in soft words 
Of comfort, plaining, loose this pang of death ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Thou wilt not tear thyself away ; thou canst not. 
O, come, my son I I bid thee save thy virtue. 

MAX. 

Squander not thou thy words in vain. 
The heart I follow, for I dare trust to it. 

OCTAVIO (trembling, and losing all self-command). 
Max. ! Max. ! if that most damned thing could be. 
If thou — my son — my own blood — (dare 1 think it?) 
Do sell thyself to him, the infamous, 
Do stamp this brand upon our noble house. 
Then shall the world behold the horrible deed. 
And in unnatural combat shall the steel 
Of the son trickle with the father's blood. 

MAX. 

O hadst thou always belter thougiit of men. 
Thou hadst then acted better. Curet suspicion ! 
Unholy, miserable doubt ! To him 
Nothing on earth remains unwrench'd and firm. 
Who has no faith. 

OCTAVIO. 

And if I trust thy heart, 
Wi'll it be always in thy power to follow it ? 



The heart's voice thou hast not o'erpower'd — as litl I . 
Will Wallenstein be able to o'erpower it. 

OCTAVIO. 

O, Max. ! I see thee never more again ! 

MAX. 

Unworthy of thee wilt thou never see me. 

OCTAVIO. 

I go to Frauenberg — the Pappenheimers 

I leave thee here, the Lothrings too ; Toskana 

And Tiefenbach remain here to protect thee. 

They love thee, and are faiihful to their oath. 

And will far rather fall in gallant contest 

Than leave their rightful leader, and their honor. 

•• MAX. 

Rely on this, I either leave my life 

In the struggle, or conduct them out of Pilsen. 

OCTAVIO. 

Farewell, my son ! 

MAX. 

Farewell! 

OCTAVIO. 

How ! not one look 
Of filial love ? No grasp of the hand at parting ? 
It is a bloody war to which we are going. 
And the event uncertain and in darluiess. 
So used we not to part — it was not so! 
Is it then true i I have a son no longer ? 

[Ma.x. falls into his arms, they hold each other 
for a long time in a speechless embrace 
then go ariaij at different sides. 
(The Curtain drops). 



A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS. 



PREFACE. 



The two Dramas, PiccolomIiXI, or the first part of 
Wallenstein, and Wallenstein, are introduced in 
the original manuscript by a Prelude in one Act, en- 
titled Wallenstein's Camp. This is written in 
rhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting 
metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the 
second Eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar. 

This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, and 
is not deficient in character ; but to have translated 
it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the 
original, would have given a false idea both of its 
style and purjiort ; to have translated it into the same 
metre would been incompatible with a faithful ad- 
herence to the sense of the German, from the com- 
parative poverty of our language in rhymes ; and it 
would have been unadvisable, from the incongruity 
of those lax verses with the present taste of the 
English Public. Schiller's intention seems to have 
been merely to have prepared his reader for the 
Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of dis- 
cipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallen- 
stein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary 



explanation. For these reasons it has been thought 
expedient not to translate it 

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted 
their idea of that author from the Rol)bers, and the 
Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is 
produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in 
which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extra- 
ordinary incident, will not have perused without 
some portion of disappointment the Dramas, which 
it has been my employment to translate. They 
should, however, reflect that these are Historical 
Dramas, taken from a popular German History; that 
we must therefore judge of them in some measure 
with the feelings of Germans ; or by analogy, with 
the interest excited in us by similar Dramas in our 
own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant 
enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare ; yet, 
merely as illustration, I would say that we should 
proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear 
or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three 
parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapid- 
ity in an Historical Drama ; and many prolix speeches 
are pardoned from characters, whose names and ac- 
tions have formed the most amusing tales of our early 
life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays 

178 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



109 



inoro indiviilua. boautics, more passactes whose ex- 
cellence will bear rclleclion, than in the former pro- 
ductions of Schiller. The description of the Astro- 
logical Tower, und the rellections of the Young 
Lover, whicli follow it, form in the original a fme 
poem; niid niv ininslaiion must have been wretched 
indeed, if it can have wholly overclouded the beauties 
of the Scene in the lirsi Act of the first Play between 
Qucstenberg, Max., and Octavio Piccolomini. If we 
except the Scene of the setting sun in the Robliers, 
I know of no part in Schiller's 1'1,-iys which eciuals 
the whole of the first Scene of the fifth Act of the 
concluding Play. It would be unbecoming in me to 
be more dilliise on this suliject. A translator stands 
connected with the original Author by a cerlaia law 
of subordination, which makes it more decorous to 
point out excellencies than defects : indeed he is not 
likely to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or 
disgust from his own labor will mingle with the 
feelings that arise from an afier-view of the original. 
Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign 
language which we understand, we are apt to at- 
tribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, 
from otir own pleasurable sense of diniculty over- 
come without effijrt. Translation of poetry into poetry 
is diflicult, because the translator must give a bril- 
liancy to his language without that wariutii of oritrinal 
conception, from which such brilliancy would Ibliow 
of its own accord. But the Translator of a living 
Author is encumbered with additional inconveni- 
ences. If he render his original faithfully, as to the 
sense of each passage, he nmst necessarily destroy a 
considerable portion of the aplril ; if he endeavor to 
gi\e a work executed according to laws of compe/isa- 
tion, he subjects him.self to imputations of vanity, or 
misrepresentation. I have Ihougiit it my duty to re- 
main bound by the sense of my original, with as few 
exceptions as the nature of the languages rendered 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 



ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

ScE.NE — A Chamber in the House of Ike Duchess of 

Friedland.. 

Countess Tertsky, Tiiekla, Lady Neubrijnn {the 
(wo latter sit at the same table at work). 

COUNTESS {watching them from the opposite side) 
.So you have nothing to ask me — nothing? 
I have been waiting for a word from you. 
And could you then endure in all this time 
Not once to speak his name ? 

[TiiEifi.A remaining sihnt, the Cou.ntess rises 
and advances to her. 

U'hy, how comes this ? 
Perhaps I am already grown superlluous, 
And other ways exist, besides through me ? 
Confess it to me, Thekla ; have you seen Iiirn ? 

TIIEKI.A. 

To-day and yesterday I have not seen him. 

counte.ss. 
And no! heard from him, either? Come, be open. 

tiiekla. 
No syllable. 

cou.ntess. 
And still you are so calm ? 

TIIEKLA. 

I am. 

COUNTESS. 

May't please you, leave us. Lady Neubrunn. 
[Exit Lady Neubrunn 



WALLENSTEIN, Di(7\e (f Friedland, Generalissimo of 
the Imjierinl forces in the Thirl i/-i/ears' War. 

Duchess of Friedland, 117^ of WaJlensiein. 

Thekla, her Da-.gh/er, Princess (f Friedland. 

The Countess Tejitsky, Sister of the Duchess. 

Lady Neubrunn. 

Octavio Piccolomini, Lien/cnant-General. 

Max. Piccolomini, his Son. Colonel of a Regiment 
of Cuirassiers. 

CouwT Tertsky, the Commander of several Regi- 
ments, and Tirol lier-in-J(iuj of Wedlenslcin. 

Illo, Field Marshal, Wallens!ein's Confidant. 

BtJTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of 
Dragoons. 

Gordon, Governor of Egra. 

Major Geraldin. 

Captain Deverkux. 

Macdonald. 

Neumann, Captain of Cavalry, Aid-de-camp to Tertsky. 

Swedish Captain. 

Senl 

Burgomaster of Egra. 

Anspe.ssade <f the Cuirassiers. 

Groom of the Chamber, ? „ , . . ., n i 
j^ p.QP > Belonging to the Duke. 

Ci;iR.ASSiKRS, Dragoons, Servants. 

as 



SCENE II. 
The Countess, Thekla. 

countess. 
It does not please me. Princess, that he holds 
Himself so still, exactly at this time. 

thekla. 
Exactly at this time ? 

COUNTESS. 

lie now knows all : 
'Twere now the moment to declare himself. 

THEKLA. 

If I 'm to understand you, speak less darkly. 

COUNTESS. 

'Twas for that purpose that I bade her leave us. 

Thelka, you are no more a child. Your heart 

Is now no more in nonage : for you love. 

And boldness dwells with love — that you have proved 

Your nature moulds itself upon your father's 

More than your mother's spirit. Therefore may yoti 

Hear, what w'ere too much for her fortitude. 

THEKLA. 

Enough : no further preface, I entreat you 
At once, out with it ! Be it what it may, 
It is not possible tliat it should torture me 
More thaw this introduction. What have you 
To say to nie ? Tell me the whole, and briedy 

COUNTESS. 

You'll not be frighten'd 

1/9 



170 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



THEKLA. 

Name it, I entreat you. 

COUNTESS. 

It lies within your power to do your father 
A weighty service 

THEKLA. 

Lies vvithin my power ? 

COUNTESS. 

Max. Piccolomini loves you. You can link him 
Indissolubly to your father. 

THEKLA. 

I? 

What need of me for that ? And is he not 
Already linli'd to him ? 

COUNTESS 

He was. 

THEKLA. 

And wherefore 
Should he not be so now — not be so always ? 

COUNTESS. 

He cleaves to the Emperor too. 

THEKLA. 

Not more than duty 
And honor may demand of him. 

COUNTESS. 

We ask 
Proofs of his love, and not proofs of his honor. 
Duty and honor! 

Those are ambiguous words with many meanings. 
You should interpret them for him : his love 
►Should be the sole de.lner of his honor. 

THEKLA. 

How ? 

COUNTESS. 

The Emperor or you must he renounce. 

THEKLA. 

He will accompany my father gladly 

In his retirement. From himself you heard, 

How much he wish'd to lay aside the sword. 

COUNTESS. 

He must not lay the sword aside, we mean ; 
He must unsheathe it in your father's cause. 

THEKLA. 

He'll spend with gladness and alacrity 

His life, his heart "s-blood in my father's cause, 

If sliame or injury be intended him. 

COUNTESS. 

You will not understand me Well, hear then : — 
Your father has fallen off from the Emperor, 
And is about to join the enemy 
Witli the whole soldiery 

THEKLA. 

Alas, my mother! 

COUNTESS. 

There needs a great example to draw on 
The army after him. The Piccolomini 
Possess the love and reverence of the troops ; 
They govern all opinions, and wherever 
They lead the way, none hesitate Xo follow. 
The son secures the father to our interests — 
You 've much in your liands at this moment 

THEKLA. 

Ah, 
My miserable mother ! what a death-stroke 
Awaits thee! — JN'o ! she never will survive it. 



COUNTESS. 

She will accommodate her soul to that 

Which is and must be. I do know your mother 

The far-off future weighs upon her heart 

With torture of anxiety ; but is it 

Unalterably, actually present. 

She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly. 

THEKLA. 

my foreboding bosom ! Even now. 

E'en now 'tis here, that icy hand of horror! 
And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp; 

1 knew it well — no sooner had I enter'd, 
A heavy ominous presentiment 

Reveal'd to me, that spirits of death were hovering 
Over my happy fortune. But why think I 
First of myself? My mother! O my mother! 

COUNTESS. 

Calm yourself! Break not out in vain lamenting! 
Preserve you for your father the firm friend, 
And for yourself the lover, all will yet 
Prove good and fortunate. 

THEKLA. 

Prove good ! What good 
Must we not part ? — part ne'er to meet again ? 

COUNTESS. 

He parts not from you ! He can not part from you 

THEKLA. 

Alas for his sore anguish ! It will rend 
His heart asunder. 

COUNTESS. 

If indeed he loves you 
His resolution will be speedily taken. 

THEKLA. 

His resolution will be speedily taken — 
O do not doubt of that ! A resolution ! 
Does there remain one to be taken ? 

COUNTESS. 

Hush! 
Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming. 

THEKLA. 

How shall I bear to see her ? 

COUNTESS. 

Collect yourself. 



SCENE III. 



To them enter the Duchess. 

DUCHESS Uo the Countess). 
Who was here, sister ? I heard some one talking, 
And passionately too. 

COUNTESS. 

Nay ! There was no one. 

DUCHESS. 

I am grown so timorous, every trifling noise 
Scatters my spirits, and announces to me 
The footstep of some messenger of evil. 
And you can tell me, sister, what the event is ? 
Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure. 
And send the horee-regiments to ihe Cardinal? 
Tell me, has he dismiss'd Von Qiiesienberg 
With a favorable answer ? 

COUNTESS. 

No, he has not 

DUCHESS. 

Alas ! then all is lost ! I see it coming. 
The worst that can come I Yes, they will depose him 
180 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



171 



Th« accursed business of tlie Rcgeiisburg diet 
Will all be acted o'er again ! 

COUNTESS. 

No ! never ! 
Make your heart easy, sister, as to that. 

fl'iiKKLA, in extreme agitation, throws herself tipon 
her mother and enfolds her in her arms, weeping. 

DUCHESS. 

Yes, my poor child ! 

Thou too ha-st lost a most afTectionale godmother 

In the Empress. O that stern unbending man ! 

In tills unliappy marriage what have I 

Not suflbr'd, not endured ? For even as if 

1 had been link'd on to some wheel of fire 

That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward, 

I have puss'd a life of frights and horrors with him. 

And ever to the brink of some abyss 

Willi dizz)- headlong violence he whirls me. 

Nay, do not weep, my child ! Let not my sufferings 

Presignify unhappiness to thee. 

Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee. 

There lives no second Friedland : thou, ray child, 

Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny. 

THEKLA. 

let us supplicate him, dearest mother ! 
Quick I quick! here's no abiding-place for us. 
Here every coming hour broods into hfe 
Some new affrightful monster. 

DUCHESS. 

Tliou wilt share 
An easier, calmer lot, my child ! We too, 

1 and thy father, wilness'd happy days. 

Still ihink I with delight of those first years, 

Wiicn he was making progress wilh glad eflbrt. 

When his ambition was a genial fire. 

Not that consuming flame which now it is. 

Tiie Emperor loved him, trusted him : and all 

He undertook could not but be successful. 

But since that ill-slarr'd day at Regeiisburg, 

Which plunged him headlong from his dignity, 

A gloomy uncompanionable spirit, 

Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him. 

I (is quiet mind forsook him, and no longer 

Did he yield up himself in joy and faith 

To his old luck, and individual power; 

But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best afTections 

All to ihose cloudy sciences, which never 

Have yet made happy him who follow'd them. 

COUNTESS. 

Vou see it, sister ! as your eyes permit you. 

Bui surely this is not the conversation 

To pass the time in which we are waiting for him. 

\'ou know he will be soon here. Would you have 

him 
Find her in this condition ? 

DUCHESS. 

Come, my child ! 
Come wipe away thy tears, and show thy father 
A cheerful countenance. See, the lie-knot here 
Is ofi— this hair must not hang so dishevell'd. 
I'ome, dearest! dry thy tears up. They deform 
Thy gentle eye. — VVell now — what was I saying ? 
Yes, in good truth, this Piccolornini 
Is a most noble and deserving gentleman. 

COUNTESS. 

That Ls he, sister ! 



THEKLA (to the Countess, with rnarfcs of great cpprei- 
sion of spirits). 
Aunt, you will excuse me ? {Is going). 

COUNTESS. 

But whither ? See, your father comes. 

THEKLA. 

I carmot see him now. 

COUNTESS. 

Nay, but bethink you. 

THEKLA. 

Believe me, I cannot sustain his presence. 

COUNTESS. 

But he will miss you, will ask after you. 

DUCHESS. 

What now ? Why is she going ? 

COUNTESS. 

She's not well. 
DUCHESS {anxiously). 
What ails then my beloved child ? 

[Both follow the Princess, and endeavor to detain 
her. During this Wallenstein appears, engaged 
in conversation with Illo. 



SCENE IV. 

Wallenstein, Illo, Countess, Duchess, Thekjla. 

wallenstein. 
All quiet in the camp ? 

ILLO. 

It is all quiet 

wallenstein. 
In a few hours may couriers come from Praguo 
With tidings, that this capital is ours. 
Then we may drop the mask, and to the troops 
Assembled in this town make known the measure 
And its result together. In such cases 
Example does the whole. Whoever is foremost 
Still leads the herd. An imitative creature 
Is man. The troops at Prague conceive no other, 
Than that the Pilsen army has gone through 
The forms of homage to us ; and in Pilsen 
They shall swear fealty to us, because 
The example has been given them by Prague. 
Butler, you tell me, has declared himself? 

ILLO. 

At his own bidding, unsolicited, 

He came to offer you himself and regiment 

wallenstein. 
I find we must not give implicit credence 
To every warning voice that makes itself 
Be listen'd to in the heart. To hold us back, 
Ofl does the lying Spirit counterfeit 
The voice of Truth and inward Revelation, 
Scattering false oracles. And thus have I 
To entreat forgiveness, for that secretly 
I 've wrong'd this honorable gallant man. 
This Butler : for a feeling, of the which 
I am not master {frar I would not call it), 
Creeps o'er me instantly, with sense of shuddering 
At his approach, and stops love's joyous motion. 
And this same man, against whom I am wam'd. 
This honest man is he, who reaches to me 
The first pledge of my fortune. 
illo. 

And doubt not 
24 181 



172 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



That his example will win over to you 
The best men in the army. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Go and send 
Isolani hither. Send him immediately. 
He is under recent obligations to me : 
With him will I commence tlie trial. Go. 

[Exit I LLC. 

WALLENSTEIN {turtis himself -lound to the females). 
Lo, there the mother with tlie darling daughter : 
For once we '11 have an interval of rest — 
Come ! my heart yearns to live a cloudless hour 
In the beloved circle of my family. 

COUNTESS. 

'Tis long since we've been thus together, brother. 

WALLENSTEIN (,to the CouNTESs aside). 
Can she sustain the news ? Is she prepared ? 

COUNTESS. 

Not yet. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Come here, my sweet girl! Seat thee by me, 
For there is a good spirit on thy lips. 
Thy mother praised to me thy ready skill : 
She says a voice of melody dwells in thee. 
Which doth enchant the soul. Now such a voice 
Will drive away from me the evil demon 
That beats his black viings close above my head. 

DUCHESS. 

Where is thy lute, my daughter ? Let thy father 
Hear so;ne small trial of thy skill. 

THEKLA. 

My mother ! 
I— 

DUCHESS. 

Trembling ? come, collect thyself. Go, cheer 
Thy father. 

THEKLA. 

O my mother ! I — I Cannot. 

COUNTESS. 

How, what is that, niece ? 

THEKLA (to the Countess). 
O spare me — sing — now — in this sore anxiety 
Of the o'erburthen'd soul — to sing to him. 
Who is thrusting, even now, my mother headlong 
Into her grave. 

DUCHESS. 

How, Thekla I Humorsome ? 
What ! shall thy father have express'd a wish 
In vain ? 

COUNTFSS. 

Here is the lute. 

THELLA. 

My God ! how can I — 
[77(6 archest raplai/s. During ihcritorneUoTiiEKi^A 
expresses in her gestures and countenance the 
struggle of her feelings : and at the moment 
that she should begin to sing, contracts her- 
self together, as one shuddering, throws the 
instrument down, and retires abruptly. 

DUCHESS. 

My etiild ! O she is ill— 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Wliat ails the maiden ? 
Say, IS she often so ? 

COUNTESS. 

Since then herself 



Has now betray'd it, I too must no longer 
Conceal it. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What? 

COUNTESS. 

She loves him! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Loves him ! Whom 

COUNTESS. 

Max. does she love ! Max. Piccolomini. 

Hast thou ne'er noticed it ? Nor yet my sister ? 

DUCHESS. 

Was it this that lay so heavy on her heart ? 

God's blessing on thee, my sweet child tliou need's?. 

Never take shame upon tliee for thy clioice. 

COUNTESS. 

This journey, if 'twere not thy aim, ascribe it 

To thine own self Thou shouldst have chosen an 

other 
To have attended her. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And does he know it ? 

COUNTESS. 

Yes, and he hopes to win her. 



Is the boy mad '' 



WALLENSTEIN. 

Hopes to win her ! 

COUNTESS. 

Well, hear it from themselves. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

He thinks lo carry o.T Duke Friedland's daughter! 

Ay ? the thought pleases me. 

The young man has no grovelling spirit 

COUNTESS 

Since 
Such and such constant favor you have shown him- 

WALLENSTEIN. 

He chooses finally to be my heir. 

And true it is, I love the youth ; yea, honor him. 

But must he therefore be mv daughter's husbani' ? 

Is it daughters only ? Is it only children 

That we must show our favor ])y? 

DUCHESS. 

His noble disposition and his manners — 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Win him my heart, but not my daughter. 

DUCHESS. 

Then 
His rank, his ancestors — 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ancestors ! What ? 
He is a subject, and my son-in-law 
I will seek out upon the thrones of Europe. 

DUCHESS. 

O dearest Albrccht ! Climb we not too high, 
Lest we should fall too low. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What ? have I paid 
A price so heavy to ascend tliis eminence, 
And jut out high above the common herd, 
Only to close the mighty part I play 
In Life's great drama, with a common kinsman ? 
Have I for this — 

[Stops suddenly, repressing himself 
She is the only thing 
That will remain behind of me on earth ; 
And I will see a crown around her head, 

182 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



173 



Or (lie in the attempt to place it there. 
1 hazartl all — all ! anil lor this alone, 
To lilt her into greatness — 

Yea, in this moiuent, in the which we are speaking — 
[lie recollects himself. 
And I must now, like a soft-hearted father, 
Couple togellier u\ good peasant-fashion 
'I'he pair, that chance to suit each other's lildng — 
Ami I must do it now, even now, when I 
Am stretching out the wrealli that is to twine 
My full accoiuplish'd work — no! she is tlie jewel. 
Which 1 have treasured long, my last, my noblest, 
And 'tis my purpose not to let her from nie 
For less tlion a king's sceptre. 

DUCHESS. 

O my husband ! 
You're ever building, building to the clouds, 
Still building higher, and still higher building. 
And ne'er reflect, that the poor narrow basis 
Caiuiot sustain tlie giddy tottering column. 

WALLENSTKIX {lO the CoUNTESS.) 

Have you announced the place of residence 
\V'luch 1 have destined for her ? 

COUNTESS. 

No ! not yet. 
T were belter you yourself disclosed it to her, 

DUCHESS. 

How ? Do we not return to Karn then ? 



No. 



SCENE V. 

To them enter Count Tertsky. 

COUNTESS. 

—Tertsky! 
Wliat ails him ? What an image of affright ! 
He looks as he had seen a ghost. 

TERTSKY {leading Wallexstein asidei. 
Is it thy connnand that all the Croats — 

\VALLE.NSTE1.\. 

Mine ' 

TERTSICY. 

We are betray 'd. 

WALLE.NSTEIM. 

What ? 

TERTSKY. 

They are off! This night 
The Jiigers likewise — all the villages 
In the whole round are empty. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Isolani ? 

TERTSKY. 

Him thou hast sent away. Yes, surely 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I? 
TERTSKY. 

No! Hast thou not sent him off? Nor Dcodate? 
They are vanish'd both of ihem. 



WALLENSTEIN. 
DUCHESS. 

And to no other of your lands or seats ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

You would not be secure there. 

DUCHESS. 

Not secure 
In the Emperor's realms, beneath the Emperor's 
Protection ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Fricdland's wife may be permitted 
No longer to hope tJiat. 

DUCHESS. 

O God in Heaven ! 
And have you brought it even to this I 

WALLENSTEIN 

In Holland 
You'll find protection. 

DUCHESS. 

In a Lutheran cauntry ? 
What ? And you send us into Lutheran countries ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Duke Franz of Lauenburg conducts you thither. 

DUCHESS. 

Duke Franz of I«Tuenburg ? 

The ally of Sweden, the Emperor's enemy. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The Emperor's enemies are mine no longer. 
DUCHESS (casting a look of terror on the Duke and the 

Countess.) 
Is it then true ? It is. You are degraded ? 
Deposed from the command ? O God in Heaven ! 

COUNTESS {aside to tlie Duke). 
J^ave her in this beUof Thou seest she can not 
Support the real truth. 



SCENE VI. 

To them enter Illo. 
ILLO. 
Has Tertsky told thee ? 

TERTSKY. 

He knows all. 

ILLO. 

And likewise 
That Esterhatzy, Goetz, Maradas, Kauniiz, 
Kolatto, Palfi, have forsaken thee. 

TERTSKY. 

Damnation ! 

WALLENSTEIN {wi?iJis at them). 
Hush ! 
COUNTESS («7(0 has been watching them anxiously from 

the disfanre, and now advances to them). 
Tertsky! Heaven! What is it ? What has happen'd ? 

WALLENSTELN {scorccli/ Suppressing his emotion). 
Nothing! let us be gone! 

TERTSKY {following him). 

Theresa, it is nothing. 
COUNTESS {holding him hack). 
Nothing? Do 1 not sec, that all the life-blood 
Has left your cheeks — look you not like a ghost ? 
That even my brother i)ut affects a calmness ? 

PACE {entem). 
An Aid-de-Camp inquires for the Count Tertsky. 
[Tkrtsky follows the Pag£. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Go, hear his business. 

{To Illo). 
This could not have happen'd 
So unsuspected without mutiny. 
Who was on guard at the gates ? 

ILLO. 

'Twas Tiefenbacli. 
183 



174 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

Let Tiefenbach leave guard without delay, 
And Tertsky's grenadiers relieve liim. 
(Illo is going). 

Stop ! 
Hast thou heard aught of Butler ? 

ILLO. 

Him I met : 

He will be here himself immediately. 
Butler remains unshaken. 

[Illo exit. Wallemstein is following him. 

COUNTESS. 

Let him not leave thee, sister ! go, detain him ! 
There 's some misfortune. 

DUCHESS (clinging to him). 

Gracious Heaven I what is it ? 
wallenstein. 
Be tranquil ' leave me, sister ! dearest wife ! 
We are in camp, and this is naught unusual ; 
Here storm and sunshine follow one another 
With rapid interchanges. These fierce spirits 
Champ the curb angrily, and never yet 
Did quiet bless the temples of the leader. 
If I am to stay, go you. The plaints of women 
111 suit the scenes where men must act. 

[He is going : Tektsky returns. 

TERTSKY. 

Remain here. From this window must we see it. 

WALLENSTEIN {tO the CoUNTESS). 

Sister, retire! 

COUNTESS. 

No — never. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

'Tis my will. 
TERTSKY {leads the Countess aside, and drawing her 

attention to the Duchess). 
Theresa ! 

duchess. 
Sister, come ! since he commands it. 



SCENE VII. 



It should have been kept secret from the army. 
Till fortune had decided for us at Prague. 

TERTSKY. 

that thou hadst beheved me ! Yester-evening 
Did we conjure thee not to let that .skulker, 
That fox, Octavio, pass the gates of Pilsen. 

Thou gavest him thy own horses to flee from thee. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The old tune still ! Now, once for all, no more 
Of this suspicion — it is doting folly. 

TERTSKY. 

Tliou didst confide in Isolani too ; 

And lo ! he was the first that did desert thee. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It was but yesterday I rescued him 

From abject wretchedness. Let that go by ; 

1 never reckon'd yet on gratitude. 

And wherein doth he wrong in going from me ? 
He follows still the god whom all his life 
He has worsliipp'd at the gaming-table. With 
My fortune, and my seeming destiny. 
He made the bond, and broke it not with me. 
I am but the sliip in which his hopes were stow'd, 
And with the which well-pleased and confident 
He traversed the open sea ; now he beholds it 
In eminent jeopardy among the coast-rocks. 
And hurries to preserve his wares. As light 
As the free bird from the hospitable twig 
Where it had nested, he flies oflf from me : 
No human tie is snapp'd betwixt us two. 
Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived 
Who seeks a heart in the unthinking man. 
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life 
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead, 
Naught sinks into flie bosom's silent depth : 
Quick sensibility of pain and pleasure 
Moves the light fluids lightly ; but no soul 
Warmeth the inner frame. 

TERTSKir. 

Yet, would I rather 
Trust the smooth brow than that deep-furrow'd one. 



WALLENSTEIN, TeRTSKY. 

WALLENSTEIN [stepping to the window). 
What now, then? 

TERTSKY. 

There are strange movements among all the troops. 

And no one knows the cause. Mysteriously, 

With gloomy silence, the several corps 

Marshal themselves, each under its own banners. 

Tiefenbacli's corps make threat'ning movements ; only 

The Pappenheimers still remain aloof 

In their own quarters, and let no one enter. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Does Piccolomini appear among them ? 

TERTSKY. 

We are seeking him : he is nowhere to be met with. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Wliat did the Aid-de-Camp deliver to you ? 

TERTSKY. 

My regiments had dispatch'd him ; yet once more 

They swear fidelity to thee, and wait 

The shout for onset, all prepared, and eager. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

But whence arose this larum in the camp ? 



SCENE VIII. 



WALLENSTEIN, TeRTSKY, IlLO. 

ILLO {who enters agitated with rage). 
Treason and mutiny ! 

TERTSKY. 

And what further now ? 

ILLO. 

Tiefenbach's soldiers, wlien I gave the orders 
To go off guard — Mutinous villains ! 

TERTSKY. 

Well! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What followed ? 

ILLO. 

They refused obedience to them. 

TERTSKY. 

Fire on them instantly ! Give out the order. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Gently ! what cause did they assign ? 

ILLO. 

No other, 
They said, had right to issue orders but 
Lieutenant-General Piccolomini. 

184 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



175 



WALLKNSTK.IN {ill a convulsioii of agony). 
UTiat? How is ihal? 

ILI.O. 

He takes ihnt ofTue on him by comniission, 
Under sign-manual of tlio Emperor. 

TERTSKY. 

From the Emperor — hear'st iliou, Duke ? 

ILLO. 

At his incitement 
The Generals made that stealthy flight — 

TERTSKY. 

Duke ! hear'st thou ? 

ILLO. 

Caraffa too, and Montcouctili, 

Are missing, with six other Generals, 

All whom he had iiuiuced to follow him. 

Tiiis plot he has long had in wriling by him 

From the Emperor ; but 'twas finally concluded 

With all the detail of the operation 

Some days ago with the Envoy Questenberg. 

[Wallenstein sinks down into a chair, and covers 
his face. 

TERTSKY. 

hadst tliou but bcheved me ! 



SCENE IX. 
To them enter the Countess. 

COUNTESS. 

This suspense, 
This horrid fear — I can no longer bear it. 
For heaven's sake, tell me, what has taken place ? 

ILLO. 

The regiments are all falling off" from us. 

TERTSKY. 

Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor. 

COUNTESS. 

O my foreboding ! [Rushes out of the room. 

TERTSKY. 

Hadst thou but believed me ! 
Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The stars lie not; but we have here a work 

Wrought counter to the stars and destiny. 

The science is still honest : this false heart 

Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven. 

On a divine law divination rests; 

Where Nature deviates from tliat law, and stumbles 

Out of her limits, there all science errs. 

True, I did not suspect! Were it superstition 

Never by such suspicion t' have affronted 

The human form, O may that time ne'er come 

In which I shame me of tlie infirmity. 

The wildest savage drinlis not with the victim, 

Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword. 

This, this, Octavio, w^as no hero's deed : 

'T was not tliy prudence that did conquer mine ; 

A bad heart triumph'd o'er an honest one. 

No shield received the assassin stroke ; thou plungesl 

Thy weapon on an unprotected breast — 

Against such weapons I am but a child. 



SCENE X. 

To these enter Butler. 

TERTSKY ( meeting him). 



O look tljere ! Butler ! Here we 've still a friend ' 



WALLENSTEIN {mcels him with outspread arms, and 

embraces him tiilh warmth). 
Come to my heart, old comrade ! Not the sun 
Looks out uyxni us more revivingly 
In the earliest month of spring, 
Than a friend's countenance in such an hour. 

BUTLER. 

My General : I come — 

WALLENSTEIN {leaning on Butler's shoulders). 
Know'st thou already ? 
Tliat old man has betray 'd me to the Emperor. 
What say'st thou ? Thirty years have wo together 
Lived out, and held out, sharing joy and hardship. 
We have slept in one canip-bcd, drunk from one glass. 
One morsel shared ! I lean'd myself on him. 
As now I lean me on thy faithful shoulder. 
And now in the very moment, when, all love, 
All confidence, my bosom beat to his. 
He sees and takes the advantage, stabs the knife 
Slowly into my heart. 

[He hides his face on Butler's breasf 

BUTLER. 

Forget the false one. 
What is your present purpose ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Well remember'd ! 
Courage, my soul ! I am still rich in friends. 
Still loved by Destiny ; for in the moment. 
That it unmasks the plotting hypocrite, 
It sends and proves to me one fiiithful heart. 
Of the hypocrite no more ! Think not, his loss 
Was that which struck the pang : O no ! his treason 
Is that which strikes this pang ! No more of him ! 
Dear to my heart, and honor'd were they both, 
And the young man — yes — he did truly love me. 
He — he — has not deceived me. But enough, 
Enough of this — Swift counsel now beseems us, 
The courier, whom Count Kinsky sent from Prague, 
I expect him every moment : and whatever 
He may bring with him, we must take good care 
To keep it from the mutineers. Quick, then ! 
Dispatch some messenger you can rely on 
To meet him, and conduct him to me. 

[Illo is going 

BUTLER {detaining him). 
My General, whom expect you then ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The courier 
Who brings me word of the event at Prague. 

BUTLER {hesitating'). 
Hem ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And what now ? 

BUTLER. 

You do not know it ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 



Well ? 



BUTLER. 

From what that larum in the camp arose ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

From what ? 

BUTLER. 

That courier 

WALLENSTEIN {with eager expectation). 



165 



Well* 



176 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



BUTLER. 

Is already here. 
TERTSKY aiid ILLO {(It the same lime). 
Already here ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

My courier ? 

BUTLER. 

For some hours. 



WALLENSTEIN. 



And I not know it ? 



BUTLER 

The sentinels detain him 



In custody. 



iLLO (^stamping with his foot). 
Damnation ! 

BUTLER. 

And his letter 
Was broken open, and is circulated 
Through the whole camp. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

You know what it contains ? 



Question me not ! 

TERTSKY. 

lUo ! alas for us. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Hide nothing from me — I can hear the worst. 
Prague then is lost. It is. Confess it freely. 

BUTLER. 

Yes ! Prague is lost. And all the several regiments 

At Budweiss, Tabor, Brannau, Konigingratz, 

At Brun and Znayra, have forsaken you, 

And ta'en the oaths of fealty anew 

To the Emperor. Yourself, with Kinsky, Tertsky, 

^^nd Illo have been sentenced. 

[Tertsky and Illo express alarm and fury. 
VValle.nstein remains frm and collected. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

'T is decided ! 
'Tis well ! I have received a sudden cure 
From all the pangs of doubt : with steady stream 
Once more my life-blood flows ! My soul 's secure ! 
In the night only Friedland's stars can beam. 
Lingering irresolute, with fitful fears 
I drew the sword — 'twas with an inward strife. 
While yet the choice was mine. The murderous knife 
Is lifted for my heart ! Doubt disappears ! 
I fight now for my head and for my life. 

[Exit WALLENSTEIN ; the others follow him. 



SCENE XI. 



COUNTESS I'ERTSKY (enters from a side-room). 

I can endure no longer. No ! 

[Looks around her. 
Wliere are they ? 
No one is here. They leave me all alone. 
Alone in this sore anguish of suspense. 
A.nd I must wear the outward show of calmness 
Before my sister, and shut in within me 
The pangs and agonies of my crowded bosom. 
;i is not lo be borne. — If all should fail ; 
It'— if he must go over to the Swedes, 
An onipiy-handed fugitive, and not 
As nil ally, a covenanted eejual. 



A proud commander with his army following ; 
If we must wander 0i.\ 'Voni land to land. 
Like the Count Palatine, of fallen greatness 
An ignominious monument — But no ! 
That day I will not see ! And could himself 
Endure to sink so low, I would not bear 
To see him so low sunken. 



SCENE XII. 



Countess, Duchess, Tiiekla. 
THEKLA {endeavoring to hold back the DucHESSi. 
Dear mother, do stay here ! 

DUCHESS. 

No! Here is yet 
Some frightful mystery that is hidden from me. 
Why does my sister shun me ? Don't I see her 
Full of suspense and anguish roam about 
From room to room ? — Art thou not full of terror? 
And what import these silent nods and gestures 
Which stealthwise thou exchangest with her ? 

THEKLA. 

Notning . 
Nothing, dear mother ! 

duchess (to the Countess). 

Sister, I will know. 

COUNTESS. 

What boots it now to hide it from her ? Sooner 

Or later she must learn to hear and bear it. 

'Tis not the time now to indulge infirmity ; 

Courage beseems us now, a heart collect, 

And exercise and previous discipline 

Of fortitude. One word, and over with it ' 

Sister, you are deluded. You believe, 

The Duke has been deposed — The Duke is not 

Deposed — he is 

THEKLA (going to the Countess) 

What ? do you wish to kill her ? 

countess. 

Tlie Duke is 

THEKLA (throwing her arms around her mother). 

O stand firm ! stand firm, my mother ■ 

COUNTESS. 

Revolted is the Duke ; he is preparing 
To join the enemy ; the army leave him, 
And all has fail'd. 



ACT n. 

SCENE I. 

Scene — A spacious room in the Duke of Friedland's 
Palace. 

(WALLENSTEIN in armor). 
Thou hast gain'd thy point, Octavio ! Once more am I 
Almost as friendless as at Regensburg. 
There I had nothing left me, but myself— 
But what one man can do, you have now experience 
The twigs have you hew'd ofi; and here I stand 
A leafless trunk. But in the sap within 
Lives the creating power, and a new world 
May sprout forth from it. Once already have I 
Proved myself worth an army to you — I alone ! 
Before the Swedish strength your troops had melted , 
Beside the Lech sunk Tilly, your last hope : 

186 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



177 



Fnio Havaria, like a winter torrent, 

Did tliat Ciustavus (wnr, and at \'ienna 

In Ilia own palace »liJ the Kniperor tremble. 

Soldiers were scaree, lor still the multitude 

Follow the Inck: all eyes were turn'd on me, 

Their helper in distress: the Emperor's pride 

Bow'd itselt' down belbre the man he had injured 

'Twas I must rise, and with rrealive word 

Assemble Ibrces in the desolate camits. 

1 did it. Like a god of war, my name 

Went through the world. The drum was beat — and,lo! 

The plow, the work-shop is forsaken, all 

Swarm to the old (iimiliar long-loved banners; 

And as the wood-choir rich in melody 

Assemble quick around the bird of wonder, 

When first his throat swells with his magic song, 

So did the warlike youth of Germany 

Crowd in around the image of my eagle. 

I feci myself the being that I was. 

It is the soul that builds itself a body, 

And Fricdland's camp will not remain unfill'd. 

Lead then your thousands out to meet mc — true ! 

They are accustom'd under me to conquer. 

But not against me. If the head and limbs 

Separate from each other, 'twill be soon 

Made manifest, in which the soul abode. 

(Illo and Tertsky enter). 
Courage, friends! Courage ! We are still unvanquish'd ; 
I feel my footing firm ; five regiments, Tertsky, 
Are still our own, and Butler's gallant troops ; 
And a host of sixteen thousand Swedes to-morrow. 
I was not stronger, when nine years ago 
I march'd forth, with glad heart and high of hope. 
To conquer Germany for the Emperor. 



SCENE II. 
W.vLLENSTEix, Illo, Tertsky. {To them enter "Nfj;- 
MA.vx, who leads Tertsky aside, and talks with 
him). 

TERTSKY. 

What do they want ? 

WALLENSTEIN'. 

What now I 

TERTSKY. 

Ten Cuirassiers 
From Pappenheim request leave to address you 
In the name of the regiment. 

WALLENSTEIN (lutStill/ tO NEUMANN). 

Let them enter. 

[Exit Neumann. 
This 
May end in something. Mark you. They are still 
Doubtful, and may be won. 



SCENE III 

WALLENSTEIN, TeRTSKY, IlLO, TeN CuIRASSIERS 

(led by an Anspessade,* march up and arrange 
themselves, after the word of command, in one 
jront before the Duke, and make their obeisance. 
He takes his hat off, and immediately covers him- 
self again). 

anspessade. 
Halt! Front! Present! 



• Anspessade, in Gcrmnti, Gofri'iler, a soMicr inferior to a 
corpon.l, but almve llie ■.•cntin.-ls. Tim (Jcrman name implies 
Uial lie la e.vciiipt from mounting guard. 



WALLENSTEIN {after he has run thro<ir;h them with his 
eye, to the Anspessade). 
I know thee well. Thou art out of Briiggin in Flan- 
ders : thy name is Mercy. 

anspessade. 

Henry Mercy. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thou wert cut off on the march, surrounded by 
the Hessians, and didst fight thy way with a hun 
dred and eighty men through their thousand. 
anspessade. 

'T was even so. General ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

^Vhat reward hadst thou (or this gallant exploit 1 

ANSPESSADE. 

That which I asked for : the lienor to serve in this 
corps. 

WALLENSTEIN {turning to a second). 

Thou wert among the volunteers that seized and 
made booty of the Swedish battery at Altenburg. 

SECOND CUIRASSIER. 

Yes, General ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I forget no one with whom 1 have exchanged words. 

(A pause). Who sends you ? 

ANSPESSADE. 

Your noble regiment, the Cuirassiers of Piccolomini. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Why does not j^onr colonel deliver in your request, 
according to the custom of service ? 

ANSPESSADE. 

Because we would first know luhom we serve. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Begin your address. 

ANSPESSADE {givitig the tvord of command). 
Shoulder your arms ! 

WALLENSTEIN {turning to a third). 
Thy name is Risbcck ; (Cologne is thy birth-placei 

THIRD CUIRASSIER. 

Risbeck of Cologne. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

It was thou that broughtcst in the Swedish colonel 
Diebald, prisoner, in the camp at Niireraberg. 

THIRD CUIRASSIER. 

It was not I, General ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Perfectly right! It was thy elder brother: thou hadst 
a younger brother too : where did he stay ? 

THIRD CUIRASSIER. 

He is stationed at Olmiitz with the Imperial army. 

WALLENSTEIN {tO the ANSPESSADE). 

Now then — begin. 

ANSPESSADE. 

There came to hand a letter from the Emperor, 
Commanding us 

WALLENSTEIN {interrupting him). 
Who chose you I 

ANSPESSADE. 

Every company 
Drew its own man by lot. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Now! to the business 

ANSPESSADE. 

Tlierc came to hand a leiier from ihe Emperor, 
Commanding us collectively, from thee 

187 



178 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



All duties of obedience to withdraw, 
Because thou wert an enemy and traitor. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And what did you determine ? 

ANSPESSADE. 

All our comrades 
At Braunnau, Budweiss, Prague and Olmiitz, have 
Obey'd already ; and the regiments here, 
Tiefenbach and Toscano, instantly 
Did follow their example. But — but we 
Do not believe that thou art an enemy 
And traitor to thy country, hold it merely 
For lie and trick, and a trump'd-up Spanish story ? 

[With warmth. 
Thyself shall tell us what thy purpose is. 
For we have found thee still sincere and true : 
No mouth shall interpose itself betwixt 
The gallant General and the gallant troops. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Therein I recognize my Pappenheimers. 

ANSPESSADE. 

And this proposal makes thy regiment to thee : 

Is it thy purpose merely to preserve 

In thy oviTi hands this mihtary sceptre, 

Which so becomes thee, which the Emperor 

Made over to thee by a covenant ? 

Is it thy purpose merely to remain 

Supreme commander of the Austrian armies ? — 

We will stand by thee, General ! and guaranty 

Thy honest rights against all opposition. 

And should it chance, that all the other regiments 

Turn from thee, by ourselves will we stand forth 

Thy faithful soldiers, and, as is our duty. 

Far rather let ourselves be cut to pieces, 

Than suffer thee to fall. But if it be 

As the Emperor's letter says, if it be true. 

That thou in traitorous wise will lead us over 

To the enemy, wliich God in heaven forbid ! 

Then we too will foreake thee, and obey 

That letter 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Hear me, children ! 



ANSPESSADE. 



Yes, or no ! 



There needs no other answer. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Yield attention. 
You 're men of sense, examine for yourselves ; 
Ye think, and do not follow with the herd : 
And therefore have I always shown you honor 
Above all othere, suffer'd you to reason ; 
Have treated you as free men, and my orders 
Were but the echoes of your prior suffrage. — 

ANSPESSADE. 

Most fair and noble has thy conduct been 

To us, my General ! With thy confidence 

Thou hast honor'd us, and shown us grace and favor 

Beyond all other regiments ; and thou see'st 

We follow not the common herd. We will 

Stand by thee faithfully. Speak but one word — 

Thy word shall satisfy us, that it is not 

A treason which thou meditatest — that 

Thou meanest not to lead the army over 

To the enemy ; nor e'er betray thy country. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Me, nie are they betraying. The Emperor 



Hath sacrificed me to my enemies. 

And I must fall, unless my gallant troops 

Will rescue me. See ! 1 confide in you. 

And be your hearts my strong-hold ! At this breast 

The aim is taken, at this hoary head. 

This is your Spanish gratitude, this is our 

Requital for that murderous fight at Lutzen I 

For this we threw the naked breast against 

The halbert, made for this the frozen earth 

Our bed, and the hard stone our pillow ! never stream 

Too rapid for us, nor wood too impervious : 

With cheerful spirit we pursued that Mansfield 

Through all the turns and windings of his flight ; 

Yea, our whole hfe was but one restless march ; 

And homeless as the stirring wind, we travell'd 

O'er the war-wasted earth. And now, even now, 

That we have well-nigh finish'd the hard toil. 

The unihankful, the curse-laden toil of weapons, 

With faithful indefatigable arm 

Have roU'd the heavy war-load up the hill, 

Behold ! this boy of the Emj)eror's bears away 

The honors of the peace, an easy prize I 

He '11 weave, forsooth, into his flaxen locks 

The olive-branch, the hard-eam'd ornament 

Of this gray head, grown gray beneath the helmet 

AiNSPESSADE. 

That shall he not, while we can hinder it ! 

No one, but tliou, who hast conducted it 

With fame, sliall end tliis war, this frightful war. 

Thou ledd'st us out into the bloody field 

Of death ; thou and no other shall conduct us home, 

Rejoicing to the lovely plains of peace — 

Shalt share with us the fruits of the long toil — 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What ? Tliink you then at length in late old age 
To enjoy the fruits of toil ? Believe it not. 
Never, no never, will you see the end 
Of the contest ! you and me, and all of us, 
This war will swallow np ! War, war, not peace, 
Is Austria's wsh ; and therefore, because I 
Endeavor'd after peace, therefore I fall. 
For what cares Austria, how long the war 
Wears out the armies and lays waste tlie world ? 
She will but wax and grow amid the ruin. 
And still win new domains. 

[The Cuirassiers express agitation hy their gestures 
Ye 're moved — I see 
A noble rage flash from your eyes, ye warriors ' 
Oh that my spirit might possess you now 
Daring as once it led you to the battle ! 
Ye would stand by me with your veteran arms 
Protect me in my rights ; and this is noble ! 
But think not that you can accomplish it. 
Your scanty number ! to no purpose will you 
Have sacrificed you for your General. 

[Confidentially 
No ! let us tread securely, seek for friends ! 
The Swedes have proffer'd us assistance, let us 
Wear for a wliile the appearance of good-will, 
And use them for your profit, till we both 
Carry the fate of Europe in our hands, 
And from our camp to the glad jubilant world 
Lead Peace forth with the garland on her head ! 

ANSPESSADE. 

'Tis then but mere appearances which thou 
Dost put on with the Swede ? Thou 'It not betray 

388 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



179 



The Emperor? Wilt not turn us into Swedes? 
Tliis is the only thing which we desire 
To learn from tlice. 

WAIXENSTEl.V. 

What care I for the Swedes ? 
I hate them ns I hate the pit of hell, 
And under Providence I trust right soon 
To rhase them to their homes across the Baltic. 
Mv cares are only for the whole : I have 
A heart — it bleeds within nie for the miseries 
And piteous groaning of my fellow Germans. 
Ve are but common men, but yet ye think 
With minds not common; ye appear to me 
Worthy before all others, that I whisper ye 
A little word or two in confidence I 
See now ! already for full fifteen years 
The war-torch has continued burning, yet 
No rest, no pause of conflict. Swede and German, 
Papist and Lutheran! neither will give way 
To the other, every hand's against the other. 
Each one is party, and no one a judge. 
Where shall this end ? Where's he that will unravel 
This tangle, ever tangling more anrl more. 
It must be cut asunder. 
I feel that I am the man of destiny. 
And trust, with your assistance, to accomplish it. 



SCENE IV. 

To these enter Butlf:r. 
BUTLER ipassiona(ely). 
taeneral ! this is not right ! 

VVALI-EXSTEIN. 

What is not right ? 

BUTLER. 

't must needs injure us with all honest men. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

But what ? 

BUTLER. 

It is an open proclamation 
Of insurrection. 

WALLENSTELV. 

Well, well — but w'hat is it ? 

BUTLER, 

Count Tertsky's regiments tear the Imperial Eagle 
From off the banners, and instead of it, 
Iiave rear'd aloft thy arms. 

ANSPESSADE {abruptly to the Ciiirassicrx). 

Right about ! March ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Cursed be this counsel, and accursed who gave it ! 

[To the Cuirassiers, who are retiring. 
Halt, children, halt ! There 's some mistake in this ; 
Hark ! — I will punish it severely. Slop I 
They do not hear. (To Illo). Go after them assure 

them. 
And bring them back to me, cost what it m.iy. 

[Illo hurries out. 
This hurls us headlong. Butler! Butler! 
You are my evil genius; wherePire must you 
Announce it in iheii presence ? It was all 
In a fair way. They were half won, tho.se madmen 
With their improvident over-readiness — 
A cruel game is F'ortune playing with me. 
The zeal of friends it is that razes me, 
And not the hute of cneaiios 



SCENE V. 

To these enter the Duchess, v^ho rushes into the Cham" 
ber. TiiEKLA and the Countess follow her. 

DUCHESS. 

O Albrecht ! 
What hast thou done ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And now comes this beside. 

COUNTESS. 

Forgive me, brother ! It was not in my power. 
They know all. 

DUCHESS. 

What hast thou done ? 

COUNTESS (.to TeRTSKV). 

Is there no hope ? Is all lost utterly ? 

tkrtskv. 
All lost. No hope. Prague in the Emperer's hands, 
The soldiery have ta'eii their oaths anew. 

countess. 
That lurking hypocrite, Octavio ! 
Count Ma.\. is off too ? 

tertsky. 

Where can he be ? He's 
Gone over to the Emperor with his father. 

[Thekla rushes out into the arms of her mother, 
hiding her face in her bosom. 

duchess (infolding her in her arms). 
Unhappy child ! and more unhappy mother ! 

WALLENSTEIN (aside to Tertsky). 
Quick ! Let a carriage stand in readiness 
In the court behind the palace. Scherfenberg 
Be their attendant ; he is faithful to us ; 
To Egra he'll conduct them, and we follow. 

[To Illo, who returns. 
Thou hast not brought them back ? 

ILLO. 

Hear'st thou the uproar ? 
The whole corps of the Pappenheinicrs is 
Drawn out : the younger Piccolomitii, 
Their colonel, they reiiuire: for they affirm. 
That he is in the palace here, a prisoner ; 
And if thou dost not instantly deliver him. 
They will find means to free him with the sword. 

[All stand amazed. 

tertsky. 
What shall we make of this ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Said I not so ? 

my prophetic heart ! he is still here. 

He has not betray'd me — he could not betray me. 

1 never doubted of it. 

countess. 
If he be 
Still here, then all goes well ; for I know wliat 

[Embracing Thekla. 
Will keep him here for ever. 
tertsky. 

It can't be. 
His father has betray'd us, is gone over 
To the Emperor — the son could not have ventured 
To stay behind. 

THEKLA (her eye fired on the door). 
There he is ! 
25 139 



ISO 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



SCENE VI. 
To these enter Max. Piccolomini. 

MAX. 

Yes ! here he is ! I can endure no longer 
To creep on tiptoe round this house, and lurk 
In ambush for a favorable moment : 
Tliis loitering, this suspense exceeds my powers. 

[Advancing to Thekla, who has thrown herself 
into her mother's arms. 
Turn not thine eyes away. O look upon me ! 
Confess it freely before all. Fear no one. 
Let who will hear that we both love each other. 
Wherefore continue to conceal it ? Secrecy 
Is for the happy — misery, hopeless misery, 
Needeth no evil ! Beneath a thousand suns 
It dares act openly. 

[He observes the Countess looking on Tiieki-a 
with expressions of triumph. 
No, Lady! No! 
Expect not, hope it not. I am not come 
To stay : to bid farewell, farewell for ever, 
For this I come ! 'Tis over! I must leave thee ! 
Thekla, I must — 7niist leave thee ! Yet thy hatred 
Let me not take with me. I pray thee, grant me 
One look of sympathy, only one look. 
Say that thou dost not hate me. Say it to me, Thekla ! 
[Grasps her hand. 

God ! I cannot leave this spot^ — 1 cannot ! 
Cannot let go this hand. O tell me, Thekla ! 
That thou dost suffer with me, art convinced 
That I can not act otherwise. 

[Theki^a, avoiding his look, points with her hand 
to her father. Max. turns round to the DuKE, 
whom he had not till then perceived. 
Thou here ? It v\as not thou, whom here I sought. 

1 trusted never more to have beheld thee. 
My business is with her alone. Here will I 
Receive a full acquittal from this heart — 
Vat any other I am no more concern'd. 

WALLENSTEl.V. 

Think'st thou, that, fool-like, I shall let thee go. 
And act the mock-magnanimous with thee ! 
Thy father is become a villain to me ; 
1 hold thee for his son, and nothing more : 
Nor to no purpose shall thou l.ave been given 
Into my power. Think not, that I will honor 
That ancient love, which so remorselessly 
He mangled. They are now past by, those hours 
Of friendship and forgiveness. Hate and vengeance 
Succeed — 't is now their turn — I too can throw 
All feelings of llie man aside — can prove 
Myself as much a monster as thy father ! 

MAX. {calmly). 
Thou wilt proceed with me, as thou hast power. 
Thou know'st, I neither brave nor fear thy rage. 
What has detain'd me here, that too thou know'st. 

[Taking TiiEKLA by the hand. 
See, Duke ! All — all would I have owed to thee, 
Would have received from thy paternal hand 
Tlie lot of blessed spirits. This hast thou 
Laid waste for ever — that concerns not thee. 
Indiflbrent thou tramplest. in the dust 
Tlicir hapiiinoss, who most are thine. The god 
Whom thou dost serve, is no benignant deity. 



Like as the blind irreconcilable 

Fierce element, incapable of compact, 

Thy heart's wild impulse only dost thou follow.* 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thou art describing thy own father's heart. 

The adder ! O, the charms of hell o'erpower'd ma 

He dwell within me, to my inmost soul 

Still to and fro he pass'd, suspected never ! 

On the wide ocean, in the stariy heaven 

Did mine eyes seek the enemy, whom I 

In my hearl'.s heart had folded ! Had I been 

To Ferdinand what Octavio was to me, 

War had I ne'er denounced against him. No, 

I never could have done it. The Emperor was 

My austere master only, not my friend. 

There was already war 'twixt him and me 

When he deliver'd the Commander's Staff 

Into my hands ; for there's a natural 

Unceasing war 'tv\i\t cunning and suspicion ; 

Peace exists only betvnxt conlidence 

And faith. Who poisons confidence, he murders 

The future generations. 

MAX. 

I will not 
Defend my father. W'oe is me, I cannot ! 
Hard deeds and luckless have ta'en place ; one cnme 
Drags after it the other in close luik. 

* I have here ventured to omit a considerablo number o( 
lines. I fear that I should not have done amiss, had I taken 
this liberty more frequently. It is, however, incumbent on nie 
to give the original with a literal translation. 

Weh denen, die auf Dich verlraun, an Dich 
Die sichre Hiitte ihres Gliickes lehnen, 
Gelockt von Deiner geistlichen Gestalt, 
Schnell unverhofl'l, bei nEcchtlich stiller Weile 
Gaebrts in dem liickschen Feuerschlunde, ladet 
Sich aus mit tobendor Gewalt, und weg 
Treibt ijber alle Pflanzungen der Menschen 
Der wilde Strom in grausender Zerstcerung. 

WALLENSTEIN. 
Pu schilderst Deincs Vaters Herz. Wie Du's 
Bescbreibst, so ist's in seinem Eingevveide, 
III dieser scbwarzen Heucblers Brust gestaltet. 
O, mich hat Hcellenkunst getaeuscht ! Mir sandte 
Der Abgrund den verfleckteslen der Geister, 
Den Liigenkundigsten herauf, und stellt' ihn 
Als Fieund an nieine Seite. Wer vermag 
Der Hoelle Macht zu widerstebn ! Ich zog 
Den Basilisken auf an mcinem Busen, 
Mit meinem Herzblut niehrt ich ihn, er sog 
Sich Bohwelgend voll an meiner Liebe Briisten, 
Ich hatte nimmer Arges gegen ihn, 
Weit often liess ich des Gedankens Thore, 
Und warf die Scliliissol weiser Vorsicht weg. 
Am Sternenbimmel, etc. 

LITERAL TRANSLATION. 
Alas ! for those who place their confidence on thee, againsi 
thee lean the secure hut of tlicir fortune, allured by thy hos- 
pitable form. Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a moment still at 
night, there is a fermentation in the treacherous gulfof fire; it 
discharges itself with raging force, and away over all the plan- 
tations of men drives the wild stream in frightful devastation. 
H'lMnislcin. Thou art portraying thy father's heart; as thou 
describest, even so is it shaped in his entrails, in this black hypo 
crile's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss 
sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in 
lies, and placed him as a frieml by my side. Who may with 
stand the power of hell ? I look the basilisk to my bosom, with 
my heart's blood I nourish'd hiin ; he sucked himself glutful at 
the breasts of my love. I never harbored evil towards han ; 
wide open did I leave the door of my thoiiahts ; I threw away 
llie key of wise foresight. In ihe starry heaven, etc. — VVe find 
a difiiculiy in believing this to have been written by Schiller 
19(1 



THE DEAtll OF WALLENSTEIN. 



181 



But we are innocent : liow have we fallen 

Into this circle of mishap and guilt ? 

To whom have we been faithless ? Wherefore must 

The evil deeds and guilt reciprocal 

Of our two fathers twine like serpents round us ? 

Why must our fathers' 
Unconquerable hate rend us asunder 
Who love each other ? 

WALLENSTEI.V. 

Max., remain with mo. 
Go you not from me, Max.! Hark! I will toll thee — 
How when at Prague, our winter-quarters, thou 
Wert brought into my tent a tender boy. 
Not yet accustom'd to the German winters ; 
Thy hand was frozen to the heavy colors ; 
Thou wouldst not let them go. — 
At that time did I take thee in my arms, 
And with my mantle did I cover tliee ; 
I was thy nurse, no woman could have been 
A kinder to thee ; I was not ashamed 
To do for thee all little ofliccs, 
However strange to me ; I tended tlice 
Till life return'd ; and when thine eyes first open'd, 
I had thee in my arms. Since then, when have I 
Alter'd my feelings towards thee ? Many thousands 
Have I made rich, presented them with lands; 
Rewarded them with dignities and honors ; 
Thee have I loved : my heart, myself, I gave 
To thee! They all were aliens: thou wert 
Our child and inmate.* Max. ! Thou canst not leave 

me; 
It can not bo ; I may not, will not think 
That Max. can leave me. 

MAX. 

O my God ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I have 

Held and sustain'd thee from thy tottering childhood. 
What holy bond is there of natural love? 
What human tie, that does not knit thee to me ? 
1 love thee. Max. ! WTiat did thy father for thee, 
Which I too have not done, to the height of duty ? 
f lo hence, forsake me, serve thy Emperor ; 
He will reward thee with a pretty chain 
Of gold ; with his ram's fleece will he reward thee ; 
For that the friend, the father of thy youth, 
For that the holiest feeling of humanity, 
Was nothing worth to thee. 

MAX. 

O God ! how can I 
Do otherwise? Am I not forced to do it, 
My oath — my duty — honor — 

WALLE.SSTEI.N. 

How ? Thy duty ? 
Duty to whom ? Who art thou ? Max. I bethink thee 
What duties mayst thou have? If I am acting 
A criminal part toward the Emperor, 
It is my crime, not thine. Dost thou belong 
To thine own self? Art thou thine own commander? 
Stand'st thou, like me, a freeman in the world, 
Ttia in thy actions thou shouldst plead free agency? 



On me thou'rt planted, I am thy Emperor; 

To obey vie, to belong to me, this is 

Thy honor, this a law of nature to thee ! 

And if the planet, on tlie which thou livest 

And hast thy dwelling, from its orbit starts, 

It is not in tliy clioice, whether or no 

'Hiou'lt follow it, I'nfelt it whirls thee onward 

Together with his ring and all his moons. 

With little guilt stepp'st thou into this contest , 

Thee will the world not censure, it will praise thee 

For that thou held'st thy friend more worth to thee 

Than names and intluences more removed. 

For justice is the virtue of the ruler. 

Affection and fidelity the subject's. 

Not every one doth it beseem to question 

The ihr-ofT high Arcturus. Most securely 

Wilt thou pursue the nearest duty — let 

The pilot fix his eye upon the pole-star. 



* ('lis is a poor and inadequate iraniilation of the affectionate 
•iino .';iiv of the original — 

Sie ttlle waren Fremdlinge, Da warst 
Das Kind des Haui.ca. 
Indeed the whole epeech ia in the hest style of Massinger. O 
■i uc omnia ! 



SCENE VII. 

To these enter Newmann. 

WALLE.\STEI.\. 

What now ? 

NEWMAXN. 

The Pappcnheimers are dismounted, 
And are advancing now on foot, determined 
With sword in hand to storm the house, and free 
The Count, their colonel. 

WALLEXSTEIX [lo TeRTSKV). 

Have the cannon planted. 
I will receive them with chain-shot. 

[Exit Tertsky 
Prescribe to me with sword in hand ! Go, Neumann ! 
'Tis my command that they retreat this moment, 
And in their ranks in silence wait my pleasure. 

[Neumann exit. Il-lo steps to the vnndow 

COUNTESS. 

Let him go, I entreat thee, let him go. 

ILLO {at the window). 
Hell and perdition! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What is it ? 

ILLO. 

They scale the council-house, the roof's uncover'd : 
They level at this house the cannon 

MAX. 

Madmen 

ILLO. 

They are making preparatiorLs now to fire on us. 

DUCHESS AND COUNTESS. 

Merciful Heaven ! 

MAX {to WALLENSTEIN). 

Let me go to them ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Not a stqi ! 
MAX. {pointing to Thekla and the Duchess). 
But their life! Thine! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What tidings bring'st thou, Tertsky 



SCENE VIII. 
To these Tertsky {returning). 

TERTSKY. 

Message and greeting from our faithful regiment* 
Their anlor may no longer be curh'd in. 

191 



183 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



They entreat permission to commence the attack, 
And if thou wouldst but give the word of onset, 
They could now charge the enemy in rear. 
Into the city wedge them, and with ease 
O'erpower them in the narrow streets. 

ILLO. 

O come ! 
Let not their ardor cool. The soldiery 
Of Buder's corps stand by us faithfully ; 
We are the greater number. Let us charge them, 
And finish here in Pilsen the revolt. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What ? shall this town become a field of slaughter. 

And brother-killing Discord, fire-eyed. 

Be let loose through its streets to roam and rage ? 

Shall the decision be deliver'd over 

To deaf remorseless Rage, that hears no leader ? 

Here is not room for battle, only for butchery. 

Well, let it be ! I have long thought of it, 

So let it burst then ! 

[Turns to Max. 
Well, how is it with thee ? 
Wilt thou attempt a heat wdth me. Away ! 
Thou art free to go. Oppose thyself to me. 
Front against front, and lead them to the battle ; 
Thou'rt skilled in war, thou hast learn'd somewhat 

under me, 
I need not be ashamed of my opponent. 
And never hadst thou fairer opportunity 
To pay me for thy schooling. 

COUNTESS. 

Is it then. 
Can it have come to this? — What! Cousin, cousin! 
Have you the heart ? 

MAX. 

The regiments that are trusted to my care 

I have pledged my troth to bring away from Pilsen 

True to the Emperor, and this promise will I 

Make good, or perish. More than this no duty 

Requires of me. I will not fight against thee. 

Unless compell'd ; for though an enemy. 

Thy head is holy to me still. 

[Two repcrrts of cannon. Illo and Tertsky hurry 
to the window. 



WALLENSTEIN. 



What's that? 



Hfl falls. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Falls! who? 

ILLO. 

Tiefenbach's corps 
Discharged the ordnance. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Upon whom? 

ILLO. 

On Neumann, 
Your messenger. 

WALLENSTEIN {Starting up). 

Ha ! Death and Hell ! I will— 

TERTSKY. 

Expose thyself to their blind frenzy ? 

DUCHESS OTld COUNTESS. 



No! 



For God's sake, no ! 



ILLO. 

Not yet, my General ! 

COUNTESS. 

O, hold him ! hold him ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Leave me 

MAX. 

Do it not ; 
Nor yet ! This rash and bloody deed has thrown them 
Into a frenzy-fit — allow them time 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Away ! too long already have I loiter'd. 
They are embolden'd to these outrages. 
Beholding not my face. They shall behold 

My countenance, shall hear my voice 

Are they not mt/ troops ? Am I not their General, 

And their long-fear'd commander! Let me see. 

Whether indeed they do no longer know 

That countenance, which was their sun in battle! 

From the balcony (mark I) I show myself 

To these rebellious forces, and at once 

Revolt is mounded, and the high-swoln current 

Shrinks back into the old bed of obedience. 

[Exit WALLENSTEIN : IlLO, TeRTSKY, UTld BuTLER 

follow. 



SCENE IX. 



Countess, Duchess, Max. and Thekla. 

COUNTESS (to the Duchess). 
Let them but see him — there is hope still, sister. 

duchess. 
Hope ! I have none ! 

MAX. (w/io during the last scene has been standing at 
distance in a visible struggle of feelings, advances). 
This can I not endure. 
With most determined soul did I come hither. 
My purposed action seem'd unblamable 
To my own conscience — and I must stand here 
Like one abhorr'd, a hard inhuman being ; 
Yea, loaded with the curse of all I love ! 
Must see all whom I love in this sore anguish, 
Whom I with one word can make happy — O ! 
My heart revolts within me, and two voices 
Make themselves audible within my bosom. 
My soul 's benighted ; I no longer can 
Distinguish the right track O, well and truly 
Didst thou say, father, I relied too much 
On my own heart. My mind moves to and fro— 
I know not what to do. 

countess. 

What ! you know not ? 
Does not your own heart tell you ? O ! then I 
Will tell it you. Your father is a traitor, 
A frightful traitor to us — he has plotted 
Against our General's life, has plunged us all 
In misery — and you're his son ! 'Tis your's 
To make the amends — Make you the son's fidelity 
Outweigh the father's treason, that the name 
Of Piccolomini be not a proverb 
Of infamy, a common form of cursing 
To the posterity of Wallenstein. 

MAX. 

Where is that voice of truth which I dare follow ? 
It speaks no longer in my heart. We all 
But utter what our passionate wishes dictate r 

192 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



183 



O that an angel would descend from Heaven, 
And scoop for me the right, the uncorrupted, 
With a pure hand from tlie pure Fount of Light, 

[His ei/es tilancc on Thekla. 
What other angel seek I ? To this licart. 
To tiiis unerring heart, will 1 sulmiit it ; 
Will ask thy love, wliich has the power to bless 
The happy man alone, averted ever 
From the disquieted and guilty — cansl thou 
Still love me, if I stay ? Say that lliou canst. 
And I am the Duke's 

COUNTESS. 

Think, niece 



Speak what thou/eeZes<. 



Think nothing, Thekla ! 



COUNTESS. 

Think upon your father. 

MAX. 

I did not question thee, as Friedland's daughter. 
Thee, the beloved and the unerring god 
'Within thy heart, I question. What's at stake ? 
Kot whether diadem of royalty 
Be to be won or not — that might'st thou think on. 
Thy friend, and his soul's quiet, are at stake ; 
The fortune of a thousand gallant men. 
Who will all follow me ; shall I forswear 
My oath and duty to the Emperor ? 
Say, shall I send into Oclavio's camp 
The parricidal ball ? For when the ball 
Has left its cannon, and is on its flight. 
It is no longer a dead instrument ! 
It lives, a spirit pa.sses into it. 
The avenging furies seize possession of it. 
And with sure malice guide it the w'orst way. 

THEKLA. 

O! Max. 

MAX. (interrupting her). 

Nay, not precipitately either, Thekla. 
J understand thee. To thy noble heart 
The hardest duty might appear the liighest. 
The human, not the great part, would I act. 
Even from my childhood to this present hour. 
Think what the Duke has done for me, how loved me. 
And think too, how my fiither ha-s repaid him. 
O likewise the free lovely impulses 
Of. hospitality, the pious friend's 
Faithful attachment, these too are a holy 
Religion to the heart ; and heavily 
The shudderings of nature do avenge 
Themselves on the barbarian that insults them. 
Lay all upon the balance, all — then speak. 
And let thy heart decide it. 

THEKLA. 

O, thy own 
Hath long ago decided. Follow thou 
Thy heart's first feeling 

COUNTESS. 

Oh ! ill-fated woman ! 

THEKLA. 

Is i» possible, that that can be the right. 
The which thy tender heart did not at first 
Delect and seize with instant impulse ? Go, 
Fulfil thy duty ! I should ever love thee. 
Whate'er thou hadst chosen, thou wouldst still have 
acted 



]\ol)ly and worthy of thee — but repentance 
Shall ne'er disturb thy soul's fair peace. 

MAX. 

Then I 
Must leave lliee, must part from thee ! 

THEKLA. 

Being faithful 

To thine own self, thou art faithful too to me : 

If our fates part, our hearts remain united. 

A bloody hatred will divide for ever 

The houses Piccolomini and Fried land ; 

But we belong not to our houses — Go ! 

Quick ! quick I and separate thy righteous cause 

From our unholy and unblessed one ! 

The curse of Heaven lies upon our head: 

'Tis dedicate to ruin. Even me 

My father's guilt drags with it to perdition. 

Mourn not for me : 

My destiny will quickly be decided. 

[Ma.v. clasps her in his arms in extreme emotion. 
There is heard f rum behind the Scene a loud, 
urild, long-continued cry, Vivat Ferdinan- 
nus, accomjxinied by warlike Instrumetits. 
Ma.v and Thekla remain without motion 
in each other's embraces. 



SCENE X. 
To these enter Tertsky. 
COUNTESS {meeting him). 
What meant that cry ? What was it ! 

TERTSKY. 

All s lost! 

COUNTESS. 

Wliat ! they regarded not his countenance ? 

TERTSKY. 

'Tvvas all in vain. 

DUCHESS. 

They shouted Vivat ! 

TERTSKY. 

To the Emperor 

COUNTESS. 

The traitors! 

TERTSKY. 

Nay ! he was not once permitted 
Even to address them. Soon as he began, 
With deafening noise of warlike instruments 
They drown'd his words. But here he comes. 



SCENE XL 



To these enter Wallenstein, accompanied by Illo 
and Butler. 

wallenstein [OS he enters). 

Tertsky! 

TERTSKY. 

My General ? 

wallenstein. 
Let our regiments hold themselves 
In readiness to march ; for we shall leave 
Pilsen ere evening. [Exit Tertsky. 

Butler ! 



butler. 



Yes my General. 
193 



184 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

The Governor at Egra is your friend 
And countryman. Write to him instantly 
By a post-courier. He must be advised, 
That we are with him early on the morrow. 
You follow us yourself, your regiment with you. 

BUTLER. 

It shall be done, my General I 

Wallenstein {steps between Max. arid Thekla, who 

have reinained during this time in each other's 

arms). 

Part! 

MA.X. 

OGod! 
[Cuirassiers enter with drawn sivords. and assemble in 
the back-ground. At the same lime there are heard 
from below some spirited passages out of the Pap- 
penkeim March, which seem to address Max. 
WALLENSTEIN {to the Cuirussiers). 
Here he is, he is at liberty : 1 keep him 
No longer. 

[He turns awat/, and stands so that Max. cannot 
pass by him nor approach the Princess. 

MAX. 

Thou know'st that I have not yet learnt to live 
Without thee ! I go forth into a desert. 
Leaving my all behind me. O do not turn 
Thine eyes away from me ! once more show me 
Thy ever dear and honor'd coinilenance. 

[Max. attempts to tale his hand, but is repelled; 
he turns to the Countess. 
Is there no eye that has a look of pity for me ? 

[The Countess turns away from him ; he turns 
to the Duchess. 
Mj mother* 

duchess. 
Go where duty calls you. Haply 
The time may come, when you may prove to us 
A true friend, a good angel at the throne 
Of the Emperor. 

MAX. 

You give me hope ; you would not 
Suffer me wholly to despair. No ! no ! 
Mine is a certain misery — Thanks to Heaven 
That offers me a means of ending it. 

[The military music begins again. Tlie stage fills 

more and more vnth armed men. Max. sees 

Butler, and. addresses him. 
And you here. Colonel Butler — and will you 
Not follow me ? Well, then ! remain more faithful 
To your new lord, than you have proved yourself 
To the Emperor. Come, Butler! promise me, 
Give me your hand upon it, that you '11 be 
The guardian of his life, its shield, its watchman. 
He is attainted, and his princely head 
Fair booty for eacli slave that trades in murder. 
Now he doth need the faithful eye of friendship, 
And hose whom here I see — 

[Casting suspicious looks on Illo and Butler. 

ILLO. 

Go — seek for traitors 
In Galas', in your father's quartei-s. Here 
Is only one. Away ! away ! and free us 
From his detested sight ! Away ! 

[Ma.x. attempts once more to approach Thekla. 
wallenstein prevents him. Max. stands 



irresolute, and in apparent anguish. In the 
mean time the stage f Us more and more; and 
the horns sound from below louder atid 
louder, and each time after a shorter inter- 
val. 

max. 
Blow, blow ! O were it but the Swedish trumpets, 
And all the naked swords, which I see here, 
Were plunged into my breast ! What purpose you ? 
You come to tear me from this place ! Beware, 
Ye drive me not to desperation. — Do it not ! 
Ye may repent it ! 

[The stage is entirely filled with armed men 
Yet more ! weight upon weight to drag me down ! 
Think what ye're doing. It is not well done 
To choose a man despairing for your leader ; 
You tear me from my happiness. Well, then, 
I dedicate your souls to vengeance. Mark ! 
For your own ruin you have chosen me : 
Who goes with me, must be prepared to perish. 

[He turns to the back-ground, there ensues a sud 
den and violent movement among the Cuiras 
siers; they surround him, and carry him off 
in wild tumult. Wallenstein remains im- 
movable. Thekla sinks into her mother's 
arms. The curtain fcdls. The music be- 
comes loud and overpowering, and passes 
info a complete war-march — the orchestra 
joins it— and C07itinues during the interval 
between the second and third Acts. 



ACT III. 
SCENE I. 
Scene — The Burgomaster's House at Egra. 
BUTLER ijust arrived). 
Here then he is, by his destiny conducted. 
Here, Friedland ! and no farther ! From Bohemia 
Thy meteor rose, traversed the sky awhile. 
And here upon the borders of Bohemia 
Must sink. 

Thou hast forsworn the ancient colors. 
Blind man ! yet trustest to thy ancient fortunes. 
Profaner of the altar and the hearth, 
Asrainst thy Emperor and fellow-citizens 
Thou mean'st to wage the war. Friedland, beware- 
The evil spirit of revenge impels thee — 
Beware thou, that revenge destroy thee not ! 



SCENE 11. 
Butler and Gordon. 



GORDON. 

Is it you ? 
How my heart sinks! The Duke a fugitive traitor! 
His princely head attainted ! O my God ! 

butler. 
You have received the letter which I sent you 
By a post-courier? 

GORDON. 

Yes : and in obedience to it 
Open'd the strong-hold to him without scruple, 
For an imperial letter orders me 
To follow your commands implicitly. 
But yet forgive me ; when even now I saw 
194 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



185 



The Duke hinis-elf, my scruples recommenced. 
For truly, not like an iillainieil man. 
Into this tov\n did J'riedland make his entrance ; 
Ilis wonted majesty heaniM I'nim his l)n)w, 
Ajld calm, as in the days when all was right, 
Did he receive from me the aceounis of oHice. 
'Tis said, that fallen pride learns condescension: 
But sparing and with dignity the Duke 
W'cigh'd every syllable of approbation, 
As masters praise a servant who has done 
Ilis duty, and no more. 

BUTI.ER. 

'Tis all precisely 
As I related in my letter. Friedland 
Has sold the army to the enemy, 
And pledged himself to give up Prague and Egra. 
On this report the regiments all forsook him, 
The five excepted that belong to Tertsky, 
And which have follovv'd him, as ihou hast seen. 
The sentence of attainder is pass'd oa him, 
And every loyal subject is rcipiired 
To give him in to justice, dead or living. 

GORDON. 

A traitor to the Emperor — Such a noble ! 

Of such high talents ! What is human greatness ? 

I often said, this can't end happily. 

His might his greatness, and this obscure fwwer 

Are but a cover'd pit-lall. The human being 

May not be Irusied to self-government. 

The clear and written law, the deep-trod foot-marks 

Of ancient custom, are all necessary 

Ti) keep him in the road of faith and duty. 

The authority iuirusted to this man 

Was unexampled and unnatural. 

It placed him on a level with his Emperor, 

Till the proud soul unlearn'd submission. Woe is me ; 

I mourn for him ! for w here he fell, 1 deem 

Might none stand firm. .-Mas ! dear General, 

We in our lucky mediocrity 

Have ne'er ex[ieriei!ced, cannot calculate. 

What dangerous wishes such a height may breed 

In the heart of such a man. 

BUTLER. 

Spare your laments 
Till he need sympathy ; for at this present 
He is still mighty, and still ibrmidable. 
The Swedes advance to Egra by Ibrced marches, 
And quickly will the juuciion be accomplish'd. 
This must not be I 'I'ho Uuke must never leave 
This strong-hold on free footing ; for I have 
Pledged life and honor here to iiold liim prisoner. 
And your assistance 'tis on wiiich I calculate. 

GORDON'. 

that I had not lived to see this day ! 
From his hand 1 received this dignity. 
He did himself intrust this strong-hold to me. 
Which I am now required to make his dungeon. 
We subalterns have no will of our own : 
The free, the miphly man alone may listen 
To the fair impulse of his human nature. 
Ah I we are but the poor tools of the law. 
Obedience the sole virtue we dare aim at ! 

BUTLER. 

Nay ! let it not afflict y(m, that your power 
Is circumscribed. Much liberty, much error I 
The narrow path of duty is securest. 



GORDON. 

And all thou ha\ e deserted him, you say ? 
lie has built up the luck of many thousands; 
For kingly was his spirit: his f(dl hand 
Was ever open I Many a one from dust 

[ With a sli/ glance on Butler. 
Hath he selected, from the very dust 
Halh raised him into dignity and honor. 
-And yet no friend, not one friend hath he purcha.sed 
Whose heart beats true to him in the evil hour 

BUTLER. 

Here 's one, I see. 

GORDON. 

I have enjoy 'd from him 
No grace or favor. I coidd almost tloiibt, 
If ever in his greatness he once thought on 
An old friend of tiis youth. For still my olTice 
Kept me at distance from him ; and when first 
He to this citadel appointed me. 
He was sincere and serious in his duly. 
I do not then abuse his confidence. 
If I preserve my lealiy in that 
Which to my fralty was /irsl deliver'd. 

BUTLER. 

Say, then, will you fulfil the attainder on him ? 

GORDON {pniig(^s rejlectinr; — (hen as hi deep dejection) 

If it be so — if all be as you say — 

If he 've lieiray'd liie I'"mperor, his master. 

Have sold the troops, ha\e puriiosed to deliver 

The strong-holds of the country to the enemy — 

Yea, truly! — there is no redemption for him! 

Vet it is hard, that me the lot should destine 

To be the instrument of his perdition ; 

For we were pages at the court of Bergau 

.\t the same period ; but I was the senior. 

butli:k. 
I have heard so 

GORDON. 

'Tis full thirty years since then 
A youth who scarce had seen his twentieth year 
Was Wallenstein, when he and I were friends: 
Yet even then he had a daring soul : 
ilis frame of mind was serious and severe 
Beyond his years : his dieauis were of great objects 
He vvalk'd amidst us of a silent spirit. 
Communing with himself; yet I have known him 
Transported on a sudden into utterance 
Of strange conceptions; kindling into splendor 
His soul reveafd itself, and he spake so 
That we look'd round perplex'd upon each other, 
Not knowing wlielher it were craziness. 
Or whether it were a god that sj.oke in him. 

BUTLER. 

But was it where he fell two story high 

From a window -ledge, on w liich he had fallen asleep 

And rose u|) free fVoui injury? I-'rom this day 

(It is reported) he betray 'd clear marks 

Of a disteniper'd fancy. 

GORDON. 

He became 
Doubtless more self-enwrapt and melancholy; 
He made himself a Catholic. Marvellously 
His marvellous preservation had transform 'd hira 
Thenceforth he held himself for an exempted 
And privileged being, and, as if lie were 
Incapable of dizziness or fiill, 

195 



18 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



ife ran alone the unsteady rope of life. 

But now our destinies drove us asunder ; 

He paced with rapid step the way of greatness, 

Was Count, and Prince, Duke-regent, and Dictator. 

And now is all, all this too little for him ; 

He stretches forth his hands for a king's crown, 

And plunges m unfathomable ruin. 

BUTLER. 

No more, he comes. 



SCENE III. 



To rtesee7i?erWALLENSTEiN, in conversation with the 
Burgomaster of Egra. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

You were at one time a free town. I see, 
Ye bear the half eagle in your city arras. 
Why the tialf eagle only ? 

BURGOiMASTER. 

We were free. 
But for these last two hundred years has Egra 
Remain'd in pledge to liie Bohemian crown ; 
Therefore we bear the half eagle, the other half 
Being cancell'd till ihe empire ransom us, 
If ever that should be. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ye merit freedom. 
Only be firm and dauntless. Lend your ears 
To no designing whispering court-minions. 
What may your imposts be ? 

BURGOMASTER. 

So heavy that 
We totter under them. The garrison 
Lives at our costs. 

WALLENSTELV. 

I will relieve you. Tell me, 

There are some Protestants among you still ? 

[The Burgomaster hesitates. 
Yes, yes ; I know it. Many lie conceal'd 
Within these walls — Confess now — you yourself— 

[Fixes his eye on him. The Burgomaster alarmed. 
Be not alarm'd. I hate the Jesuits. 
Could my will have determined it, they had 
Been long ago expell'd the empire. Trust me — 
Mass-book or Bible — 'tis all one to me. 
Of that the world has had suflicient proof. 
1 built a church for the reform'd in Glogau 
At my own instance. Harkye, Burgomaster ! 
What is your name ? 

burgomaster. 
Pachhalbel, may it please you. 

■WALLENSTEIN. 

Harkye ' 

But let it go no further, what I now 
Disclose to you in confidence. 

[Laying his hand on the Burgomaster's shoulder 
with a certain solemnity. 

The times 
Draw near to their fulfilment. Burgomaster! 
The high will fall, the low will be exalted. 
Harkye ! But keep it to yourself! The end 
Ap])roaches of the Spanish double monarchy — 
A new arrangement is at hand. You saw 
The three moons that appear'd at once in the Heaven. 



burgomaster. 
With wonder and affright ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Whereof did two 
Strangely transform themselves to bloody daggers. 
And only one, the middle moon, remain'd 
Steady and clear. 

burgomaster. 
We applied it to the Turks. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The Turks ! That all'? — I tell you, that two empires 
Will set in blood, in the East and in the West, 
And Luth'ranism alone remain. 

[Ohsej-ving Gordon and Butler. 
r faith, 
'T was a smart cannonading that we heard 
This evening, as we journey 'd hitherward ; 
'T was on our left hand. Did you hear it here ? 

GORDON. 

Distinctly. The wind brought it from the South. 

BUTLER. 

It seem'd to come from Weiden or from Neustadt. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

'Tis likely. That 's the route the Swedes are taking. 
How strong is the garrison ? 

GORDON. 

Not quite two hundred 
Competent men, the rest are invalids. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Good ! And haw many in the vale of Jochim. 

GORDON. 

Two hundred arquebusiers have I sent thither, 
To fortify the posts against the Swedes. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Good ! I commend your foresight. At the works too 
You have done somewhat ? 

GORDON. 

Two additional batteries 
I caused to be run up. They were needed. 
The Rhinegrave presses hard upon us, General ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

You have been watchful in your Emperor's service 
I am content with you, Lieutenant-Colonel. 

[To Butler. 
Release the outposts in the vale of Jochim 
With all the stations in the enemy's route. 

[To Gordon 
Governor, in your faithful hands I leave 
My wife, my daughter, and my sister. I 
Shall make no stay here, and wait but the arrival 
Of letters to take leave of you, together 
With all the regiments. 



SCENE IV. 
To these enter Count Tertsky. 

TERTSKY. 

Joy, General ; joy ! I bring you welcome tidings. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

And what may they be ? 

TERTSKY. 

There has been an engagement 
At Neustadt ; the Swedes gain'd the victory. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

From whence did you receive the intelligence ?■ 

136 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



187 



TERTSKY. 

A countryman from Tirschcnseil convey'd it 
Soon after sunrise did the fight begin ! 
A troop of llio Imperialists from Fachau 
Had forced itieir way into the Swedish camp ; 
The cannonade coniiuued full two hours ; 
There were left dead upon the field a thousand 
ImpcrialistM, together with their Colonel ; 
I'urther than this he did not know. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I low came 
Imperial troops at Neiistadt ? Altringer, 
But yesterday, stood sixty miles from there. 
Count Galas' force collects at Fraucnberg, 
And have not the full complement. Is il possible, 
That Suys perchance had ventured so far onward ? 
It cannot be. 

TERTSKY. 

We shall soon know the whole, 
For here comes Illo, full of haste, and joyous. 



SCEPvE V. 
To these enter Illo. 

ILLO (,tO WALLENSTEIN). 

A courier, Duke I he wishes to speak with thee. 

TERTSKY (eagerly). 
Does he bring confirmation of the victory ? 
WALLENSTEIN {at the same time). 
\\'hat does he bring ? Whence comes he ? 

ILLO. 

From the Rhinegrave. 
And what he brings I can announce to you 
Beforehand. Seven leagues distant are the Swedes; 
At IVeusladt did Max. Piccolomini 
Throw himself on them with the cavalry ; 
A murderous fight took place! o'erpowcr'd by numbers 
The Pappenheimers all, with Max. their leader, 

[WALLENSTEIN shudders and turns pale. 
Were left dead on the field. 

WALLENSTEIN (after a pause, in a low voice). 
Where is the messenger ? Conduct me to him. 

[WALLENSTEIN is going, when Lady Neubrunn 
rushes into the room. Some Servants follow 
her, and run across the stage. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Help! Help! 

ILLO and TERTSKY (at the same time). 
What now ? 

NEUBRUNN. 

The Princess ! 

WALLENSTEIN and TERTSKY. 

Does she know it ? 
NEUBRUNN (at the same time with them). 
She is dying! [Hurries off the stage, when Wali.en- 
STEIN and Tertsky follow her. 



SCENE VI. 
Butler and Gordon. 

GORDO.N. 

UTiat's this? 

BUTLER. 

She has lost the man she loved — 
Young Piccolomini, who fell in the battle. 



GORDON. 

Unfortunate Lady ! 

BUTLER 

You have heard what Illo 
Reporteth, that the Swedes are conquerors, 
And marching hitherward. 

GORDON. 

Too well I heard it. 

BUTLER. 

They are twelve regiments strong, and there are five 
Close by us to protect the Duke. We have 
Only my single regiment ; and the garrison 
Is not two hundred strong. 

GORDON. 

'Tis even so 

BUTLER. 

It is not possible with such small force 
To hold in custody a man like him. 

GORDON. 

I grant it. 

BUTLER. 

Soon the numbers would disarm us, 
And liberate him. 

GORDON. 

It were to be fear'd. 
BUTLER (after a pause). 
Know, I am warranty for the event ; 
With my head have I pledged myself for his, 
Must make my word good, cost it what it wUl, 
And if alive we cannot hold him prisoner. 
Why — death makes all things certain ! 

GORDON. 

Butler! What. 
Do I understand you? Gracious God! You could — 

BUTLER. 

He must not live. 

GORDON. 

And you can do the deed ! 

BUTLER. 

Either you or I. This morning was his last 

GORDO.N. 

You would assassinate him. 

BUTLER. 

'Tis my purpose 

GORDON. 

Who leans with his whole confidence upon you ! 

BUTLER. 

Such is his evil destiny ! 

GORDON. 

Your General ! 
The sacred person of your General ! 

BUTLER. 

My General he has been. 

GORDON, 

That 'tis only 
An "has been" washes out no villany. 
And without judgment pass'd ? 

BUTLER. 

The execuuon 
Is here instead of judgment 

GORDON. 

This were murder, 
Not justice. The most guilty should be heard 

BUTLER. 

His guilt is clear, the Emperor has pass'd judgment 
And we but execute his will. 

26 197 



188 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



GORDON. 

We should not 
Hurry to realize a bloody sentence. 
A word may be recall'd, a life can never be. 

BUTLER. 

Dispatch in service pleases sovereigns. 

GORDON. 

No honest man 's ambitious to press forward 
To the hangman's service. 

BUTLER. 

And no brave man loses 
His color at a daring enterprise. 

GORDON. 

A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience. 

BUTLER. 

Wliat then ? Shall he go forih, anew to kindle 
The unextinguishable flame of war ? 

GORDON. 

Seize him, and hold him prisoner — do not kill him ! 

BUTLER. 

Had not the Emperor's army been defeated, 
I might have done so — But 'tis now past by. 

GORDON. 

O, wherefore open'd I the strong-hold to him ? 

BUTLER. 

His destiny and not the place destroys him. 

GORDON. 

Upon these ramparts, as beseem'd a soldier, 
I had fallen, defending Ihe Emperor's citadel ! 

BUTLER. 

Yes ! and a thousand gallant men have perish'd ! 

GORDON. 

Doing their duty — that adorns the man ! 

But murder's a black deed, and nature curses it. 

BUTLER (brings out a paper). 
Here is the manifesto which commands us 
To gain possession of his person. See — 
It is address 'd to you as well as me. 
Are you content to take the consequences, 
If through our fault he escape to the enemy ? 

GORDON. 

I ? Giacious God ! 

BUTLER. 

Take it on yourself. 
Come of it what it may, on you I lay it. 

GORDON. 

(jrod in heaven ! 

BUTLER. 

Can you advise aught else 
Wherewith to execute ihe Emperor's purpose ? 
Say if you can. For I desire his fall, 
Not his destruction. 

GORDON. 

Merciful heaven ! what must be 

1 see as clear as you. Yet still the heart 
Witliin my bosom beats with other feelings ! 

BUTLER. 

Mine is of harder stuff! Necessity 

In her rough school hath steel'd me. And this Illo 

And Tertsky likewise, they must not survive him. 

GORDON. 

I feel no pang for these. Their owti bad hearts 
Impell'd them, not the influence of the stars, 
'T was they who strew'd the seeds of evil passions 
111 Ills calm breast, and with officious villany 



Water'd and nurs'd the pois'nous plants. May they 
Receive their earnests to the uttermost mite ! 

BUTLER. 

And their death shall precede his ! 

We meant to have taken them alive this evening 

Amid the merry-making of a feast. 

And keep them prisoners in the citadels 

But this makes shorter work. I go this instant 

To give the necessary orders. 



SCENE VII. 



To these enter Illo and Tertsky. 

TERTSKY. 

Our luck is on the turn. To-morrow come 
The Swedes — twelve thousand gallant warriors, Illo 
Then straightways for Vienna. Cheerily, friend ! 
What ! meet such news with such a moody face ? 

ILLO. 

It lies with us at present to prescribe 

Laws, and take vengeance on those worthless traitors 

Those skulking cowards that deserted us ,■ 

One has already done his bitter penance, 

The Piccolomini : be his the fate 

Of all who wish us evil! This flies sure 

To the old man's heart ; he has his whole life long 

Fretted and toil'd to raise his ancient house 

From a Count's title to the name of Prince ; 

And now must seek a grave for his only son. 

BUTLER. 

'Twas pity, though ! A youth of such heroic 
And gentle temperament 1 The Duke himself, 
'Twas easily seen, how near it went to his heafi 

ILLO. 

Hark ye, old friend ! That is the very point 
That never pleased me in our General — 
lie ever gave the preference to the Italians. 
Yea, at this very moment, by my soul ! 
He'd gladly see us all dead ten times over, 
Could he thereby recall his friend to life. 

TERTSKY. 

Hush, hush! Let the dead rest! This evening's' 

business 
Is, who can fairly drink the other down — 
Your regiment, Illo ! gives the entertainment. 
Come! we will keep a merry carnival — 
The night for once be day, and 'mid full glasses 
Will we expect the Swedish avant-garde. 

ILLO. 

Yes, let us be of good cheer for to-day, 
For there's hot work before us, friends ! This sword 
Shall have no rest, till it be bathed to the hilt 
In Austrian blood. 

GORDON. 

Shame, shame! what talk is this 
My Lord Field Marshal ? Wherefore foam you so 
Against your Emperor ? 

BUTLER. 

Hope not too much 
From this first victory. Bethink you, sirs ! 
How rapidly the wheel of Fortune turns; 
The Emperor still is formidably strong. 

ILLO. 

The Emperor has soldiers, no commander 
For this King Ferdinand of Hungary 
Is but a tyro. Galas? He's no luck, 

198 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



189 



Anil was of old Ilie miner of armies. 

And ihen this viper, this Octavio, 

Is excellent at slabbing in the back, 

But ne'er meets Fried land in the open field. 

TF.RTSKY. 

Trust me, my friends, it cannot but succeed ; 
I-'ortune, we know, can ne'er forsake tlie Duke! 
And ordy inider Wallenstein can Austria 
Be conqueror. 

ILLO. 

The Duke will soon assemble 
A mighty nrmy : all comes crowding, streaming 
To banners, dedicate by destiny, 
To fame, and prosperous iiirtune. I hohold 
Old times come back again! he will become 
Once more the mighty Lord which he has been. 
How will the fools, who've now deserted him, 
Look then ? I can't but laugh to think of them. 
For lands will ho present to all his friends, 
And like a King and Emperor reward 
True services; but we've the nearest claim.s. 

[7b GORDO.N. 

VdU will not be forgotten, Governor ! 

He '11 take you from this nest, and bid you shine 

In higher station: your tideiity 

Well merits it. 

GORDON. 

I am content already, 
And wish to climb no higher ; where great height is. 
The fall must needs be great. " Great height, great 
depth." 

11,1,0. 

Here you have no more business, for to-morrow 
The Swedes will take possession of the citadel. 
Come, Tertsky, it is snpper-limo. What think you ? 
Nay, shall we have the Slate illnminaied 
In honor of the Swede ? And who refuses 
To do it is a Spaniard and a traitor. 

TERT.SKY. 

IVay ! Nay ! not that, it will not please the Duke — 

1 1,1.0. 

Wliat! we are masters here ; no soul shall dare 
Avow himself imperial where we've the rule. 
Ciordon ! good night, and lor the last time, take 
A fair leave of the place. Send out patrols 
To make secure, the watch-word may be alter'd 
At the stroke of ton; deliver in the keys 
To the Duke himself, and then you've q\iit for ever 
Your wardship of the gates, for on to-morrow 
The Swedes v\nll take possession of the citadel 

TERTSKV {as he is ffobiff, to Butler). 
You come, though, to the ca.stle >. 

BUTI.ER. 

At the right time. 
[Exeiml Tertsky and Illo. 



SCENE VIII. 
GoRiiON and Butler. 
GoRDO\ (looking afler fhern). 
Unhappy men ! IIow free from all foreboding ! 
They rush into the outspread net of murder. 
In the blind dnmkenness of victory; 
I have no pity for their fate. This Illo, 
This overflowing and foolhardy villain. 
That would fain bathe himself in liis Emperor's 
blood. — 

8 



BUTLER. 

Do as ho order'd you. Send round patrols. 
Take measures lijr the citadel's security ; 
When they are within, I close the castle-gate 
'J'hat nothing may transpire. 

GORDON (with larnesl anxiety). 

Oh ! haste not so ! 
Nay, stop; first tell me 

BUTLER. 

You have heard already 
To-morrow to the Swedes belongs. This night 
Alone is ours. They make good expedition. 
But we will make still greater. Fare you well. 

GORDON. 

Ah ! your looks tell me nothing good. Nay, Butler 
I pray you, promise me ! 

BUTLER. 

The sun has set ; 
A fateful evening doth descend upon us, 
.And brings on ihoir long night! Their evil stars 
Deliver ihem iniarni'd into our hands, 
And from their dj-unken dream of golden fortunes 
The dagger at their heart shall rouse them. Well, 
The Duke was ever a groat calculatoi , 
His fellow-men were figures on his chess-board. 
To move and station, as his game required. 
Other men's honor, dignity, good name. 
Did he shii't like pawns, and made no conscience of it 
Still calculating, calculating still ; 
And yet at last his calculation proves 
Erroneous ; the whole game is lost ; and lo ! 
His own life will be found among the forfeits. 

GORDO.N. 

think not of his.errors now; remember 
His greatness, his munificence, think on all 
The lovely features of his chara<-ter. 
On all the noble exploits of his life, 
.-Vnd let them, like an angel's arm, unseen 
.\rrest the lifted sword. 

BUTLER. 

It is too late. 

1 suffer not myself to feel compassion. 
Dark thoughts and bloody are my dulij now : 

[Grasping Gordon's Itand, 
Gordon! 'tis not my hatred (I ))rctend not 
To love the Duke, and have no cause to love him), 
Y'et 'tis not now my hatred that impels me 
To be his murderer. 'Tis his evil fate. 
Hostile concurrences of many events 
Control and subjugate nie to the office. 
In vain the human being meditates 
Free action. He is but the wirc-work'd* puppet 
Of the blind Power, which out of his own choice 
Creates for him a dread necessity. 
What too would it avail him, if there were 
A something plcailing for him in my heart — 
Still I must kill him. 



GORDON. 

If your heart speak to you 
Follow its impulse. 'Tis the voice of (iod. 
Think you your fortunes will grow prosperous 
Bedew'd with blood — his blood ? Believe it not ! 



• Wo doubt the propriety of putting so blasphemous a senti- 
ment in the moutli of any churucter. T. 

199 



190 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



BUTLER. 

You know not. Ask not! Wherefore should it happen. 
That the Swedes gain'd the victory, and hasten 
With such forced marches hitherward ? Fain would I 
Have given him to tlie Emperor's mercy. — Gordon ! 
I do not wish his blood — But I must ransom 
The honor of my word, — it lies in pledge — 

And he must die, or 

[Passionately grasping Gordon's hand. 
Listen then, and know ! 
I am dishonor'd if the Duke escape us. 

GORDON. 

! to save such a man 

BUTLER. 

What ! 

GORDON. 

It is worth 
A sacrifice. — Come, friend ! Be noble-minded I 
Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, 
Forms our true honor. 

BUTLER {,wiik a cold and haughty air). 
He is a great Lord, 
This Duke — and I am but of mean importance. 
This is what you would say ? Wherein concerns it 
The world at large, you mean to hint to me, 
Whether the man of low extraction keeps 
Or blemishes his honor — 
So that the man of princely rank be saved ? 
We all do stamp our value on ourselves. 
The price we challenge for ourselves is given us. 
There does not live on earth the man so station'd, 
That I despise myself compared with him. 
JNIan is made great or little by his own will ; 
Because I am true to mine, therefore he dies. 



I am endeavoring to move a rock. 

Thou hadst a mother, yet no human feelings. 

I cannot hinder you, but may some God 

Rescue him from you ! [Exit Gordon. 



SCENE IX. 



butler (alone). 
I treasured my good name all my life long ; 
The Duke has cheated me of life's best jewel, 
So that I blush before this poor weak Gordon ' 
He prizes above all his fealiy ; 
His conscious soul accuses him of nothing ; 
In opposition to his own soft heart 
He subjugates himself to an iron duty. 
Me in a weaker moment passion warp'd ; 
I stand beside him, and must feel myself 
The worse man of the two. Wliat, though the world 
Is ignorant of my purposed treason, yet 
One man does know it, and can prove it too — 
High-minded Piccolomini ! 
There lives the man who can dishonor me ! 
This ignominy blood alone can cleanse ! 
Duke Friedland, thou or I — Into my own hands 
Fortune delivers me — The dearest thing a man has 
is himself. 

{The curtain drops) 



ACT IV. 

SCENE L 

Scene — Butler's Chamber. 
Butler, Major, and Geraldin. 

BUTLER. 

Find me twelve strong Dragoons, arm them witb 

pikes. 
For there must be no firing — 
Conceal them somewhere near the banquet-rorm, 
And soon as the dessert is served up, rush all in 
And cry — Who is loyal to the Emperor ? 
I will overturn the table — while you attack 
Illo and Tertsky, and dispatch them both. 
The castle-palace is well barr'd and guarded, 
That no intelligence of this proceeding 
May make its way to the Duke. — Go instantly ; 
Have you yet sent for Captain Devereux 
And the IVlacdonald >. 

GERALDIN. 

They'll be here anon. 

[Exit Gekaldin. 

BUTLER. 

Here 's no room for delay. The citizens 
Declare for him, a dizzy drunken spirit 
Possesses the whole town. They see in the Duke 
A Prince of peace, a founder of new ages 
And golden times. Arms too have been given out 
By the town-council, and a hundred citizens 
Have volunieer'd themselves to stand on guard 
Dispatch then be the word. For enemies 
Threaten us from without and from within. 



SCENE IL 



Butler, Captain Devereux, and Macdonald. 
macdonald. 
Here we are, General. 

devereu.x. 

What 's to be the watch- word ? 
butler. 
Long live the Emperor ! 

both {recoiling). 
How? 

butler. 

Live the House of Austria ' 
devereu.x. 
Have we not sworn fidehty to Friedland ? 

MACDONALD. 

Have we not march'd to this place to protect him ? 

butler. 
Protect a traitor, and his country's enemy ! 

DEVEREU.X. 

Why, yes ! in his name you administer'd 
Our oath. 

macdonald. 
And followed him yourself to Egra. 

BUTLER. 

I did it the more surely to destroy him 

DEVEREU.X. 

So then! 



macdonald. 
An alter'd case ! 



200 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



191 



BUTLER {lO DevEREUX). 

Thou wretched man! 
Bo easily leavest thou tliy oath and colors ? 

DEVEREUX. 

The devil ! — I but foliow'd your example. 
If you could prove a villain, why not we ? 

MACDONALD. 

We've nought to do with thinking — that's your 

busines.s. 
You arc our General, and give out the orders ; 
We follow you, though the track lead to hell. 

BUTLER (appeased). 
Good then ! we know each other. 

MACDO.VALD. 

I should hope so. 

DEVEREU.X. 

Soldiers of fortune are we — who bids most. 
He has us 

MACDONALD. 

'Tis e'en so! 

BUTLER. 

Well, for the present 
Ye must remain honest and faithful soldiers. 



We wish no other. 



That is still better. 



DEVEREUX. 
BUTLER. 

Ay, and make your fortunes. 

MACDONALD. 
BUTLER. 

Listen ! 



BOTH. 

We attend. 

BUTLER. 

It IS the Emperor's will and ordinance 

To seize the person of the Prince-duke Friedland, 

Alive or dead. 

DEVEREUX. 

It runs so in the letter. 

MACDONALD. 

Alive or dead — these were the very words. 

BUTLER. 

And he shall be rewarded from the State 
In land and gold, who proffers aid thereto. 

DEVEREU.X. 

Ay ! that sounds well. The words sound always well 
That travel hither from the Court. Yes ! yes I 
We know already what Court-words import. 
A golden chain perhaps in sign of favor. 
Or an old charger, or a parchment patent, 
And such like. — The Prince-duke pays better. 

MACDONALD. 

Yes, 
The Duke 's a splendid paymaster. 

BUTLER. 

All over 
With that, my friends ! His lucky stars are set. 

MACDONALD. 

And is that certain? 

BUTLER. 

You have my word for it. 

DEVEREUX. 

His lucky fortunes all past by ? 

BUTLER. 

For ever 
He IS as poor as we. 



MACDONALD. 

As poor as we ? 

DEVEREUX. 

Macdonald, we'll desert him. 

BUTLER. 

We'll desert him? 
Full twenty thousand have done that already ; 
We must do more, my countrymen ! In short — 
We — we must kill liim. 

BOTH {starting bacti). 
Kill him ! 

BUTLER. 

Yes ! must kill him ; 
And for that purpose have I chosen you. 

BOTH. 

Us' 

BUTLER. 

You, Captain Devercux, and thee, Macdonald 

DEVEREUX {after a pause). 
Choose you some other. 

BUTLER. 

What ? art dastardly ? 
Thou, with full thirty lives to answer for — 
Thou conscientious of a sudden ? 

DEVEREUX. 

Nay, 
To assassinate our Lord and General — 

MACDONALD. 

To whom we've sworn a soldier's oath — 

BUTLER. 

The oath 
Is null, for Friedland is a traitor. 

DEVEREUX. 

No, no ! it is too bad ! 

MACDONALD. 

Yes, by my soul ! 
It is too bad. One has a conscience too — 

DEVEREUX. 

If it were not our Chieftain, who so long 

Has issued the commands, and claim'd our duty. 

BUTLER. 

Is that the objection ? 

DEVEREUX. 

Were it my own father, 
And the Emperor's service should demand it of me, 
It might be done, perhaps — But we are soldiers. 
And to assassinate our Chief Commander, 
That is a sin, a foul abomination, 
P>om which no Monk or Confessor absolves us 

BUTLER. 

I am your Pope, and give you absolution. 
Determine quickly! 

DEVEREUX. 

'Twill not do. 

MACDONALD. 

'Twont do. 

BUTLER. 

Well, off then ! and — send Pestalutz to me. 

DEVEREUX {hesitates). 
The Pestalutz— 

MACDONALD. 

What may you want with hira ( 

BUTLER. 

If you reject it, we can find enough — 

DEVEREUX. 

Nay, if he must fall, we may earn the bounty 
201 



192 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



As well as any other. What think you, 
Brother Macdonald ? 

MACDONALD. 

Why, if he must fall, 
And will fall, and it can't be otherwise. 
One would not give place to this Pestalutz. 
DEVEREUX (after some rejlection). 
When do you purpose he should fall ? 

BUTLER. 

This night. 
To-morrow will the Swedes be at our gates. 

DEVEREUX. 

You take upon you all the consequences' 

BUTLER. 

I take the whole upon me. 

DEVEREU.X. 

And it is 
The Emperor's will, his express absolute will? 
For we have instances, that folks may like 
The murder, and yet hang the murderer. 

BUTLER. 

The manifesto says — alive or dead. 
Alive — 'tis not possible — you see it is not. 

DEVEREUX. 

Well, dead then ! dead ! But how can we come at him ? 
The town is fill'd with Tertsky's soldiery. 

MACDONALD. 

Ay! and then Tertsky still remains, and Illo — 

BUTLER. 

With these you sliall begin — you understand me ? 

DEVEREUX. 

How ? And must they too perish ? 

BUTLER. 

They the first 

MACDONALD. 

Hear, Devereux ! A bloody evening this. 

DEVEREUX. 

Have you a man for that ? Commission me — 

BUTLER. 

'Tis given in trust to Major Geraldin; 
This is a carnival night, and there's a feast 
Given at the castle — there we shall surprise them. 
And hew them dovvii. The Pestalutz, and Lesley 
Have that commission — soon as that is fmish'd — 

DEVEREUX. 

Hear, General ! It will be all one to you — 
Harkye, let me exchange with Geraldin. 

BUTLER. 

'Twill be the lesser danger with the Duke. 

DEVEREUX. 

Danger! the devil! What do you think me. General? 
'Tis the Duke's eye, and not his sword, I fear. 

BUTLER. 

"Vhat can his eye do to thee ? 

DEVEREUX. 

Death and hell ! 
Thou know'st that I 'm no milk-sop. General ! 
But 'tis not eight days since the Duke did send me 
Twenty gold )iieces for this good warm coat 
Which I have on ! and then for him to see me 
Standing before him wiili the pike, his murderer, 
That eye of his looking upon this coat — 
V/by — why — the devil fetch me! I'm no milk-sop! 

BUTLER. 

The D\ike presented thee tliis good warm coat. 
And Ihou :i needy wight, hast pangs of conscience 



To run him through the body in return. 

A coat that is far better and far warmer 

Did the Emperor give to him, the Prince's mantle 

How doth he thank the Emperor? With revolt. 

And treason. 

DEVEREUX. 

That is true. The devil take 
Such thankers ! I '11 dispatch him. 

BUTLER. 

And wouldst quiet 
Thy conscience, thou hast naught to do but simply 
Pull off the coat ; so canst thou do the deed 
With light heart and good spirits. 

DEVEREUX. 

You are right. 
That did not strike me. I '11 pull off the coat — 
So there's an end of it. 

MACDONALD. 

Yes, but there's another 
Point to be thought of 

BUTLER. 

And what's that, Macdonald 

MACDONALD. 

What avails sword or dagger against hivi ? 
He is not to be wounded — he is — 

BUTLER (starting up). 

WTiat? 

MACDONALD. 

Safe against shot, and stab and flash ! Hard frozen. 
Secured, and warranted by the black art! 
His body is impenetrable, I tell you. 

DEVEREUX. 

In Inglestadt there was just such another: 

His whole skin was the same as steel ; at last 

We were obliged to beat him down with gunstocks 

MACDONALD. 

Hear what I '11 do. 

DEVEREUX. 

Well? 

MACDONALD. 

In the cloister here 
There 's a Dominican, my countryman. 
I'll make him dip my sword and pike for me 
In holy water, and say over them 
One of his strongest blessings. That 's probatum. 
Nothing can stand 'gainst that. 

BUTLER. 

So do, Macdonald 
But now go and select from out the regiment 
Twenty or thirty able-bodied fellows, 
And let them take the oaths to the Emperor. 
Then when it strikes eleven, when the first lounds 
Are pass'd, conduct them silently as may be 
To the house — I will myself be not far ofK 

DEVEREUX. 

But how do we get through Hartschier and Gordon 
That stand on guard there in the inner chamber ? 

BUTLER. 

I have made myself acquainted with the place. 
I lead you through a back-door that 's defended 
By one man only. Me my rank and office 
Give access to the Duke at every hour, 
I '11 go before you — with one poniard-stroke 
Cut Hartschier's windpipe, and make way for you 

DEVEREUX. 

And when we are there, by what means shall we gajn 

902 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIW. 



193 



The Duke's bcd-cluimbcr, wilhoiit Iiis alarming 
The servants of tlie Court ; for lie has here 
A numerous company of Ibllowers ? 

Bl'TLKR. 

'J'he attendants fill the right wing ; he liates bustle, 
And lodges in the left wing quite alone. 

DKVKRKUX. 

Wore it well over — hey, Macdonalil ? I 
Feel (juecriy on the occasion, devil knows ! 

MACDONALD. 

And I too. 'Tis too great a personage. 
People \\ill hold us for a brace of villains. 

DL'TLKR. 

In plenty, honor, splendor — You may safely 
Laugh at the people's babble. 

DIiVi;KEUX. 

If the business 
Squares with one's honor — if that be quite certain — 

butl?;r. 
Set your hearts quite at ease. Ye save for Ferdinand 
His Crown and Empire. The reward can be 
No small one. 

DEVERKU.X. 

And 'tis his purpose to dethrone the Emperor? 

BUTLKR. 

Yes I — Y'es ! — to rob hini of his Crown and Life. 

DKVEREL'.X. 

And he must fall by the executioner's hands, 
Should we deliver him up to the Emperor 
Ahve? 

BUTLER. 

It were his certain destiny. 

DEVEREUX. 

Well ! Well ! Come then, Macdonald, he shall not 
Lie long in pain. 

[Exeunt Butler through one door, Macdonald and 
Devereux through the other. 



SCENE III. 



Scene — A Gothic and gloomy Apartment at the Duchess 
Friedland's. Thekla cm. a seat, pale, her eyes 
closed. The Duchess and Lady Neucruxn 
busied about her. WALLE.NSTEixa/irf Me Countess 
IH conversation. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

How knew she it so soon ? 

countess. 

She seems to have 
Foreboded some misfortune. The re|)ort 
Of an engagement, in the which had fallen 
A colonel of the Imperial army, frighten'd her. 
I saw it instantly. She flew to meet 
The Swedish courier, and with sudden questioning. 
Soon wrested from him the disastrous secret. 
Too late we miss'd her, hasten'd after her, 
We found her lying in his arms, all pale 
And in a swoon. 

WALLENSTEI.N. 

A heavy, heavy blow ! 
And she so unprepared .' Poor child ! How is it » 

{Turning to the Ducjiess. 
Is she coming ^o herself 

DITHESS. 

Her eyes are opening. 

COUNTESS. 

She lives. 

14 S2 



TllEKLA (looking around her). 
Where am 1 ? 
WALLEN.STEIN {slcps to her, raising her up in his arms). 
Come, cheerly, 'i'liekla ! be my own bravo girl I 
See, there's thy loving moiiier. Thou art in 
Thy father's arms. 

THEKLA {standing up). 

Where is he ? Is he gone ? 

DUCHESS. 

AVho gone, my daughter ? 

THEKLA. 

He — the man wlio utter'd 
That word of misery. 

DUCHESS. 

01 think not of it, 
My Thekla! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Give her sorrow leave to talk ! 
Let her complain — mingle your tears with hers, 
For she hath siifTer'd a deep anguish ; but 
She'll rise superior to it, l()r my Thekla 
Hath all her fiather's unsubdued heart. 

THEKLA. 

I am not ill. See, I have power to stand. 

Why does my mother weep ? Have 1 alarm'd her? 

It is gone by — I recollect myself^ — 

[She casts her eyes round the room, as seeking some 
one. 
Where is he ? Please you, do not hide him from me 
Y'ou see I have strengih enough : now I will hear him. 

DUCHESS. 

No, never shall this messenger of evil 
Enter again into iliy presence, Thekla ! 

THEKLA. 

My father — 

WALLENSTEI.N'. 

Dearest daughter ! 

THEKLA. 

I'm not weak — 
Shortly I shall be quite my.self again. 
You'll grant me one request? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Name it, my daughter 

THEKLA. 

Permit the stranger to be call'd to mc. 
And grant me leave, that by myself I may 
Hear his report and (jucstion him. 

DUCHESS. 

No, never ! 

COUNTESS. 

'Tis not advisable — assent not to it. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Hush ! Wherefore wouldst thou speak with him, my 
daughter ? 

THEKLA, 

Knowing the whole, I shall be more collected : 
I will not be deceived. My mother wishes 
Only to spare me. 1 will not be spared, 
The worst is said already : I can hear 
Nothing of deeper anguish ! 

DUCHESS OTld COUNTESS. 

Do it not 

THEKLA. 

The horror overpovver'd me iiy surprise. 
]My heart betray 'd me in the stranger's presence 
He was a witness of my weakness, vea, 
203 



194 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



I sank into his arms ; and that has shamed me. 
I must replace myself in his esteem, 
And I must speak with him, perforce, that he. 
The stranger, may not thinli ungently of me. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

I see she is in the right, and am inclined 

To grant her this request of hers. Go, call him. 

(Lady Neubrunn goes to call him). 

DUCHESS. 

But I, thy mother, will be present — 

THEKLA. 

'T were 
More pleasing to me, if alone I saw him : 
Trust me, I shall behave myself the more 
Collectedly. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Permit her her own will. 
Leave her alone with him : for there are sorrows, 
Where of necessity the soul must be 
Its own support. A strong heart will rely 
On its own strength alone. In her own bosom, 
Not in her mother's arms, must she collect 
The strength to rise superior to this blow. 
It is mine own brave girl. I '11 have her treated 
Not as the woman, but the heroine. {Going. 

COUNTESS {detaining him). 
Where art thou going ? I heard Tertsky say 
That 'tis thy purpose to depart from hence 
To-morrow early, but to leave us here. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Yes, ye stay here, placed under the protection 
Of gallant men. 

COUNTESS. 

O take us with you, brother ! 
Leave us not in this gloomy solitude 
To brood o'er anxious thoughts. The mists of doubt 
Magnify evils to a shape of horror. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Who speaks of evil ? I entreat you, sister. 
Use words of belter omen. 

COUNTESS. 

Then take us with you. 

leave us not behind you in a place 
That forces us to such sad omens. Heavy 
And sick within me is my heart 

These walls breathe on me, like a church-yard vault. 

1 cannot tell you, l>rothcr, how this place 
Doth go against my nature. Take us with you. 
Come, sister, join you your entreaty ! — Niece, 
Yours too. We all entreat you, take us with you ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The place's evil omens will I change. 

Making it that which shields and shelters for me 

My best beloved. 

LADY NEUBRUNN {reluming). 
The Swedish officer. 

WALLENSTEI.N. 

Leave her alone with me. [Exit. 

DUCHESS {to Thekla, who starts and shivers). 
There — pale as death! — Child, 'tis impossible 
That thou shouldst speak with him. Follow thy mother. 

THEKLA. 

The Lady Neubrunn then may stay with me. 

[Exeunt Duchess and Countess. 



SCENE IV. 
Thekla, THE Swedish Captain, Lady Neubrunx. 

CAPTAIN {respectfully approaching her). 
Princess — I must entrea? your gentle pardon — 
My inconsiderate rash speech — How could I — 

THKKLA {with dignity). 
You have beheld me in my agony. 
A most distressful accident occasion'd 
You irom a stranger to become at once 
My confidant. 

CAPTAIN. 

I fear you hate my presence. 
For my tongue spake a melancholy word. 

thekla. 
The fault is mine. Myself did wrest it from you. 
The horror which came o'er me interrupted 
Your tale at its commencement. May it please you, 
Continue it to the end. 

CAPTAIN. 

Princess, 'twill 
Renew your anguish. 

THEKLA. 

I am linn. 

I will be firm. Well — how began the engagement ? 

CAPTAIN. 

We, lay, expecting no attack, at Neusladt, 
Intrench'd but insecurely in our camp. 
When towards evening rose a cloud of dust 
From the wood thitherward ; our vanguard fled 
Into the camp, and sounded tlie alarm. 
Scarce had we mounted, ere the Pappenheimers, 
Their horses at full speed, broke through the lines. 
And leapt the trenches ; but their heedless courage 
Had borne them onward far before the others — 
The infantry were still at distance only. 
The Pappenheimers follow'd daringly 
Their daring leader 

[Thekla betrays agitation in her gestures. The 
Officer pauses, till she makes a sign to him to 
proceed. 

CAPTAIN. 

Both in vim and flanks 
With our whole cavalry we now received them ; 
Back to the trenches drove them, where the foot 
Stretch'd out a solid ridge of pikes to meet them. 
They neither could advance, nor yet retreat ■ 
And as they stood on every side wedged in. 
The Rhinegrave to their leader call'd aloud, 
Inviting a surrender ; but their leader. 

Young Piccolomini 

[Thekla, as giddy, grasps a chair 
Known by his plume. 
And liis long hair, gave signal for the trenches ; 
Himself leapt first, the regiment all plunged after 
His charger, by a halbert gored, rear'd up, 
Flung him with violence off, and over him 

The horses, now no longer to be curb'd, 

[Thekla who has accompanied the last speech with 
all the marks of increasing ag07)y, trembles 
through her whole frame, and is falling. The 
Lady Neubrunn runs to her, and receiixs Jia 
in her arms. 



My dearest lady- 



NEUBRUNN. 



204 



THE DEATH OF WALLBNSTEIN. 



195 



CAPTAIN. 

I retire. 



'T is over. 



Proceed to the conclusion. 



CAPTAIN. 

Wild despair 
Inspired the troops with frenzy when they saw 
Their leader perish ; every thought of rescue 
Was spum'd ; they fouglit like wounded tigers ; their 
Frantic resistance roused our soldiery ; 
A murderous fight took place, nor was the contest 
Finish 'd before their last man fell. 

THEKLA (Jaliering). 

And where 

Where is — You have not told me all. 

CAPTAIN (afler a pause). 

This morning 
We buried him. Twelve youths of noblest birth 
Did bear him to interment ; the whole army 
Follo%v'd the bier. A laurel deek"d his coffin ; 
The sword of the deceased was placed upon it, 
In mark of honor, by the Rhincgrave's self. 
Nor tears were wanting ; lor there are among us 
Many, who had themselves experienced 
The greatness of his mind, and gentle manners ; 
All were affected at his fate. The Rhinegrave 
Would willingly have saved him ; but himself 
Made vain the attempt — 'tis said he wish'd to die. 

NEUBRUNN {to TuEKLA, tcho has liidden her coun- 
tenance). 
Look up, my dearest lady 

TIIEKLA. 

Where is his grave ? 

CAPTAIN. 

At Neustadt, lady ; in a cloister church 

Are his remains deposited, until 

We can receive directions from his father. 

THEKLA. 

What is the cloister's name ? 

CAPTAIN. 

Saint Catherine's. 

THEKLA. 

And how far is it thither ? 

CAPTAIN. 

Near twelve leagues. 

TIIEKLA. 

And which the way ? 

CAPTAIN. 

You go by Tirschcnreit 
And Falkenberg, through our advanced jwsts. 



THEKLA. 



Who 



Is theu conunander ? 



CAPTAIN. 

Colonel Seckendorf. 

[THEKLA steps to Vie table, and takes a ring from 
a casket. 

THEKLA. 

You have beheld me in my agony, 

Vnd shown a feeling heart Please you, accept 

[Givirifi; him. the ring. 
A small meinonni of ihis hour. Now go I 



CAPTAIN {confused) 

Princess 

[Thekla silenlli/ makes signs to him to go, and 
turns from hitn. The Captain lingers, and 
is about to speak. Lady IMeubrcnn repeals 
the sigtml, and he retires. 



SCENE V. 

Thekla, Lady Neubrunn. 

TIIEKLA {falls on Lady Neubrunn's neck). 
Now, gentle Neubrunn, show me the affection 
Which thou hast ever promised — prove thyself 
My own true friend and faithful fellow-pilgrim. 
This night we must away ! 

NEUBRUNN. 

Away I and whicher? 
thekla. 
Whither .' Tliere is but one place in the world. 
Thither where he lies buried ! To his coifm ! 

neubrunn. 
What would you do there ? 

THEKLA. 

What do there ? 
That wouldst thou not have ask'd, hadst thou e'er 

loved. 
There, there is all that still remains of him. 
That single spot is the whole earth to me. 

NEUBRUNN. 

That place of death 

THEKLA. 

Is now the only place, 
Where life yet dwells for me : detain me not ! 
Come and make preparations : let us think 
Of means to fly from hence. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Your father's rage 

THEKLA. 

That time is past 

And now I fear no human being's rage. 

NEUBRUNN. 

The sentence of the world ! The tongue of calumny ! 

TIIEKLA. 

Whom am I seeking ? llim who is no more. 

Am I then hastening to the arms O God ! 

I haste but to the grave of the beloved. 

NEUBRUNN. 

And we alone, two helpless feeble women ? 

THEKLA. 

We will take weapons : my arm shall protect thee. 

NEUBRUNN. 

In the dark night-time ? 

THEKLA. 

Darkness will conceal us. 

NEUBRUNN. 

This rough tempestuous night 

TIIEKLA. 

Had be a soft bed 
Under the hoofs of his war-horses 1 

NEUBRUNN. 

Heaven ! 
And then the many posts of the enemy ! 

THEKLA. 

They are human beings. Misery travels free 
Through the whole earth. 

27 205 



196 



COLERTE^E'S POETICAL WORKS. 



NEUBRUNN. 

Tlie journey's weary length — 

THEKLA. 

rhe pilgrim, travelling to a distant shrine 

Of hope and healing, doth not count the leagues. 

NEUBRUNN. 

How can we pass the gates ? 

THEKLA. 

Gold opens them. 
Go, do but go. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Should we be recognized — 

THEKLA. 

In a despairing woman, a poor fugitive. 

Will no one seek the daughter of Duke Friedland. 

NEUBRUNN. 

And where procure we horses for our flight ? 

THEKLA. 

My equerry procures them. Go and fetch him. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Dares he, without the knowledge of his lord ? 

THEKLA. 

H« will. Go, only go. Delay no longer. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Dear lady ! and your mother ? 

THEKLA. 

Oh ! my mother ! 

NEUBRUNN. 

So much as she has suffer'd too already ; 
Your tender mother — Ah ! how ill prepared 
For this last anguish ! 

THEKLA. 

Woe is me I my mother ! 

[Pauses 
Go instantly. 

NEUBRUNN. 

But think what you are doing ! 

THEKLA. 

Wliat can be thought, already has been thought. 

NEUBRUNN. 

And being there, what purpose you to do ? 

THEKLA. 

There a Divinity will prompt my soul. 

NEUBRUNN. 

Your heart, dear lady, is disquieted ! 

And this is not the way that leads to quiet. 

THEKLA. 

To a deep quiet, such as he has found. 

It draws me on, I know not what to name it, 

Resistless does it draw me to his grave. 

There will my heart be eased, my tears will flow. 

hasten, make no further questioning ! 
There is no rest for me till I have left 

These walls — they fall in on me — a dim power 
Drives me from hence — O mercy ! What a feeling ! 
What pale and hollow forms are those ! They fill, 
They crowd the place ! I have no longer room here .' 
Mercy ! Still more ! More still ! The hideous swarm ! 
They press on me ; they chase me from these walls — 
Those hollow, bodiless forms of living men ! 

NEUBRUNN. 

You frighten me so, lady, that no longer 

1 dare stay here myself I go and call 
RoBenberg instantly. [E^il Lady Neubrunn. 



SCENE VI. 

THEKLA. 

His spirit 'tis that calls me : 'tis the troop 

Of his true followers, who ofl^er'd up 

Themselves to avenge his deatli : and they accuse me 

Of an ignoble loitering — (hey would not 

Forsake their leader even in his death — they died foi 

him ! 

And shall J live?— 

For me too was tliat laurel-garland twined 
That decks his bier. Life is an empty casket; 
I throw it from me. O ! my only hope ; — 
To die beneath the hoofs of trampling steeds — 
That is the lot of heroes upon earth ! [Eidt Thekla. 
{The curtain drops). 



ACT V. 

SCENE L 

Scene — A Saloon, terminated by a Gallery which ex- 
tends far into the hack-ground. 

Wallensteln {sitting at a table). 
The Swedish Captain (standing before him). 
wallenstein. 
Commend me to your lord. I sympathize 
In his good fortune ; and if you have seen me 
Deficient in the expressions of that joy, 
Which such a victory might well demand, 
Attribute it to no lack of good-will, 
F'or henceforth are our fortunes one. Farewell, 
And for your trouble take my thanks. To-morrow 
The citadel shall be surrender'd to you 
On your arrival. 

[The Swedish Captain retires. Wallenstein siU 
lost in thought, Jiis eyes fxed vacantly, and his 
head sustaiyied by his hand. The Countess 
Tertsky enters, stands before him awhile, un- 
observed by him ; at length he starts, sees her 
and recollects himself. 

wallenstein. 
Comest thou from her ? Is she restored ? How is she ? 

COUNTESS. 

My sister tells me, she was more collected 
After her conversation with the Swede. 
She has now retired to rest. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The pang will soften. 
She will shed tears. 

COUNTESS. 

1 find thee alter'd too, 
My brother ! After such a victory 
I had expected to have found in thee 
A cheerful spirit. O remain thou firm ! 
Sustain, uphold us ! For our light thou art, 
Our sun. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Be quiet. I ail nothing. Wiere 's 
Thy husband ? 



* The soliloquy of Thekla consists in the original of six-and 
twenty lines, twenty of which are in rhymes of irregular recur- 
rence. I thought it prudent to abridge it. Indeed the whole scene 
between Thekla and Lady Neubrunn might, perhaps, have beea 
omitted without injury to the play. 

206 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



197 



COUNTESS. 

At a banquet — ho and Illo. 

WALLENSTEIN {rises and strides across the salocm). 

The night's far spent. Betake tliee to thy chamber. 

COUNTESS. 

Bid me not go, O let me stay with tliee ! 

WALLENSTEIN {mOVtS tO tllC icilldow). 

There is a busy motion in the Heaven, 
Tlie wind dolh chase the (lag upon ihe tower, 
Fast sweep the clouds, the sickle* of the moon. 
Struggling, darts snatclies of uncertain light. 
No form of star is visible ! That one 
White stain of light, that single glimmering yonder. 
Is from Cassiopeia, and (herein 
Is Jupiter. (A pause). But now 
The blackness of the troubled clement hides him! 
[He sinks into profound melancholy, and looks 
vacantly into the distance. 
COUNTESS {looks OH him mournfully, then grasps his 

hand). 
What art lliou brooding on ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Methinks, 
If I but saw him, 'twould be well with me. 
He is the star of my nativity. 
And often marvellously hath his aspect 
Shot strengtli iuto my heart 

COUNTESS. 

Thou 'It see him again. 
WALLENSTELV {remains for a while with absent mind, 

then assumes a livelier manner, and turns suddeidy 

to the Countess). 
See him again ? O never, never again ! 

COUNTESS. 

How? 

WALLENSTEI.N. 

He is gone — is dust. 

COUNTESS. 

Whom meanest thou then ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

He, the more fortunate ! yea, he hath finish'd ! 

For him there is no longer any future. 

His life is bright — bright without spot it was. 

And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour 

Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap. 

Far off is he, above desire and fear; 

No more submitted to the change and chance 

Of the unsteady planets. O 'tis well 

With him! but who knows what the coming hour 

X^eil'd in thick darkness brings for us ? 

• These four lines are expressed in the original with exquisite 
felicity. 

Am Ilimmel ist geschieflige Bewegung, 
Des Thurmes Fahne jagt der Wind, echnoll geht 
Dor Wolken Zug, die Mondcs- Sichcl wnvkl, 
Und durch die Nacht ziickt ungcwisso Helle. 

The word " moon-sickle," reminds mo of a passage in Har- 
ris, as quoted by Johnson, under the word " falcated." " The 
enhchtoncd part of the moon appears in the form of a sickle or 
reuping-hook, which is while she is moving from the conjunc- 
tion to Ihe opposition, or from the new-moon to Ihe full : hut 
from full to a new again, the enlightened pan appears gibbous, 
and the dark falcated." 

The words " wanken" and*" schwel ju are not easily trans- 
lated. The English words, by which we attempt to render 
them, are either vulgar or pedantic, or not of sufliciently gene- 
ral application. So "der Wolken Zug"— The Drafi, the Pro- 
cession of clouds.— The Musses of the Clouds sweep onward 
in swift stream. 



COUNTESS. 

TIlou speakesi 
Of Piccolomini. WTiat was his death ? 
The courier had just left thee as I came. 

[WALLENSTEIN l>y a motion of his hand makei 
signs to her to be .tilcni. 
Turn not thine eyes upon the backward view, 
Let us look ibrward into sunny days. 
Welcome with joyous heart the victory, 
Forget what it lias cost thee. Not to-day, 
I'or the first lime, thy friend was to thee dead; 
To thee he died, wiien first he parted from thee. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

This anguish will be wearied down,* I luiow ; 
Wliat pang is permanent wiih man? From the highest, 
As from the vilest thing of every day 
He learns to wean himself: for the strong hours 
Contjucr him. Yet I feel what I have lost 
In him. The bloom is vanish'd from my life. 
For O I he stood beside me, like my youth, 
Transform'd for me ihe real lo a dream. 
Clothing the palpable and the familiar 
With golden exhalations of the dawn. 
Whatever fortunes wail my future toils. 
The beautiful is vanish'd — and returns not. 

COUNTESS. 

O be not treacherous to thy own power. 
Thy heart is ricli enough to vivify 
Itself Thou lovest and prizest virtues in him. 
The which thyself didst plant, thyself unfold. 

WALLENSTEIN {.''tcpping lo the door). 
Who interrupts us now at this late hour? 
It is the Governor. He brings the keys 
Of the Citadel. 'Tis midnight. Leave me, sister 

COUNTESS. 

'tis so hard to me this night to leave thee — 
A boding fear jxjssesses nie ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Fear? Wherefore? 

COUNTESS. 

Shouldst thou depart this night, and we at waking 
Never more find thee I 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Fancies ! 

COUNTESS. 

O my soul 
Has long been weigh 'd down by these dark forebodingsu 
And if I combat and repel them waking, 
Thoy still rush down upon my heart in dreams. 

1 saw thee yesier-night with thy first wife 
Sit at a banquet gorgeously attired. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

This was a dream of favorable omen, 

That marriage being the founder of my fortunes. 

COUNTESS. 

To-day I dreamt that I was seeking thee 

In thy own chamber. As I enier'd, lo ! 

It was no more a chamber : the Charlreuse 

At Gitschin 'twas, which thou thyself hast founded 



* A very inadequate translation of the original. 

Verschmerzen werd' ich diescn Schlag, das weiss icb, 
Denn was versehmcrzte nicht der Mensch ! 

LITERALLY. 
I shall prieiie down this blow, of that I 'm conecioiu: 
What docs not man grieve down ? 

207 



198 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



And where it is thy will that thou shouldst be 
Interr'd. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Thy soul is busy with these thoughts. 

COUNTESS. 

What ! dost thou not believe that oft in dreams 
A voice of warning speaks prophetic to us ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

There is no doubt that there exist such voices. 

Yet I would not call (hem 

Voices of warning that announce to us 

Only the inevitable. As the sun, 

Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image 

In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits 

Of great events stride on before the events. 

And in to-day already walks to-morrow. 

That which we read of the fourth Henry's death 

Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale 

Of my own future destiny. The king 

Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife, 

Ijong ere Ravaillac arm'd himself therewith. 

His quiet mind forsook him : the phantasma 

Started him in his Louvre, cliased him forth 

Into the open air : like funeral knells 

Sounded that coronation festival ; 

And still with boding sense he heard the tread 

Of those feet that even then were seeldng him 

Throughout the streets of Paris. 

COUNTESS. 

And to Ihee 
The voice within thy soul bodes nothing ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Nothing. 
Be wholly tranquil. 

COUNTESS. 

And another time 
[ hasten'd after thee, and thou rann'st from me 
Through a long suite, through many a spacious hall. 
There seem'd no end of it : doors creak'd and clapp'd ; 
I follow'd pantiiig, but could not o'ertake thee ; 
When on a sudden did I feel myself 
Graspd from behind — the hand was cold, that 

grasp'd me — 
'T was thou, and thou didst kiss me, and there seem'd 
A crimson covering to envelop us. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

That is the crimson tapestry of my chamber. 

COUNTESS {gazing on him), 
If it should come to that — if I should see thee. 
Who standest now before me in the fullness 
Of life — [She falls on his breast and weeps. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

The Emperor's proclamiition weighs upon thee — 
Alphabets wound not — and he finds no hands. 

COUNTESS. 

If he shotdd find them, my resolv« is taken — 
I bear about me my support and refuge. 

\Exit Countess. 



SCENE II. 

Wallenstein, Gordon. 

wallenstein. 
All quiet in the town ? 

GORDON. 

The town is quiet. 



WALLENSTEIN. 

I hear a boisterous music ! and the CastI 
Is lighted up. Who are the revellers ? 

GORDON. 

There is a banquet given at the Castle 

To the Count Tertsky, and Field Marshal I •- 

WALLENSTEIN. 

In honor of the victory — This tribe 

Can show their joy in nothing else but feasting. 

[Rings. The Groo.vi of the Chamber enttrsi 
Unrobe me. I will lay me down to sleep. 

[Wallenstein takes the keys from Gordon 
So we are guarded from all enemies. 
And shut in with sure iriends. 
For all must cheat me, or a face like this 

[Fixing his eye on Gordon 
Was ne'er a hypocrite's mask. 

[The Groom of the Chamber takes off his man 
tie, collar, and scarf. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Take care — what is that 

GROOM OF THE CHAMBER. 

The golden chain is snapped in two. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Well, it has lasted long enough. Here — give it. 

[He lakes and looks at the chain. 
'Twas the first present of the Emperor. 
He hung it round me in the war of Friule, 
He being then Archduke; and I have worn it 

Till now from habit 

1 From superstition, if you will. Belike, 
It was to be a Talisman to me ; 
.\nd while I wore it on my neck in faith. 
It was to chain to me all my life long 
The volatile fortune, whose first pledge it was. 
Well, be it so! Henceforward a new fortune 
Must spring up for me ; for the potency 
Of this charm is dissolved. 

Groom of the Chamber retires with the vesif 
ments. Wallenstein rises, takes a stride 
across the room, and stands at last befwt 
Gordon in a jwsltire of meditation. 
How the old time returns upon me! I 
Behold myself once more at Burgau, where 
We two were Pages of the Court together. 
We oftentimes disputed : thy intention 
Was ever good ; but thou wert wont to play 
The Moralist and Preacher, and wouldst rail at me— 
That I strove after things too high for me. 
Giving my faith to bold unlawful dreams, 
And still extol to me the golden mean 
— Thy wisdom hath been proved a thriftless friend 
To thy own self. See, it has made thee early 
A snperanimatcd man, and (but 
That my munificent stars will intervene) 
Would let thee in some miserable corner 
Go out like an untended lamp. 

GORDON. 

My Prince ! 
With light heart the poor fisher moors his boat, 
And watches from the shore the lofty ship 
Stranded amid the storm. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Art thou already 
20'» 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



199 



[n harbor then, old man ? Well ! I nm not. 
The unconquer'd spirit drives me o'er life's billows ; 
My planks still linn, my canvas swelling proudly. 
Hope is my goddess still, and Youth my inmate ; 
And while we stand thus front to front almost, 
I might presume to say, that the swift years 
Have pass"d by powerless o'er my unl)lanch'd hair. 
[He moves with long strides across the Saloon, and 
remains on the opposite side ovtr-against 

GORIION. 

Wlio now persists in calling Fortune false ? 
To me she has proved lailhful, with fond love 
Took me from out the common ranks of men, 
And like a mother goddess, with strong arm 
Carried me swiftly up the steps of life. 
Nothing is common in my destiny, 
IVor in the furrows of my hand. Wlio dares 
Interpret then my life for me as 'twere 
One of the undisiinguishable many ? 
True, in this present moment I appear 
Fallen low indeed ; but I shall rise again. 
The high flood will soon follow on this ebb ; 
The fountain of my fortune, which now stops 
Repress'd and bound by some malicious star, 
Will soon in joy play forth from all its pipes. 

GORDON. 

And yet remember I the good old proverb, 
" Let the night come before we praise the day." 
I would be slow from long-continued fortune 
To gather hope : for Hope is the companion 
Given to the unfortunate by pitying Heaven ; 
Fear hovers round the head of prosperous men : 
For still unsteady are the scales of liite. 

W .\ LLE NSTEI.V (.SM iling). 

I hear the very Gordon that of old 

Was wont to preach to me, now once more preaching ; 

I know well, that all sublunary things 

Are still the vassals of vicis.situde. 

The unpropitious gods demand their tribute. 

This long ago the ancient Pagans knew : 

And therefore of their own accord they offer'd 

To iheinsolves injuries, so to atone 

The jealousy of their divinities : 

And human sacrifices bled to Typhon. 

[After a pause, serious, and in a more subdued 
manner. 
I too have sacrificed to him — For me 
There fell the dearest friend, and through my fault 
He fell ! No joy from favorable fortune 
Can overweigh the anguish of this stroke. 
The envy of my destiny is glutted : 
Life pays for life. On his pure head the lightning 
Was drawn off which would else have shatter'd me. 



SCENE in. 

To these enter Seni. 



WALLENSTEI.V. 

Is not that Seni ? and beside himself, 

If one may trust his looks ? What brings thee hither 

At this late hour, Baptista ? 

SEM. 

Terror, Duke ! 
Oa thy account. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What now ' 



Flee ere the day-break ! 
Trust not thy person to the Swedes ! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

WHiat now 

Is in thy thoughts ? 

SE.Nl (u,'iVA louder voice). 
Trust not thy person to these Swedes. 

WALLENSTEIN. 

What is it then 
SENI {still more vrgently). 

wait not the arrival of these Swedes! 
.An evil near at hand is threatening thee 

From false friends. All the signs stand full of horror 
Near, near at hand the net-work of perdition — 
Yea, even now 'tis being cast around thee! 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Cni)tista, thou art dreaming I — Fear befools theft 

SEM. 

Believe not tliat an empty fear deludes ine. 
Come, read it in iho planetary aspects; 
Read it thyself, that ruin tlireatens thee 
From false friends I 

wali.enstf:v. 

From the lalseness of my friends 
Has risen the whole of my unprosperous fortunes. 
The warning should have come before. At present 

1 need no revelation Irom the stare 
To know that. 

SEM. 

Cdtno and see ! trust thine own eyes ' 
A fearful sign siands in the house of lil'e — 
An enemy \ a fiend lurks close behind 
The radiance of thy planet. — O be warn'd ! 
Deliver not thyself up to these heathens, 
To wage a war against our holy church. 

WALLENSTEIN {laughing gcnlhj). 
Tlie oracle rails that way ! Y^es, yes! Nowr 
1 recollect This junction with the Swedes 
Did never please thee — lay thyself to sleep, 
Baptista ! Signs like these I do not fear. 

GORDON {who during the v)hole of this dialogue has 
shown marks of extreme agitation, and now turns to 

WALLENSTEIN). 

My Duke and General ! May I dare presume ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Speak freely. 

GORDON. 

What if 'twere no mere creation 
Of fear, if God's high providence vouchsafed 
To interpose its aid for your deliverance, 
And made that mouth its organ ? 

WALLENSTEIN. 

Ye 're both feverish ! 
How can mishap come to me from these Swedes ? 
They sought this junction with me — 'tis their in- 
terest. 
GORDON {with difficulty suppressing his emotion). 
But what if the arrival of these Swedes — 
What if this were the very thing that wing'd 
The ruin that is flying to your temples ? 

[Flings himself at his feeL 
There is yet time, my Prince. 

SENI. 

O hear him I hear him '. 
209 



SJOO 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



GORDON {rises). 
Tlie Rhinegrave's still far off Give but the orders, 
This citadel shall close its gates upon liim. 
If then he will besiege us, let him try it. 
But this I say ; he'll find his own destruction 
With his whole force before these ramparts, sooner 
Than weary down the valor of our spirit. 
He shall experience what a band of heroes, 
Inspirited by an heroic leader. 
Is able to perforni. And if indeed 
It be thy serious wish to make amend 
For that which thou hast done amiss, — this, this 
Will touch and reconcile the Emperor 
Who gladly turns his heart to thoughts of mercy, 
And Friedland, who returns repentant to him, 
Will stand yet higher in liis Emperor's favor. 
Than e'er he stood when he had never fallen. 

WALLENSTEIN {contemplates him with surprise, remains 

silent awhile, bcfrai/ing strong emotion). 
Gordon — your zeal and fervor lead you far. 
Well, wcK — an old friend has a privilege. 
Blood, Gordon, ha.s been flowing. Never, never 
Can the Emperor pardon me : and if he could, 
Yet I — I ne'er could let myself he pardon'd. 
Had I forelinown what nttvv has iaken place. 
That he, my dearest friend, would fall for me. 
My first dealh-oJering ; and had the lieart 
Spoken to me, as now it has done — Gordon, 
It may be, I miglit have bethought myself 
It may be too, I miglit not. Might or might not, 
Is now an idle question. All too seriously 
Has it begun, to end in nothing, Gordon ! 
Let it then have its course. 

[Stepping to the window. 
All dark and silent — at the Casile too 
All is now hush'd — Light me, Chamberlain! 

[The Groom of the Chamber, who had entered 
during the last dialogue, and had been stand- 
ing at a distance and listening to it icilh 
visible expressiojis nf the deepest interest, ad- 
vances in extreme agitation, and tlirows him 
self at the Dqke's feet. 
And thou too ! But I know why thou dost wish 
My reconcilement with the Emperor. 
Poor man ! he hath a small estate in Caernthen, 
And fears it will be fortc^ited because 
He's in my service. Am I then so poor. 
That I no longer can indemnify 
My servants ? Well ! to no one I employ 
Means of compulsion. If 'tis thy belief 
That Fortune has fled f om me, go ! foreakc me. 
This night for the last time mayst thou unrobe me, 
And then go over to thy Emperor. 
Gordon, good night I I think to make a long 
Sleep of it : for the struggle and the turmoil 
Of this last day or two was great. May 't please you ! 
Take care that they awake me not too early. 

\Exil WALLENSTEiN-,?Ae Groom of the Chamber 
lighting him. Sexi follows, Gordon remains 
on the darkened stage, following the Duke 
with his eye, till he disappears at the farther 
end of the gallert/ : then by his gestures the old 
man expresses the depth of his anguish, ami 
stands leaning against a pillar. 



SCENE IV. 

Gordon, Butler {at first behind the Scenes). 
BUTLER {not yet come into view of the stage). 
Here stand in silence till I give the signal 

GORDON {Starts up). 
'T is he, he has already brought the murderers. 

BUTLER. 

The lights are out. All lies in profound sleep. 

GORDON. 

WTiat shall I do ? Shall I attempt to save him ? 
Shall I call up the house? Alarm the guards? 
BUTLER {appears, but scarcely on the stage). 
A light gleams hither from the corridor. 
It leads directly to the Duke's bed-chamber. 

GORDON. 

But then I break my oatli to the Emperor ; 
If he escape and strengthen the enemy, 
Do I not hereby call down upon my head 
All the dread consequences ? 

BUTLER {stepping forvnrd). 

Hark! Wlio spcalvs thejo . 

GORDON. 

'Tis better, I resign it to the hands 
Of Providence. For what am I, that I 
Sliould take upon myself so great a deed ? 
/ have not murder'd him, if he be murder'd ; 
But all his rescue were my act and deed ; 
Mine — and whatever be the consequences 
I must sustain them. 

BUTLER {advances). 

I should know that voice. 

GORDON. 

Butler ! 

BUTLER. 

'Tis Gordon. What do you want here ? 
Was it so late then, when the Duke dismiss'd you ? 

GORDON. 

Your hand bound up and in a scarf? 

BUTLER. 

'Tis woimded. 
That Illo fought a.s he were frantic, till 
At last we threw him on the ground. 
GORDON {shuddering). 

Both dead ? 

BUTLER. 

Is he in bed ? 

GORDON. 

Ah, Butler ! 

BUTLER. 

Is he ? Speak. 

GORDON. 

He shall not perish ! Not through you " The Heaven 
Refuses your arm. See — 'tis wounded! — 

BUTLER. 

There is no need of my arm. 

GORDON. 

The most guilty 
Have perish'd, and enough is given to justice. 

[The Groom of the Chamber advances from 
the gallery with his finger on his mouth, comr- 
inanding silence. 

GORDON. 

He sleeps ! O murder not the holy sleep ! 

BUTLER. 

No ! he shall die awake [Is going 

210 



THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. 



201 



GORDON. 

His lieart still cleaves 
To enrthly things: he's not iirepurrd to step 
Into the j)rcsence of his Goii ! 

BUTLEIl {goi)l<;). 

God 's merciful ! 
GORDON {hMs him). 
Grant him but this night's respite. 

BUTLER (hurri/ing off). 

The next moment 
May ruin all. 

GORDO.N (holds him still). 
One hour I 

BUTLER. 

Unhold me! What 
Can that short respite jirofit him ? 

GORDON. 

O— Time 
WorKs miracles. In one hour many thousands 
Of grains of sand run out ; and quick as they, 
Thought follows thought within tiie human soul. 
Only one hour I Your heart may change its purpose, 
Jlis heart may change its purjiose — some new tidings 
May come ; some fortunate event, decisive, 
May fall from Heaven and rescue him. O what 
Miiy not one hour achieve ! 

BUTLER. 

You but remind me. 
How precious every minute is ! 

[He slainps on thejloor. 



SCENE V. 



SCENE VI. 

COUNTESS TF.RT.SKY (wilh a light). 

Her bed-ciiamber is empty ; siio herself 

Is nowhere to lie liiund ! The Neuliruim too. 

Who watch'd hy iicr, is mi.'^sing. If she should 

Be flown But whither flown ? We must call up 

Every soul in the house. How will the Duko 
Bear up against these worst bad tidings ? O 
If thai my husband now were but return'd 
Home from the hanqiiotl — Ilark! I wonder whether 
The Duke is still awake! I tlioiiglit I heard 
Voices and tread of feel here! I will go 
And listen at the door. Hark! what is that? 
'Tis hastening up the steps! 



To these enter Macdonald, and Devekeux, « M the 

Halberdiers. 
GORDON {throwing himself between him and them). 
IVo, monster! 
J'irst over my dead body thou shall tread. 
1 will not live to see the accursed deed ! 

BUTLER {forcing him out of the u-ai/). 
Weak-hearted dotard ! 

[Trumpets are heard in the distance. 

DEVEREUX and MACDONALD. 

Hark ! The Swedish trumpets ! 
The Swedes before the ramparts ! Let us hasten ! 

GORDO.N {rushes out). 
O, God of Mercy ! 

BUTLER {calling after him). 

Governor, to your post ! 
GROOM OF THE CHAMBER {hurries in). 
Who dares make larum here I Hush! The Duke sleeps. 

DEVEREUX {with a loud harsh voice). 
Friend, it is lime now to make larum. 

GROOM OF THE CHAMBER. 

Help! 
Murder ! 

BUTLER. 

Down with him ! 
GROOM OF TiiE CHA.MRER {run through thc body by 
Devzrevx, falls at the entrance of the gallery). 
Jesus Maria ! 

BUTLER. 

Burst thc doors open. 

[Tliey rush over the body into the gallery — two 
doors are heard to crash one after the other — 
Voices deadened by the distance — Clash of 
arms — then all at once a profound silence. 



SCENE VII. 

Countess, Gordon. 

GORDON (rushes in out <f hrealh). 
'T is a mistake ! 
'Tis not the Swedes — Ye must proceed no further— 
Butler ! — O God ! where is he ? 

GORDON (observing the Countess). 

Countess ! Say — - 

COUNTE.SS. 

You are come then from the castle? Where's my 

husband >. 

GORDON (in an agony of affright). 
Your husband ! — Ask not ! — To the Duke 

COUNTESS. 

Not till 
You have discover'd to me 

GORDON. 

On this moment 
Does the world hang. For God's sake ! to the Duke. 

While we are spealung 

[Calling loudly. 
Butler! Butler! God! 

COUNTESS. 

Why, he is at the castle with my husband. 

[Butler comes from the Gallery. 

GORDON. 

'Twas a mistake — 'Tis not the Swedes — it is 
The imperialist's Lieulenant-General 
Has sent me hither — vv'ill be here himself 
Instantly. — You must not proceed. 

BUTLER. 

He comes 
Too lale. [Gordon dashes himself against tlie wall 

GORDON. 

O God of mercy ! 

countess. 

What too late ? 
Who will be here himself? Octavio 
In Egra ? Treason! Treason! — Where's the Duke? 
[She rushes to the Gallery 



SCENE VIII. 



{Servants run across the Stage full of terror. The ivholt 
Scene 7nust be .'ipohen entirely ivithout pauses'' 

SENI (from the Gallery). 
O bloody frightful deed ! 

211 



202 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



COUNTESS. 

What is it, Seni ? 
PAGE {.from the Gallery). 
O piteous sight ! 

[Other Servants hasten in with torches. 

COUNTESS. 

What is it ? For God's sake ! 

SENI. 

And do you ask ? 
Within the Duke Hes murder' d — and your husband 
Assassinated at the Castle. 

[T/ie Countess stands motionless. 
FEMALE SERVANT (rtishing acTOSS the stage). 
Help ! Help ! the Duchess ! 

BURGOMASTER (enters). 

What mean these confused 
Loud cries, that wake the sleepers of this house ? 

GORDON. 

Your house is cursed to all eternity. 
la your house doth the Duke lie murder'd ! 
BURGOMASTER (rushing out). 

Heaven forbid ! 

FIRST SERVANT. 

Fly ! fly ! they murder us all ! 

SECOND SERVANT (carrying silver plate). 

That way ! the lower 
Passages are block'd up. 

VOICE (from behind the Scene). 
Make room for the Lieutenant-General ! 

[At these words the Countess starts from her stupor, 
collects herself, and retires suddenly. 
voice (from behind the Scene). 
Keep back the people! Guard the door I 



SCENE IX. 

To these enters Octavio Piccolomini vnth all his 
Train. At the same time Devereux ajtd Macdon- 
ALD enter from the Corridor with the Halberdiers. 
— Wallenstein's dead body is carried over the 
back part of the Stage, wrapped in a piece of crim- 
son tapestry. 

octavio (entering abruptly). 
It must not be ! It is not possible ! 
Butler ! Gordon ! 
I'll not believe it. Say, No! 

[Gordon, without answering, points with his hand to 
the Body of Wallenstein as it is carried over 
the back of the Stage. Octavio looks that way, 
and stands overjmuered with horror. 
DEVEREu.t (to Butler). 
Here is the golden fleece — the Duke's sword — 

MACDONALD. 

Is it your order — 

BUTLER (pointing to Octavio). 

Here stands he who now 
Hath the sole power lo issue orders. 

[Devereux and Macdonald retire with marks of 
obeisance. One drops away after the other, 
till only Butler, Octavio, and Gordon 
remain on the Stage. 
octavio (turning to Butler). 
Was that my purpose, Butler, when we parted ? 
Kj liod of Justice I 

To thee I lift my hand I I am not guilty 
Of ihu foul deed. 



butler. 
Your hand is pure. You have 
Avail'd yourself of mine. 

octavio. 

Merciless man ! 
Thus to abuse the orders of thy Lord — 
And stain thy Emperor's holy name with murder, 
With bloody, most accursed assassination ! 

BUTLER (calmly). 
I 've but fulfiU'd the Emperor's own sentence. 

OCTAVIO. 

curse of kings, 

Infusing a dread life into their words, 
And linking to the sudden transient thought 
The unchangeable irrevocable deed. 
Was there necessity for such an eager 
Dispatch ? Couldst thou not grant the merciful 
A time for mercy ? Time is man's good Angel. 
To leave no interval between the sentence. 
And the fulfilment of it, doth beseem 
God only, the immutable ! 

BUTLER. 

For what 
Rail you against me ? What is my offence ? 
The Empire from a fearful enemy 
Have I deliver'd, and expect reward. 
The single difference betwixt you and me 
Is this : j'ou placed the arrow in the bow ; 

1 pull'd the string. You sow'd blood, and yet statid 
Aslonish'd that blood is come up. I always 
Knew what I did, and therefore no result 

Hath power to frighten or surprise my spirit. 

Have you aught else to order? for this instant 

I make my best speed to Vienna ; place 

My bleeding sv\ord before my Emperor's Throne, 

And hope to gain the applause which undela)ring 

And punctual obedience may demand 

From a just judge, [Exit Butler 



SCENE X. 



To these enter the Countess Tertsky, pale and dis 
ordered. Her utterance is slow and feeble, and un- 
impassioned. 

OCTAVIO (meeting her). 
O Coimtess Tertsky ! These are the results 
Of luckless unblest deeds. 

COUNTESS. 

They are the fruita 
Of your contrivances. Tlie duke is dead. 
My husband too is dead, the Duchess struggles 
In the pangs of death, my niece has disappear'd. 
This house of splendor, and of princely glory. 
Doth now stand desolated : the affrighted servant 
Rush forth through all its doors. I am the last 
Therein ; I shut it up, and here deliver 
The keys. 

OCTAVIO (with a deep anguish). 
O Countess ! my house too is desolate. 

countess. 
Who next is to be murder'd ? Who is next 
To be maltreated ? Lo ! the Duke is dead. 
The Emperor's vengeance may be pacified ! 
Spare the old servants ; let not their fidelity 
Be imputed to the faithfiil as a crime — 

212 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



203 



Tlie evil desiiiiy surprised my brother 
Too suddenly • he could not ihiHk on them. 

OCTAVIO. 

Speak not of vengeance ! Speak not of maltreatment ! 

The Emperor is appeiised ; the lienvy fault 

Ifath heavily been expiated — nothiiiij 

Descended from the faiiier to the daughter, 

Except his glory and his services. 

Tlie Empress honors your adversity, 

Takes part in your afflictions, opens to you 

Her motherly arms ! Therefore no farther fears ; 

Yield yourself up in hope and confidence 

To the Imperial Grace I 

COUNTESS {with her eye raised to heavrn) 
To the grace and mercy of a greater Master 
Do I yield up myself Where shall the body 
Of the Duke have its place of final rest ? 
In the Chartreuse, which he himself did four^ 
At Gitsrhin, rest the Countess Walleiistein; 
And by her side, to whom he was indebted 
For his first fortunes, gi-atefully ho wish'd 
He might somclime ro))ose in death I O let him 
Be buried there. And likewise, fi)r my husband's 
Remains, I ask the like grace. The Emperor 
Is now proprietor of all our Castles. 
This sure may well be granted us — one sepulchre 
Beside the sepulchres of our forefathers ! 

OCTAVIO. 

Countess, you tremble, you turn pale ! 
cou.NTESS {reassembles all her powers, and speaks with 
energy and dignilij). 

You think 



More woriiiily of me, than to believe 
I would survive the downfall of my house. 
\Vo did not iiold ourselves too mean to grasp 
.\ftcr a monarch's crowTi — the crow n did Fate 
Deny, but not the feeling and the spirit 
That to the crown belong ! We deem a 
Courageous death more worthy of our free station 
Than a dishonor'd life. — I have taken poison. 

OCTAVIO. 

Help ! Flelp ! Support her I 

COUNTESS. 

Nay, it is too late. 
In a few moments is my fate accompli.sh'd. 

{Exit CouNTEsa 

GOKDO.V. 

O house of death and horrors ! 

[An Officer enters, and brings a letter with die 
great seal. 
GORDON {steps forward and meets him). 
What is this ? 
It is the Imperial Seal. 

{He reads the address, and delivers the letter to 
OcTAVio with a look of reproach, and with 
an emphasis on the word. 
To the Prince Piccolomini. 

[OcTAVio, with his whole frame expressive of swd- 
den anguish, raises his eyes to heaven. 

{Tlte Curtain drops.) 



STUe iFcTll of ilot)r!Ej6))tcvre ; 

AN HISTORIC DRAMA. 



DEDICATION. 

TO H. MARTIN, ESQ. 

OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

Dear Sir, 
Accept, as a small testimony of my grateful attach- 
ment, the following Dramatic Poem, in which I have 
endeavored to detail, in an interesting form, the fall 
of a man, whose great bad actions have cast a dis- 
astrous lustre on his name. In the execution of the 
work, as intricacy of plot could not have been at- 
tempted without a gross violation of recent facts, it 
has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and 
highly figurative language of the French Orators, 
and to develop the characters of the chief actors on 
a vast stage of horrors. 



Yours fraternally, 



S. T. Coleridge. 



Jesus College, September 22, 1794. 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



ACT I. 



SCENE, The Tuilleries 



The tempest gathers — be it mine to seek 
A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him. 
But where ? and how ? I fear the Tyrant's soul— 
Sudden in action, fertile in resource. 
And rising awful 'mid impending ruins; 
In splendor gloomy, as the midnight meteor, 
That fearless thwarts the elemenial war. 
When last in secret conference we met. 
He scowl'd upon me with suspicious rage, 
Making his eye the inmate of my bosom. 
I know he scorns me — and I feel, I hate him — 
Yet 'here is in him that which makes me tromblo ! 

[EmC. 
•28 213 



204 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Enter Tallien and Legendre. 

TALMKN. 

It was Barrere, Legendre ! ilidst thou mark liim ? 

Abrupt he turn'd, yet hnger'd as he went, 

And towards us cast a look of doubtful meaning. 

LEGENDRE. 

1 mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance; 

It menaced not so proudly as of yore. 

Methought he would have spoke — but that he dared 

not — 
Such agitation darken'd on liis brow. 

TALMEN. 

Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting 
Th' imprison'd secret struggling in the face : 
E'en as the sudden breiize upslariing onwards 
Hurries the thunder-ckiud, that poised awhile 
Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen. 

LEGENDRE. 

Perfidious Traitor! — still afraid to bask 
In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent 
Lurks in the thicket of the Tyrant's greatness. 
Ever prepared to sting who shelters him. 
Each thought, each action in himself converges ; 
And love and friendsliip on his coward heart 
Shine like the powtjrless sun on polar ice : 
To all attach'd, by turns deserting all, 
Cunning and dark — a necessary villain! 

TALLIEN. 

Yet much depends upon him — well you know 
With plausible harangue 't is his to paint 
Defeat like victory — and blind the mob 
With truth-mix'd falsehood. They, led on by him, 
And wild of heail to work their own destruction, 
Support with ui)roar what he plans in darkness. 

LEGENDRE. 

O what a precious name is Liberty 

To scare or cheat tlie simple into slaves ! 

Yes — we must gain him over : by dark hints 

We'll show enough to rouse his watchful fears, 

Till tlie cold coward blaze a patriot. 

O Danton ! murder'd friend ! assist my counsels — 

Hover aroimd me on sad memoiy's wings. 

And pour thy daring vengeance in my heart. 

Tallien ! if but to-morrow's fateful sun 

Beholds the Tyrant living — we are dead ! 

TALLIEN. 

Yet his keen eye that flashes mighty meanings — 

LEGENDRE. 

Fear not — or rather fear th' alternative. 

And seek for courage e'en in cowardice. 

But see — liither he comes — let us away! 

His brother with him, and the bloody Couthon, 

And high of haughty spirit, young St-Just. 

[Exeunt. 

Enter Robespierre, Couthon, St-Just, a.id 
Robespierre Junior. 

robespierre. 
What! did La Fayette fall betbre my power? 
And did I conquer Roland's spotless virtues ? 
The fervent eloquence of Vergniaud's tongue? 
And Brissot's thoughtful soul unbribed and bold? 
Did zealot armies haste in vain to save them ? 
What ! did th' assassin's dagger aim its point 
\'"aLii, as a dream of murder, at my bosom ? 



And shall I dread the soft luxurious Tallien ? 
Th' Adonis Tallien? banquet-hunting Tallien ? 
Him, whose heart flutters at the dice-box ? Him, 
Wlio ever on the harlots' downy pillow 
Resigns his head impure to feverish slumbers ! 

ST-JUST. 

I cannot fear him — yet we must not scorn him. 
Was it not Antony that conquer'd Brutus, 
Til' Adonis, banquet-hunting Antony? 
The state is not yet purified : and though 
The stream runs clear, yet at the bottom lies 
Tlie thick black sediment of all the factions — 
It needs no magic hand to stir it up ! 

COUTHON. 

we did wrong to spare them — fatal error ! 
Wliy lived Legendre, when that Danton died ? 
And Collot d'Herbois dangerous in crimes? 
I've fear'd him, since his iron heart endured 
To make of Lyons one vast human shambles. 
Compared with which the sun-scorch'd wildeme&s 
Of Zara were a smiling paradise. 

ST-JUST. 

Rightly thou judgest, Couthon ! He is one, 

Who flies from silent solitary anguish, 

Seeking forgetful peace amid the jar 

Of elements. The how! of maniac uproar 

Lulls to sad sleep the memory of himself 

A calm is fatal to him — then he feels 

The dire upboilings of the storm within him. 

A tiger mad with inward wounds. 1 dread 

The fierce and restless turbulence of guilt. 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Is not the commune ours? The stern tribunal? 
Dumas? and Vivier? Fleuriot ? and Louvet? 
And Henriot? We'll denounce a hundred, nor 
Shall they behold to-morrow's sun roll westward. 

ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR. 

Nay — I am sick of blood ; my ae^hing heart 
Reviews the long, long train of hideous horrors ' 
That still have gloom'd the rise of the republic. 

1 should have died before Toulon, when war 
Became the patriot! 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Most unworthy wish ! 
He, whose heart sickens at the blood of traitors, 
Would be himself a traitor, were he not 
A coward! 'Tis congenial souls alone 
Shed tears of sorrow for each other's fate. 
O tliou art brave, my brother ! and thine eye 
Full firmly shines amid the groaning battle — 
Yet in thine heart tlie woman-form of pity 
Asserts too large a share, an ill-timed guest! 
There is unsoundness in the stale — To-morrow 
Shall see it cleansed by wholesome massacre! 

ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR. 

Beware ! already do the sections murmur — 
" O the great glorious patriot, Robespierre — 
The tyrant guardian of the country's _/?-ee(ioni '' 

COUTHON. 

T were folly sure to work great deeds by halves 
Much I suspect the darksome fickle heart 
Of cold Barrere ! 

ROBESPIERRE. 

I see the villain in him ! 

ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR. 

If he — if all forsake tliee — what remains ? 
214 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



205 



ROBESPIERRE. 

Myself! the stccl-slron;^ Ivectitiulo of soul 
And Poverty suhlime "luiil circling viriuesl 
The giant \'ictories, my counsels Ibrm'ii, 
Shall stalk around me with sun-glittering plumes, 
Bidding the darts of calumny (all pointless. 

[ExeuiU ccEtcrt. Manet CouTiiON. 

couTiiox (solus). 
So we deceive ourselves! What goodly virtues 
Bloom on tiie poisonous branches of ambition ! 
Still, Robesi)iorrc I thou'lt guard ihycountry's freedom 
To des|)oiize in all the patriot's pomp. 
While Conscience. 'mid the mob's applauding clamors, 
Slee|xs in thine ear, nor whispers — blood-slain'd tyrant! 
Yet what is Conscience ? Superstition's dream. 
Making such deep impression on our sleep — 
That long th' awaken'd breast retains its horrors ! 
But he returns — and with him comes Barrere. 

[Exit Coi'THO.N. 

Enter Robespierre and Bakreue. 

ROBESPIERRE. 

There is no danger but in cowardice. — 
Barrere ! we make the danger, when we/ccf it. 
We have such force without, as will suspend 
The cold and trembling treacher}' of these membe>'s, 

B.\RREKE. 

'T will be a pause of terror. — 

ROBESPIERRE. 

But to whom ? 
Rather the short-lived slumber of the tempest, 
Gathering its strength anew. Tlie dastard traitors! 
Moles, that would undermine iV." rooled oak ! 
A pause I — a moment's pause ! — 'T is all tJteir life. 

BARRERE 

ypt much they talk — and plausible t'uoir speech. 
Coulhon's decree has given such jx;wers, thai — 



ROBESPIERRE. 



B.VREFRE. 

The freedom of deoate- 



Tixat vvhat ? 



ROBESPIERRE. 

Transparent mask 
They wish to clog the wheels of government. 
Forcing the hand that guides the vast machine 
To bribe them to iheir duty — Enfclis/i patriots! 
Are not the congregated clouds of war 
Black all around us ? In our \cry vitals 
Works not the king-bred jwison of rebellion ? 
Say, what shall counteract the selilsh plottings 
Of wretches, cold of heart, nor awed by feare 
Of him, whose power directs th' eternal justice ? 
Terror ? or secret-sapping gold ? The first 
Heavy, but transient as the ills that cause it; 
And to the virtuous'patriot render'd light 
By the necessities that gave it birth : 
The oilier fouls the (bunt of the republic, 
Making it flow polluted to all ages; 
Inoculates tbe slate with a slow venom. 
That, once imbibed, must be continued ever. 
Myself incorruptible, I ne'er could bribe them — 
Therefore they hate me. 

BARRERE. 

Are the sections friendly ? 
T3 



ROBESPIERRE. 

There are who wish my ruin — but I '11 make them 
Blush lor the crime in blood ! 

BARRERE. 

Nay, but I tell thoo 
Thou art too fond of slaughter — and the right 
(If right it be) workest by most Ibul means! 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Self-centering Fear ! how well thou canst ape Mercy. 
'J'oo fond of slaughter! — matchless hypocrite I 
Thought Barrere so, when Brissot, Danton died ? 
Thought Barrere so, when through the streaming 

streets 
Of Paris red-eyed Massacre o'er-wcaried 
Reel'd heavily, intoxicate with blood i 
.And when (O heavens!) in Lyons' death-red square 
.Sick Fancy groan'd o'er putrid hills of slain. 
Didst thou not fiercely laugh, and bless the day ? 
W'hy. ihou haj" been the nioulh-piece of all horrors, 
And, like a blood-hound, crouch'd lor murder! Now 
.Vloof thou slandcst from the tottering pillar, 
Or, lite a frighted child Uehind its mother, 
llidest thy pale face in the skirts of — Mercy I 

BARRERE. 

prodigality of eloquent anger ! 

Why now I see thou 'rt weak — thy c.ise is desperate 
The cool ferocious Robespierre lurn'd scolder! 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Who from a bad man's bosom wards the blow 
Reserves the whetted dagger for his own. 
Denounced twice — und twice I saved his life! [Exit 

BARRERE. 

The sections will support tliem — there's the point! 
No ! he can never weather out the storm — 
Yet he is sudden in revenge — No more ! 

1 must away to Tallien. [Fru 



SCENE changes to the house of Adelaide. 
Adelaide enters, speaking to a Servant. 

ADELAIDE. 

Did^t thou present the letter that I gave thee ? 
Did Tallien answer, he would soon return ? 

SERVANT. 

He is in the Tuilleries — with him Legendre — 
In deep discourse they seem'd ; as I approach'd, 
He waved his hand as bidding me retire : 
I did not interrupt him. [Returns the leile* 

ADELAIDE. 

Thou didst rightly. 

[Exit Servani 
O this new freedom ! at how dear a price 
We've bought the seeming good! The peaceful virtues 
And every blandishment of private life. 
The father's cares, the mother's fond endearment, 
All sacrificed to Liberty's wild rioL 
The winged hours, that scatter'd roses round me. 
Languid and sad drag their slow course along. 
And shake big gall-drops from their heavy wings. 
But I will steal away these anxious thoughts 
By the soft Innguishment of warbled airs. 
If haply melodies may lull the sense 
Of sorrow for a while. 

815 



206 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



{Soft Music). 
Enter Tallien. 



Music, my love ? breathe again that air ! 

Soft nurse of pain, it soothes the weary soul 

Of care, sweet as the whisper'd breeze of evening 

That plays around the sick man's throbbing temples. 



Tell me, on what holy ground 
May domestic peace be found ? 
Halcyon daughter of the skies, 
Far on fearful wing she flies. 
From the pomp of sceptred state, 
From the rebel's noisy hale. 

In a cottaged vale she dwells, 
List'ning to the Sabbath bells ! 
Still around her steps are seen 
Spotless Honor's meeker mien. 
Love, the fire of pleasing fears, 
Sorrow smiling through her tears ; 
And, conscious of the past employ, 
Memory, bosom-spring of joy. 

TALLIEN. 

I thank thee, Adelaide ! 'twas sweet, though mournful. 
But why thy brow o'ercast, thy cheek so wan ? 
Thou look'st as a lorn maid beside some stream 
That sighs away the soul in fond despairing, 
While Sorrow sad, like the dank willow near her. 
Hangs o'er the troubled founiaia of her eye. 

ADELAIDE. 

Ah ! rather let me ask what mystery lowers 

On Tallien's darken'd brow. Thou dost me wrong — 

Thy soul distemper'd, can my heart be tranquil ? 

TALLIEX. 

Tell me, by whom thy brother's blood was spilt ? 
Asks he not vengeance on these patriot murderers ? 
It has been borne too tamely. Fears and curses 
Groan on our midnight beds, and e'en our dreams 
Threaten the assassin hand of Robespierre. 
He dies ! — nor has the plot escaped his fears. 

ADELAIDE. 

Yet — yet — be cautious ! much I fear the Commune — 
The tyrant's creatures, and their fate with his 
Fast link'd in close indissoluble union. 
The Pale Convention — 

TALLIE.V. 

Hate him as they fear him. 
Impatient of the chain, resolved and ready. 

ADELAIDE. 

Th' enthusiast mob, Confusion's lawless sons — 

TALLIEN. 

They are aweary of his stern morality, 
The fair-mask'd offspring of ferocious pride. 
The sections too support the delegates : 
All — all is ours ! e'en now the vital air 
Of Liberty, condensed awhile, is bursting 
(Force irresistible !) from its compressure — 
To shatter the arch-chemist in the explosion ! 



Ejiter BiLLAUD Varennes and Bourdon l'Oise. 
[Adelaide retires 

BOURDON L'OISE. 

Tallien ! was this a time for amorous conference ? 
Henriot, the tyrant's most devoted creature, 
Marshals the force of Paris : the fierce club. 
With Vivier at their head, in loud acclaim 
Have sworn to make the guillotine in blood 
Float on the scallbld. — But who comes here ? ' 

Enter Barrere abruptly. 
barrere. 
Say, are ye friends to Freedom ? I am her's .' 
Let us, forgetful of all common feuds. 
Rally around her shrine ! E'en now the tyrant 
Concerts a plan of instant massacre ! 

BILLAUD VARENNES. 

Away to the Convention ! with that voice 
So oft the lierald of glad victory. 
Rouse their fallen spirits, thunder in their ears 
The names of tyrant, plunderer, assassin ! 
The violent workings of my soul witliin 
Anticipate the monster's blood ? 

[Cry from the street of — "No Tyrant! Down with 
the Tyrant J" 



Hear ye that outcry ? — If the trembling members 
Even for a moment hold his fate suspended, 
I swear, by the holy poniard that stabb'd Caesar, 
This dagger probes his heart ! 

[Exeunt omnes. 



ACT IL 

SCENE.— T/iC Convention. 

ROBESPIERRE {mounts the Tribune). 
Once more befits it that the voice of Truth, 
Fearless in innocence, though leaguer'd round 
By Envy and her hateful brood of hell. 
Be heard amid this hall ; once more befits 
The patriot, whose prophetic eye so oft 
Has pierced through faction's veil, to flash on crimes 
Of deadliest import. Mouldering in the grave 
Sleeps Capet's caitiff corse ; my daring hand 
Levell'd to earth his blood-cemented throne, 
My voice declared his guilt, and stirr'd up France 
To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave 
Where sleep the Girondists, detested band ! 
Long with the show of freedom they abused 
Her ardent sons. Long time the well-turn'd phrase,. 
The high-fraught sentence, and the lofty tone 
Of declamation, thunder'd in this hall. 
Till reason 'midst a labyrinth of words 
Perplex'd, in silence seem'd to yield assent. 
I durst oppose. Soul of my honor'd friend ! 
Spirit of Marat, upon thee I call — 
Thou know'st me faithful, know'st with what wa. 

zeal 
I urged the cause of justice, stripp'd the mask 
From Faction's deadly visage, and destroy'd 
Her traitor brood. Whose patriot arm hurl'd dovra 
Hebert and Rousin, and the villain friends 
Of Danton, foul apostate ! those, who long 
Mask'd Treason's Ibrm in Liberty's fair garb, 

216 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



207 



Long deluged France with blood, and durst defy 

Omnipotence! but I, it seems, am liilsel 

I am a traitor too ! 1 — Robespierre 1 

I — at whose name the dastard desiwt brood 

Look pale with lear, and cull oa sainls to help them I 

Who duros accuse me ? who shall dare belie 

My spotless name ? Speak, ye accomplice band. 

Of what am 1 accused I of what strange crime 

Is Maximilian Robespierre accused, 

That through ihis hall the buzz of discontent 

Should murmur t who shall speak ? 

BILLAUU VAREN.NES. 

O patriot tongue, 
Belying the foul heart ! Who was it urged, 
Friendly to tyranis, that accurst decree 
Whose influence, brooding o'er this hallow'd hall, 
Has chill'd each tongue to silence. Who destroy 'd 
The freedom of debate, and carried through 
The fatal law, that doom'd the delegates, 
Unheard before Iheir eciuals, to the bar 
Where cruelly sat throned, and murder reign'd 
With her Dumas coequal ? Say — thou man 
Of mighty eloquence, whose law was that ? 

COUTIIOX. 

That law was mine. I lu-ged it — I proposed — 
The voice of France assembled in her sons 
Assented, though the tame and timid voice 
Of traitors murmur'd. I advised that law — 
I justify it. It was wise and good. 

B.VRRERE. 

Oh, wondrous wise, and most convenient too ! 
I have long niark"d thee, Robe.spierre — and now 
Proclaim thee traitor — tyrant ! 

[Loud applauses. 

ROBESPIERRE. 

It is well. 
I am a traitor ! oh, that I had fallen 
When Kegnault lifted high the murderous knife ; 
Regnault, the instrument belike of those 
Who now themselves would liiin assa-ssinate, 
And legalize their murders. I stand here 
An isolated patriot — hcmm'd around 
By faction's noisy pack ; beset and bay'd 
By the foul hell-hounds who luiow no escape 
From Justice' outstrclch'd arm, but by the force 
That pierces through her breast. 

[Murmurs, and shouts of — Down with the tyrant i 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Nay, but I will be heard. There was a time, 
When Robespierre began, the loud applauses 
Of honest patriots tirovvn'd tlie honest sound. 
But times are changed, and villany prevails. 

COLLOT D'IIERBOIS. 

No — villany shall fall. France could not brook 
A monarch's sway — sounds the dictator's name 
More soothing to her ear ? 

BOURDON I.'OISE. 

Rattle her chains 
More musically now than when the hand 
Of Brissot forged her fetters, or the crew 
Of Herbert thundered out theii blasphemies, 
And Danion lalk'd of virtue ? 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Oh, that Brissot 
Were here again to thunder in this hall. 
That Herbert lived, and Danlon's giant form 



Scowl'd once again defiance ! so my soul 
Might cope with worthy ibes. 

People of France, 
Hear me! Beneath the vengeance of the law, 
Traitors have perish'd countlesa ; more survive: 
The hydra-heailed faction lifts anew 
Her daring front, and fruitful from her wounds, 
Cautious li-om past defeats, contrives new wiles 
Against the sons of i'reedom. 

TALLIEX. 

Freedom lives! 
Oppression falls — for France has lelt her chains. 
Has burst them loo. Who traitor-like stept forth 
Amid the hall of Jacobins to save 
Caniille Desmoulins, and the venal wretch 
D'Kgiantine ? 

ROBESPIERRE. 

I did — for I thought them honest. 
And Heaven forefcnd that vengeance ere should strike 
Ere justice doom'd the blow. 

BARRERE. 

Traitor, thou didst. 
Yes, the accomplice of their dark designs, 
Awhile didst thou defend them, when the storm 
Lower'd at safe dislanee. When the clouds frovro'd 

darker, 
Fear'd for yourself and left them to their fate. 
Oh, I have mark'd thee long, and through the veil 
Seen thy foul projects. Yes, ambitious man, 
Self-wiU'd dictator o'er the realm of France, 
The vengeance thou hast plann'd for patriots 
Falls on thy head. Look how thy brother's deeds 
Dishonor thine ! lie the firm patriot, 
Thou the foul parricide of Liberty ! 

ROBESPIERRE JU.NIOR. 

Barrere — attempt not meanly to divide 
Me from my brother. I partake his guilt, 
For I partake his virtue. 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Brother, by my soul 
More dear I hold thee to my heart, that thus 
W'ith me thou darest to tread the dangerous path 
Of virtue, than that Nature twined her cords 
Of kindred round us. 

BARRERE. 

Yes, allied in guilt. 
Even as in blood ye are. Oh, thou worst wretch, 
Thou worse than Sylla ! hast thou not i)roscrJbed, 
Yea, in most foul anticipation slaughter'd. 
Each patriot representative of France ? 

BOURDO.N L'OISE. 

Was not the younger Cffisar too to reign 
O'er all our valiant armies in the south, 
And still continue there his merchant wiles ? 

ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR. 

His merchant wiles I Oh, grant me patience. Heaven ' 
Was it by merchant wiles I gain'd you back 
Toulon, when proudly on her captive towers 
Waved high the English flag ? or fought I then 
With merchant wiles, when sword in hand I led 
Your troops to conquest ? Fought I merchant-like. 
Or barter'd I for victory, when death 
Strode o'er the reeking streets with giant stride. 
And shook his ebon plumes, and sterrdy smiled 
Amid the bloody banquet ? when appall'd, 
The hireling sons of England spread the sail 
217 



208 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Of safety, fought I like a merchant then ? 
Oh, patience ! patience ! 

BOURDON l'OISE. 

How this younger tyrant 
Mouths out defiance to us ! even so 
He had led on the armies of the south, 
Till once again the plains of France were drench'd 
With her best blood. 

COLLOT d'HERBOIS. 

Till, once again display'd, 
Lyons' sad tragedy had call'd me forth 
The minister of wrath, whilst slaughter by 
Had bathed in human blood. 

DUBOIS CRANCE. 

No wonder, friend, 
Tliat we are traitors — that our heads must fall 
Beneath tlie ax of death ! When Casar-like 
Reigns Robespierre, 'tis wisely done to doom 
The fall of Brutus. Tell me, bloody man. 
Hast thou not parcell'd out deluded France, 
As it had been some province won in fight, 
Between your curst triumvirate ? You, Couthon, 
Go with my brother to the southern plains ; 
St-Just, be yours the army of the north; 
Meantime I rule at Paris. 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Matchless knave ! 
What — not one blush of conscience on thy cheek — 
Not one poor blush of truth ! Most likely tale ! 
That I who ruin'd Brissot's towering hopes, 
I who discover'd Hebert's impious wiles. 
And sharp'd for Danton's recreant neck the ax, 
Should now be traitor! had I been so minded, 
Think ye I had deslroy'd the very men 
Whose plots resembled mine ? Bring forth your proofs 
Of this deep treason. Tell me in whose breast 
Found ye the fatal scroll ? or tell me rather 
Who forged the shameless falsehood ? 

COLLOT d'hERBOIS. 

Ask you proofs ? 
Robespierre, what proofs were ask'd when Brissot died? 

LEGENDRE. 

What proofs adduced you when the Danton died ? 
When at the imminent peril of my life 
I rose, and fearless of thy frowning brow, 
Proclaim'd him guiltless ? 

ROBESPIERRE. 

I remember well 
The fatal day. I do repent me much 
That I kill'd Ccesar and spared Antony. 
But I have been too lenient. I have spared 
The stream of blood, and now my own must flow 
To fill the current. 

[Loud applauses. 
Triumph not too soon, 
Justice may yet be victor. 

Enter St-Just, and movnis the Tribune. 

ST-JUST. 

I come from the committee — charged to speak 
Of matters of high import. I omit 
Tiieir orders. Representatives of France, 
Boldly in his own person speaks St-Just 
Wliat his own heart shall dictate. 



Hear ye this, 



Insulted delegates of France ? St-Just 

From your committee comes — comes charged to speak 

Of matters of high import — yet omits 

Their orders ! Representatives of France, 

That bold man I denounce, who disobeys 

The nation's orders. — I denounce St-Just. 

[Loud applauses 

ST-JUST. 

Hear me ! [ Violent murmurs 

ROBESPIERRE. 

He shall be heard ! 

BOURDON l'OISE. 

Must we contaminate this sacred hall 
With the foul breath of treason ? 



COLLOT D HERBOIS. 



Hence with him to the bar. 



Drag him away ! 



COUTIION. 

Oh, just proceedings ! 
Robespierre prevented liberty of speech — 
And Robespierre is a tyrant ! Tallien reigTis, 
He dreads to hear the voice of innocence — 
And St-Just must be silent ! 

LEGENDRE. 

Heed we well 
That justice gtiide our actions. No light import 
Attends this day. I move St-Just be heard. 

FRERON. 

Inviolate be the sacred right of man. 
The freedom of debate. 

[Violent applause 

ST-JUST. 

I may be heard, then ! much the times are changed 

AVhen St-Just thanks this hall for hearing Mm. 

Robespierre is call'd a tyrant. Men of France, 

Judge not loo soon. By popular discontent 

Was Aristides driven into exile. 

Was Phocion murder'd ? Ere ye dare pronounce 

Robespierre is guilty, it befits ye well, 

Consider who accuse him. Tallien, 

Bourdon of Oise — the very men denounced. 

For their dark intrigues disturb'd the plan 

Of government. Legendre, the sworn friend 

Of Danton, fall'n apostate. Dubois Crance, 

He who at Lyons spared the royalists — 

Collot d'Herbois — 

BOURDON l'oISE. 

What^ — shall the traitor reai 
His head amid our tribune — and blaspheme 
Each patiiot ? shall the liireling slave of faction— 

ST-JUST. 

I am of no faction. I contend 
Against all factions. 

TALLIEN. 

I espouse the cause 
Of truth. Robespierre on yester-morn pronounced 
Upon his own authority a report. 
To-day St-Just comes down. Sl-Just neglects 
What the committee orders, and harangues 
From his own will. O citizens of France, 
I weep for you — I weep for my poor country— 
I tremble for the cause of Liberty, 
When individuals shall assume the sway, 
And with more insolence than kingly pride 
Rule the republic. 

218 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



209 



BILI.AUD VARENNES. 

Shudder, ye represonlnlives of France, 
Shudder witli liorror. Heiiriot coinninnds 
The marsliaird force of Paris — Ilonriot, 
Foul parricide — the sworn ally of Hebert, 
Denounced by all — iijihcld by Robespierre. 
Who spared La \'allciie > who promoted him, 
Stain'd with the deep dye of nobility ? 
Who to an ex-pccr jrave the high command ? 
NVho scrcen'd from justice the rapacious thief? 
Who cast in chains the friends of Liberty ? 
Uobespierre, the self-styled patriot Robespierre — 
Robespierre, allied with villain Daubiifne — 
Robespierre, the foul arch-tyrant Robespierre. 

BounDON l'oise. 
lie talks of virtue — of morality — 
Consistent patriot ! he, Daubigne's friend ! 
Henriot's supporter virtuous! Preach of virtue, 
Yet league with villains, for with Robespierre 
Villains alone ally. Thou art a tyrant ! 
I style thee tyrant, Robespierre ! 

[Loud apjjlauses. 

ROnESPIERRE. 

Take back the name, ye citizens of France — 

[Violent clamor. Cries of — Doum with Ike Tyrant! 



Oppression falls. The traitor stands appall'd — 

Guilt's iron fangs ensirasp his shrinking soul — 

He hears assembled France denounce his crimes ! 

He sees the mask torn from his secret sins — 

He trembles on the precipice of fate. 

Fall'ii guilty tyrant ! murder'd by thy rage. 

How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd 

Fair Freedom's altar ! Sylla-like, thy hand 

Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed, 

Perpetual Dictator thou mightst reign, 

And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom ! 

Long lime in timid guilt the traitor plann'd 

His fearful wiles — success emboldcn'd sin — 

And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem 

Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd. 

Lest France aw^aked, should rouse her from her dream. 

And call aloud for vengeance. He, like Caesar, 

With rapid step urged on his bold career. 

Even to the summit of ambitious power. 

And deem'd the name of King alone was wanting. 

Was it for this we hurl'd proud Capet down ? 

Is it for this we wage eternal war 

Against the tyrant horde of murderers. 

The crown'd cockatrices whose foul venom 

Infects all Europe ? was it then for this 

We swore to guard our liberty with life. 

That Robespierre should reign? the spirit of freedom 

Is not yet sunk so low. The glowing flame 

That animates each honest Frenchman's heart 

Not yet extinguish'd. I invoke ihy shade, 

Immortal Brutus ! I too wear a dagger ; 

And if the representatives of France, 

Through fear or favor, should delay the sword 

Of justice, Tallien emulates thy virtues ; 

Tallien, like Brutus, lifts the avenging arm ; 

TttiUen shall save his country. 

[ Vtolenl applauses. 

BILL\t;D VARENNES. 

I demand 
15 



The arrest of the traitors. Memorable 
Will be litis day for France. 

ROBESriERRE. 

Yes ! memorable 
This day will bo for France for villains triumph. 

I.EBAS. 

I will not share in this day's damning guilt. 
Condemn rae too. 

[Great cry — Down with the Tyrants.' 

(T/ie^U'oRoBESPlERRES, Coi.'TIION,ST-Jt;STandLKBAS 

are led off). 



ACT in. 

Scene continues. 

COLI.OT d'hERBOIS. 

Cffisar is fallen ! The baneful tree of Java, 

Whose doath-dislilliug boughs dropt poisonous dew. 

Is rooted from its base. This worse than Cromwell, 

The austere, the sell-denying Robespierre, 

Even in this hall, where once witii terror mute 

We listen'd to the hypocrite's harangues, 

Has heard his doom. 

BILI.AtJD VARENNES. 

Yet must we not suppose 
Tlie tyrant will fall tamely. His sworn hireling 
Henriot, the daring desperate Henriot 
Commands the Ibrce of Paris. I denounce him. 

FltERON. 

I denounce Fleuriot too, the mayor of Paris. 
Enter Dubois Crance. 

DUnOlS CRANCl';. 

Robespierre is rescued. Henriot at the head 
Of the arm'd force has rescued the fierce tyrant 

COLI.OT d'iIEREOIS. 

Ring the tocsin — call all the citizens 

To save their country — never yet has Paris 

Forsook the representatives of France. 

TALLIEN. 

It is the hour of danger. I propose 
This sitting be made permanent. 

[Loud applauses. 

COLLOT n'lIERBOI.S. 

The National Convention shall remain 
Firm at its post. 

Enter a Messenger. 

MESSENGER. 

Robespierre has reach'd the Commune. They espousa 
The tyrant's cause. St-Just is up in arms ! 
Sl-Just — the young amb-itious bold St-Jusl 
Harangues the mob. The sanguinary Couthon 
Thirsts for your blood. 

[Tocsin -ingt. 

TALLIEN. 

These tyrants are in anus against the law : 
Outlaw the rebels. 

Enter Merlin of Doi;ay. 

MERLIN. 

Health to the representatives of France '. 
I past this moment through the armed force — 
Tliey ask'd niy name — and w hen they heard a delegate 
Swore I was not the friend of France. 
21') 



SIO 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



COLLOT d'hERBOIS. 

The tyrants threaten us, as when they tum'd 
The cannon's mouth on Brissot. 

Eiiler another Messenger. 

SECOND MESSENGER. 

Vivier harangues the Jacobins — the club 
Espouse the cause of Robespierre. 

Enter aixoiher Messenger. 

THIRD MESSENGER. 

All's lost — the tyrant triumphs. Henriot leads 

The soldiers to his aid. Already I hear 

The rattling cannon destined to surround 
This sacred hall. 

T.iLLIEN. 

Why, we will die like men then ; 
The representatives of France dare death, 
When duty steels their bosoms. 

[Loud applauses. 

TALLIEN (addressing the galleries). 
Citizens ! 
France is insulted in her delegates — 
The majesty of the republic is insulted — 
Tyrants are up in arms. An armed force 
Threats the Convention. The Convention swears 
To die, or save the country ! 

[ Violent applauses from the galleries. 

CITIZEN {from above). 

We too swear 
To die, or save the country. Follow me. 

[All Hie men quit the galleries- 
Enter another Messenger. 

FOURTH messenger- 

Henriot is taken I — 

[Loud applauses:. 
Henriot is taken. Three of your brave soldiers 
Swore they would seize the rebel slave of tyrants, 
Or perish in the attempt. As he patroll'd 
The streets of Paris, stirring up the mob, 
They seized him. 

[Applauses. 

BILLAUD VARENNES. 

Let the names of these brave men 
Live to the future day. 

Enter Bourdon l'Oise, sword in hand. 

BOURDON l'OISE. 

I have clear'd die Commune. 

[Applauses. 
Through the throng I rush'd. 
Brandishing my good sword to drench its blade 
Deep in the tyrant's heart. The timid rebels 
Gave way. I met the soldiery — I spake 
Of the dictator's crimes — of patriots chain'd 
In dark deep dungeons by his lawless rage — 
Of knaves secure beneath his fostering power. 
I spake of Liberty. Their honest hearts 
Caught the warm flame. The general shout burst forth, 
'• Live the Convention — Down with Robespierre !" 

[Applauses. 
[Shouts from without — Down with the Tyrant ! 

TALLIEN. 

I hear, I hear the soul-inspiring sounds, 

France shall be saved ! her generous sons, attached 



To principles, not persons, spurn the idol 

They worshipp'd once. Yes, Robespierre shall fall 

As Capet fell ! Oh ! never let us deem 

That France shall crouch beneath a tyrant's throne. 

That the almighty people wlio have broke 

On their oppressors' heads the oppressive chain. 

Will court again their fetters ! easier were it 

To hurl the cloud-capt mountain from its base, 

Than force the bonds of slavery upon men 

Determined to be free ! 

[Applauses. 

Enter Legendre, a pistol in one hand, het/s in the 
other. 

legendre ifiiiging doivn the J:eys). 
So — let the mutinous Jacobins meet now 
In the open air. 

[Loud applauses 
A factious turbulent party 
Lording it o'er the state since Danton died, 
And with him the Cordeliers. — A hireling band 
Of loud-tongued orators controll'd the club. 
And bade them bow the knee to Robespierre. 
Vivier has 'scaped me. Curse his coward heart — 
This fate-fraught tube of Justice in my hand, 
I rush'd into the hall. He mark'd mine eye 
That beam'd its patriot anger, and flash'd full 
With death-denouncing meaning. 'Mid the throng 
He mingled. I pursued — but staid my liand. 
Lest haply 1 might shed the imiocent blood. 

[Applauses. 

FRERON. 

They took from me my ticket of admission — 
Expell'd me from their sittings. — Now, forsooth, 
Humbled and trembling re-insert my name ; 
But Freron enters not the club again 
Till it be purged of guilt — till, purified 
Of tyrants and of traitors, honest men 
May breathe the air in safety. 

[Shouts from without. 

earrere. 
What means this uproar? if the tyrant band 
Should gain the people once again to rise — 
We are as dead ! 

TALLIEN. 

And wherefore fear we death ? 
Did Brutus fear it ? or the Grecian friends 
Who buried in Hipparchus' breast the sword, 
And died triumphant ? Caesar should fear death ■ 
Brutus must scorn the bugbear. 

Shouts from tvithout. Live the Convention — Down 
with the Tyrants! 

TALLIEN. 

Hark ! agair 
The sounds of honest Freedom ! 

Enter DEPUTIES from the Sections. 

CITIZEN. 

Citizens I representatives of France ! 
Hold on your steady course. The men of Paris 
Espouse your cause. The men of Paris swear 
Tliey will defend the delegates of Freedom 

TALLIEN. 

Hear ye this. Colleagues ? hear ye this, my brethren . 
And does no tlirill of joy pervade your breasts ? 
My bosom bounds to rapture. I have seen 

220 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 



211 



The sons of Fr;ince shako off iho tyrant yoke ; 
I have, as much as hcs in mine own arm, 
Iliirl'd down the usurper. — Come death when it will, 
] have lived long enough. 

[Shouts v>ithoul. 

BARRERE. 

I lark I how the noise increases ! through the gloom 
Of the still evening — harbinger of death, 
Kmgs the tocsin! the dreadful generalo 
Thunders through Paris — 

[Cry without — Down with (he Tyrant ! 

Enter Lecointre. 

I.ECOINTRE. 

So may eternal justice hlast the foes 
Of France ! so perish all the tyrant brood. 
As Robespierre has pehsh'd I Citizens, 
(ycesar is taken. 

[Loud and repeated applauses. 
I marvel not, that with such fearless front. 
He braved our vengeance, and with angry eye 
Scowl'd round the hall dellance. Ho relied 
On Henriot's aid — the Conunune's villain friendship, 
And Henriot's boughlcn succors. Ye have heard 
How Henriot rescued him — how with open arms 
The Commune welcomed in the rebel tyrant — 
How Fleuriot aided, and seditious Vivier 
Stirr'd up the Jacobins. All had been lost — 
The representatives of France had perish'd — 
Freedom had sunk beneath the tyrant arm 
Of this foul parricide, but that her spirit 
laspircd the men of Paris. Henriot cali'd 
"To arms"' in vain, whilst Bourdon's patriot voice 
Breatheti eloquence, and o'er the Jacobins 
Legendre frovvn'd dismay. The tyrants fled — 
They reach'd the Hotel. We gaiher'd roimd — we 

caird 
For vengeance ! Long time, obstinate in despair, 
With knives they hack'd around them. Till ii)reboding 
The sentence of the law, the clamorous cry 
Of joyful thousands hailing their destruction, 
Each sought by suicide to escape the dread 
Of death. Lebas succeeded. Vmm the window 
Leapt the younger Robespierre, but his fractured limb 
Forbade to escape. Tlie sell-will'd dictator 
Plunged often the keen knife in his dark breast. 
Yet impotent to die. He lives all mangled 
By his own tremulous hand ! All gasli'd and gored. 
He lives to taste the bitterness of Death. 
Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon, 
The fierce St-Just, even now attend their tyrant 
To fall beneath the ax. I saw the torches 
FIa.sh on their visages a dreadful light — 
I saw them whilst the black blood roll'd adown 
Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye 
Scowl round contemptuous, dyuig as they Uved, 
Fearless of fule I 

[Loud and repealed applauses. 



DARRERE (moutits the Tribune). 
For ever hallow'd be this glorious day, 
When Freedom, bursting her oppressive chain. 
Tramples on the oppressor. When the tyrant, 
llurl'd from his blood-cemented throne by the arm 
Of the almighty people, meets the deatii 
He plann'd for thousands. Oh! my sickening heart 
Has sunk within me, when the various woes 
Of my brave country crowded o'er my brain 
In ghastly numbers — when assembled hordes, 
Dragg'd from their hovels liy despotic power, 
Rush'd o'er her frontiers, plunder'd her fair hamlets 
And sack'd her populous towns, and drench'd with 

blood 
The reeking fields of Flanders. — When within, 
Upon her vitals prey'd the rankling tooth 
Of treason ; and oppression, giant ibrm, 
Trampling on freedom, left the alternative 
Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day, 
When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced 
The docHii of injured France, has Faction rear'd 
Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd 
Of mercy — the uxorious dotard Roland. 
The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire 
To govern France ; and Petion talk'd of virtue. 
And Vergniaud's eloiiuence, like the honey 'd tongue 
Of some soft Syren, wooed us to destruction. 
We triumph'd over these. On the same scaffold 
Where the last Louis poiir'd his guilty blood. 
Fell Brissot's head, the womb of darksome treasons, 
And Orleans, villain kinsman of the Capet, 
And Heberl's atheist crew, whose maddening hand 
Hurl'd down the altars of the living God, 
With all the infidel's intolerance. 
The last worst traitor triumph'd — triumph'd long, 
Secured by matchless villany. By turns 
Defending and deserting each accomplice, 
As interest prompted. In the goodly soil 
Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck 
Its deep-fix'd roots, and dropt the dews of death 
On all who slumber'd in its specious shade. 
He wove the web of treachery. He caught 
The listening crowd by his wild eloquence, 
His cool ferocity, that persuaded murder, 
Even whilst it spake of mercy ! — Never, never 
Shall this regenerated country wear 
The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail, 
And with worse fury urge this new crusade 
Than savages have known ; tliough the leagued 

despots 
Depopulate all Europe, so to pour 
The accumulated mass upon our coasts, 
Sublime amid the storm shall France arise, 
And like the rock amid surrounding waves 
Repel the rushing ocean. — She shall wield 
The thunderbolt of vengeance — she shall blast 
The despot's pride, and liberate the world ! 

221 



29 



212 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



PROSE IN RHYME : OR EPIGRAMS, MORALITIES, AND THINGS WITHOUT A NAME 



'Epitfj ati ^d\riSpos cTaipog. 



In many ways does the full heart reveal 

The presence of the love it would conceal ; 

But in far more ih' estranged heart lets know 

The absence of tlie love, which yet it fain would show. 



LOVE.* 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Oft in my waking dreams do I 
Live o'er again that happy hour, 
Wlien midway on the mount I lay 
Beside tlie ruin'd tower. 

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene. 
Had blended with the lights of eve ; 
And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve ! 

She leant against the armed man. 
The statue of the armed knight ; 
She stood and listen'd to my lay. 
Amid the lingering light. 

Few sorrow's hath she of her own. 
My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! 
She loves me best, w hene'er I sing 
The songs that make her grieve. 

I play'd a soft and doleful air, 
I sang an old and moving story — 
An old rude song, that suited well 
Thai ruin wild and hoary. 

She listen'd with a flitting bhish. 
With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
For well she knew, I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

I told her of the Knight that wore 
Upon his shield a burning brand ; 
And that for ten long years he wooed 
Tlie Lady of the Land. 

I told her how he pined : and ah ! 
The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another's love. 
Interpreted my own. 



I his piece may bo found, as originaHy published, under an- 
wtbet title at page 28. 



She listen'd with a flitting blush, 
With downcast eyes, and modest grace , 
And she forgave me, that I gazed 
Too fondly on iier face. 

But when I told the cruel scorn 
That crazed liiat bold and lovely Knight, 
And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, 
Nor rested day nor night ; 

That sometimes from the savage den, 
And sometimes from the darksome shades 
And sometimes starting up at once 
In green and sunny glade, 

There came and look'd him in the face 
An angel beautiful and briglit ; 
And lliat he knew it was a Fiend, 
This miserable Knight I 

And that, unknowing what he did. 
He leap'd amid a murderous band. 
And saved from outrage worse than death 
The Lady of the Land! 

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; 
And how she tended him in vain — 
And ever strove to expiate 

The scorn that crazed his brain. 

And that she nursed him in a cave ; 
And how his madness went away. 
When on the yellow forest-leaves 
A dying man ho lay. 

His dying words — but when I reach'd 
That tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
My faltering voice and pausing harp 
Disturbed her soul with pity ! 

All imoulses of soul and sense 
Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve ; 
The music and the doleful tale. 
The rich and balmy eve ; 

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope 
An undistinguishable lln-ong. 
And gentle wishes long subdued. 
Subdued and cherish'd long ! 

222 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



213 



She wept with pity and deliglit, 
She hliish'd with love, and virgin sliame ; 
And like the niurnuir of a dream, 
1 heard her breathe my name. 

Her bosom heaved — she stept aside. 
As consciouis of mv look she siepp'd — 
Then suddenly, \Min tnnorons eyo 
She lied to me and wept. 

She half inelosed me with her arms, 
She press'd me with a meek embrace ; 
And bending back her head, look'd up, 
And gazed uijon my face. 

Twos partly Love, and partly Fear, 
And partly 't was a bashfid art. 
Thai 1 might raiher leel, tlian see, 
The swelling of her heart. 

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, 
And told her love with virgin pride ; 
And so I won my Genevieve, 

My bright and beauteous Bride. 



DUTY SURVIVIXG SELF-LOVE. 

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. 

A SOLILOQUY. 

Unchanged within to see all changed without, 

Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. 

Yet why at oiliers' warnings sliouUlst lliou fret? 

Then only inight.>t thou feel a just regret. 

Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light 

In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. 

O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, 

While, and on whom, thou mayesi — shine on! nor heed 

Whether the olyect by reflected light 

Return thy ratliance or absorb it <|iiite; 

And though thou noiest from thy safe recess 

Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, 

Love them for what they are ; nor love them less, 

Because to Ihee they are not what they were. 



PHANTOM OR FACT? 



A DI.\L0GUE IN VER.SE. 



A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed. 
And such a feeding calm its presence shed, 
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven 
That I uimethe the fancy might control, 
T was my own spirit newly come from heaven 
Wooing its gentle way into my soul ! 
But ah I the change — It had not stirr'd, and yet- 
Alas I that change how fain would I forget ! 
That shrinking back, like one that hail mistook ! 
That weary, wandering, disavowing Look ! 
'T was all another, feature, look, and frame. 
And still, melhought, I knew it was the same! 

FRIEND. 

This riddling tale, to what does it belong ? 
Is t history ? vision ? or an idle song ? 



U 



Or rather say at once, within what space 

Of time tliis wild disastrous change took place? 

AUTHOR. 

Call it a momcnCs work (and such it seems). 
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; 
But say, that years matured the silent .strife. 
And 'lis a record from the dream of Life. 



WORK WITHOUT HOPE. 

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827. 

All Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair— 

The bees are stirring — Birds are on the wing — 

And Winter, slumbering in the open air, 

Weai-s on hi.s smiling face a dream of Spring! 

And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing. 

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. 

Yet well I ken t!ie banks where amaranths blow. 
Have traced ihe fount whence streams of nectar flow. 
Bloom, O ye amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may. 
For me ye bloom not ! Gliile, rich streams, away ! 
With lips unbrighten'd, vvreathless brow, I stroll : 
And would you learn the spells that drowse my sou" 
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, 
And hope without an object cannot live. 



YOUTH AND AGE. 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
W'liere Hope clung feeding, like a bee — 
Both were mine ! Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy. 
When 1 was yoimgl 
When I was young I — Ah, vvoful when ! 
Ah for the change 'twixt now and then! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that docs me grievous wrong. 
O'er airy clifls and glittering sands. 
How lightly then it flash'd along: — 
Like those trim skills, tmknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide. 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
Tliat fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
Nought cared this body for wind or weat^ier 
When Youth and I lived in 't logethei 

Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like , 
Friendship is a sheltering tree; 
O the joys, that came down shower-like. 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old ! 
Ere I was old ? Ah woful Ere, 
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! 

Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known, that thou and I were one, 
I'll think it but a fond conceit — 

It cannot be, that thou art gone ! 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toH'd :- 
And thou wert aye a masker lx)ld ! 
What strange disguise hast now put on. 
To make believe that thou art gone ? 

1 see these locks in silvery slips. 
This drooping gait, this alter'd size : 

223 



214 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



But springtide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes I 
Life is but thought : so think I will 
That youth and 1 are house-mates still. 



A DAY DREAM. 

My eyes make pictures, when they are shut : — 

I see a fountain, large and fair, 
A willow and a ruin'd hut, 

And thee, and me, and Mary there. 

Mary ! make thy gentle lap our pillow ! 

Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow! 

A wild-rose roofs the ruin'd shed. 

And that and summer well agree : 
And lo! where Mary leans her head. 
Two dear names carved upon the tree ! 
And Mary's tears, Ihey are not tears of sorrow : 
Our sister and our friend will both be here to-morrow. 

'Twas day! But now few, large, and bright. 

The stars are round the crescent moon! 
And now it is a dark warm night, 
The balmiest of the month of June ! 
A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting 
Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet 
fountain. 

O ever — ever be thou blest ! 

For dearly, Asra ! love I thee ! 
This brooding warmth across my breast, 
This depth of tranquil bliss — ah me ! 
Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, 
But in one quiet room we three are still together. 

The shadows dance upon the wall. 
By the still dancing fire-flames made; 

And now they slumber, moveless all ! 
And now they melt to one deep shade ! 
But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee : 

1 dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel 

thee ! 

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play — 

'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow! 
But let me check tliis tender lay. 

Which none may hear but she and thou ! 
Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming. 
Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women ! 



TO A LADY, 

OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN 
HAVE NO SOULS. 

Nay, dearest Anna ! «vny so grave ? 

I said, you had no soul, 'tis true ! 
For what you are you cannot have: 

'Tis I, that luive one since I first had you! 



I HAVE heard of reasons manifold 
VVhy Love must needs be blind, 

But this the best of all I hold — 
His eyes are in his mind 



What outward form and feature are 
He guesselh but in part ; 

But what within is good and fair 
He seeth with the heart. 



LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS 
OF BERENGARIUS. 

OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. 

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope, 
Soon shall I now before my God appear, 
By him to be acquitted, as I hope ; 
By him to be condemned, as I fear, 

REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE. 

Lynx amid moles ! had I stood by thy bed. 

Be of good cheer, meek soul ! I would have said . 

I see a hope spring from that humble fear. 

All are not strong alike through storms to steer 

Right onward. What thougli dread of threaten'd 

death 
And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath 
Inconstant to the truth within thy heart ? 
That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice 

didst start. 
Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, 
Or not so vital as to claim thy life : 
And myriads had reach'd Heaven, who never kne'n 
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true ! 

Ye who, secure 'inid trophies not your own, 
Judge him who won them when he stood alone, 
And proudly talk of recreant Berengare — 
O first the age, and then the man compare ! 
That age how dark ! congenial minds how rare! . 
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn' 
No throbbing hearts awaited his return ! 
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell, 
He only disenchanted from the spell. 
Like the weak worm that gems the starless night. 
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light : 
And was it strange if he withdrew the ray 
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey ? 

The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye 
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn ! 
Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry 
The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn ! 
Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn 
The mists and painted vapors of our Morn. 



THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS 

From his brimstone bed at break of day 

A-walldng the Devil is gone. 
To visit his little snug farm of the earth, 

And see how his stock went on. 

Over the hill and over the dale. 

And he went over the plain. 
And backwards and forwards he swish'd his long tail 

As a gentleman swishes his cane. 

And how then was the Devil drest ? 

Oh ! he was in his Sunday's best : 
His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, 

And there was a hole where the tail came through 

224 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



215 



He saw a Lawyer killing a Viper 

Oil a ihmg-hcnp beside his stable, 
\nd the Devil smiled, ibr it put liim in mind 

Of Cain and his brother, Abel. 

A PoTHECARY on a white horse 

Rode by on liis vocations. 
And the Devil thought of his old Friend 

Death in the Hevelaiions. 

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, 

A cottage of gentility! 
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin 

Is pride thai apes humility. 

He went into a rich bookseller's shop, 
Quoth ho! we are both of one college; 

For I mj'self sate like a cormorant once 
Fast by the tree of knowledge.* 

Down the river there plied with wind and tide, 

A pig, with vast celerity; 
And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, 
It cut its own throat. There ! quoth he, with a smile, 

Goes " England's commercial prosperit)'." 

As ha went through Cold-Bath Fields, he saw 

A solitary cell. 
And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint 

For improving his prisons in Hell. 



■'s burning face 



General - 

He saw with consternation. 
And back to Hell his way did he take. 
For the Devil thought, by a slight mistake, 

It was general conflagration. 



* And all amid them stood the Tree of Life 
High eminent, bloomini; ambrosial fruit 
Of veeelable gold (query piper money?) ; and next to Life 
Our Death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by. — 



So clomb this first grand thief 

Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life 
Sat like a cormorant. — Par. Lost, IV. 

The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue a{ variviis 
rendinga obtained from collating the M?S. one might expect to 
find it noted, that for " /^i/c" Cod. quid haheiU, " Trade." 
Though Indeed the trade, 1. e. the bibliopolic, so called, 
Kar' c^6)(^iiv, may be regarded as Life sinau eminr.ntiori : a 
•uggcslion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, 
who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, 
country houses, etc. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's 
what I call Life now!"— This "Life, owr Death," is thus 
happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.— Sic nos non 
nobis mellificamus Apes. 

Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter 
first appm.-cd in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which 
«re worth all the rest, and ihe ninlh, were dictated by Mr. 
Southey. Between (he ninth and the concluding Ftanza, two or 
three are omitted as grounded on subjects that have lost their 
interest — and for beUcr reasons. 

If any one should ai<k, who General meant, the Author 

liegs leave to inform him, that he did once sec a red-faced per- 
•on m a dream whom by the dress he look fur a General ; but 



CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT. 

Since all, that beat atout in Nature's range. 
Or veer or vanish, why shouldst thou remain 
The only constant in a world of change — 

yearning Tiioi'tiiiT, tliat livest but in the brain? 
Call to the iiour.-j. that in tlie distance play. 
The fairy people of the future day 

F'ond tiiol'ght! not one of all that shining swarm 
Will breathe on l/ice with life-enkindling breath, 
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, 
Hope and Despair incct in the porch of Death! 
Yet still tlioii liaunt'st me ; and llioiigh well I see, 
She is not thou, and only thou art site. 
Still, still as though some dear embodied good, 
Some living love before my eyes there stood. 
With answering look a ready ear to lend, 

1 mourn to thee and say — " Ah! loveliest friend ! 
That this tlie meed of all my toils might be. 

To have a home, an English home and thee ! 
Vain repetition ! Home and thou art one. 
The peacefuH'st cot the moon shall shine upon, 
Lull'd by the thrush and waken'd by the lark. 
Without thee were but a becalmed Bark, 
Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide 
Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside. 

And art thou nothing ? Such thou art, as when 
The woodman winding westward up the glen 
At wintry dav\ii, where o'er the sheep-track's maze 
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, 
Sees full before him, gliding without tread. 
An imaget with a glory round its head ; 
The enamour'd rustic worships its fair hues. 
Nor knows, he makes the shadow he pursues ! 



THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT. 

Ere the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no 
No question was ask'd me — it could not be so ! 
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try. 
And to live on be Yes ; what can No be ? to die. 

nature's answer. 
Is 't return'd as 't was sent ? Is 't no worse for the wear ? 
Think first, what you are ! Call to mind what you 

WERE ! 

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope. 
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. 
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair ? 
Make out the Invent'ry ; inspect, compare ! 
Then die — if die you dare ! 



ho might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not 
hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Autliornever 
meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding 
stanza to his doggerel. 

t This phenomenon, which the Author has himself e.xpc- 
rienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one 
of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Trans- 
actions, is .ipplied figuratively in the following passage of the 
Jlidsto Reflection: 

"Pinilar's fine remark respecting the different effect-iof music 
on ditTerent characters, holds equally true of Genius: as many 
as arc not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. 
The beholder cither recognizes it as a projected form of his own 
I>eing. that moves before him with a Glori/ round its head, or 
recoils from it as a spectre." — .lids to lie flection, p. 2ii0 
22.5 



216 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY 
DATE-TREE. 



A LAMENT. 



I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having rend either 
in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some 
other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew Writers, an 
Apologue or Rabbinical Tradition to the following purpose: 

While our first parents stood before their ottunded Maker, 
and the last wordsof the sisntence were yet sounding in Adam's 
ear, the guileful filse serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from 
the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character 
of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, 
exclaimed; "Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not sol for the Man 
was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once 
to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And 
the word of the Most High answered Satan: "The Under 
mercies of the wicUed are cruel. Treacherous Fiend ! if with 
guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart 
of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its 
counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should 
have been inflicted on thyself." 



[The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact men- 
tioned by Linnteus, of a Dale- tree in a nobleman's garden, 
which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, 
but never produced fruit, till a branch from a Date-tree had 
been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. 
The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been 
transcribed, and which contained the two or three introduc- 
tory stanzas, is wanting : and the author has in vain taxed 
his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the 
poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader 
is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossi- 
ble, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed 
those of the author at the time the poem was written, may 
find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integ- 
rity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite Metre. — 

S. T.C. 



1. 

Beneath the h)laze of a tropical sun the moun- 
tain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the 
absence of objects to reflect the rays. " What no 
one with us shares, seems scarce our own." The 
presence of a one, 

The best beloved, who lovelh me the best, 
is for the iieart, what the supporting air from within 
is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. De- 
prive it of this, and all without, that would have 
buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes 
a burthen, and crushes it into flatness. 

2. 
The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, 
and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the 
sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity 
of joy, and the more ample his means and opportu- 
nities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel 
the ache of solitariness, the more imsubstantial be- 
comes the feast spread around him. What matters 
it, whether in fact tlie viands and the ministering 
graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not 
hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them ? 

3. 
Imagination ; honorable Aims ; 
Free Commune with the choir that cannot die ; 
Science and Song; Delight in little things, 
The buoyant child surviving in the man ; 
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky, 
With all their voices — dare I accuse 
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen, 



Or call my destiny niggard ? O no ! no ! 
It is her largeness, and her overflow, 
Wliich being incomplete, disquieteth me so ' 

4. 

For never touch of gladness stirs my heart. 

But tim'rously beginning to rejoice 

Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start 

In lonesome tent, I listen for Ihy voice. 

Beloved! 'tis not thine; thou art not there! 

Then melts the bubble into idle air, 

And wishing without hope I restlessly despair. 

5. 
The mother with anticipated glee 
Smiles o'er the child, that standing by her chair. 
And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her loiee. 
Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare 
To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight 
She hears her own voice with a new delight ; 
And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes 
aright, 



Then is she tenfold gladder than before ! 

But should disease or chance the darling take, 

What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore 

Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake ? 

Dear maid! no prattler at a mother's knee 

Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee : 

Why was I made for love, and love denied to me ? 



FANCY IN NUBIBUS, 

OR THE rOET IN THE CLOUDS. 

O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease. 

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies. 
To make the shifting clouds be what you please. 

Or let the easily persuaded eyes 
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould 

Of a friend's fancy ; or with head bent low 
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 

'Twixt crimson banks ; and then, a traveller, go 
From mount to mount through Cloudland, gor 
geous land! 

Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, 
Be that blind hard, who on the Chian strand 

By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light 
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey 

Rise lo the swelling of the voiceful sea. 



THE TWO FOUNTS. 

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY 
WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE AT' 
TACK OF PAIN. 

'T WAS my last waldng thought, how it could be 
Tliat thou, sweet friend, suchttnguish shouldst endure 
When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he 
Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure. 

Methought he fronted me, with peering look 
Fix'd on my lieart; and read aloud in game 
The loves and griefs therein, as from a book : 
And utter'd praise like one who wish'd to b.ame. 
226 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



217 



In every heart (cjuoth he) since Adam's sin, 
Two Founts llicro are, of siillering and of cheer ! 
Thai to let (brill, and this to keep witliin ! 
But she, whose aspect I find imaged here, 

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, 
Thai Fount alone iinlofk'd, by no distress 
Choked or turn'd inward, but still issue tlience 
I'liconquer'd cheer, persistent loveliness. 

As on the driving cloud the shiny Bow, 
That gracious thing made up of tears and light, 
'Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below 
Stands smiling lorih, unmoved and freshly bright : 

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers. 
Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crow'n. 
Or ere ihey sank to earth in vernal showers. 
Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down. 

Kvon so, Eliza ! on that face of thine. 

On that benignant face, whose look alone 

(The soul's translucence through her crystal shrine I) 

Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own. 

\ beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, 
But with a silent charm compels the stern 
And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring 
To shrink aback, and cower upon liis urn. 

Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found 
In passion, spleen, or strife) the fount of pain 
O'erllowing beats against its lovely mound. 
And in wild Hashes shoots from heart to brain? 

Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam 
On his raised lip, that aped a critic smile, 
Had pass'd : yet I, my sad thouglits to beguile, 
Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream : 

Till audibly at length I cried, as though 
Thou hadst indeed been present to my eyes, 

sweet, sw-eet sullerer ! if the case be so, 

1 pray thee, be less good, less sweet, less wise ! 

In every look a barbed arrow send, 
Oa these soft lips let scorn and anger live! 
Do any thing, rather than thus, sweet friend ! 
Hoard for tliyself the pain thou wilt not give ! 



\Vn.\T IS LIFE? 

Hesembles life what once was held of light. 
Too ample in itself for human sight ? 
An absolute self? an element ungrounded 1 
All that we see, all colors of all shade 

^Y encroach of darkness made ? 
Is very life by consciousness unbounded ? 
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, 
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death ? 



THE EXCHANGE. 
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,- 

I in my arms the maiden clasping ; 
I could not tell the reason why. 

But, oh ! I trembled like an aspen. 

U3 



Her father's love she bade mo gain ; 

I went and shook like any reed! 
I strove to act the man — in vain! 

We had exchanged our hearts indeed. 



SONNET, 

COMI-OSED BY THE SEASIOE, OCTOBER 1817. 

Oit I it is pleasant, with a heart at ease. 

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies. 

To make the shifting clouds be what you please ; 

Or yield the easily persuaded eyes 

To each quaint imago issuing from the mould 
Of a friend's fancy ; or with head bent low, 
And cheek aslant, see rivers How of gold 
'Twixt crimson banks ; and then, a traveller, go 

From mount to mount, tliroueh Cloudland, gorgeous 

land ! 
Or listening to the tide, W'ith closed sight. 
Be that blind bard, who on the Chiaii strand. 
By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward hght 
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey 
Rise to the swelling of the voiccful sea! 



EPIGRAMS. 

I. 

I asiv'd my fair, one happy day. 

What I sliould call her in my lay. 

By what sweet name from Rome, or Greece, 

Nesera, Laura, Dapiine, (^hloiis. 

Carina, Lalage, or Doris, 

Dorimene, or Lucrece ? 

II. 

" Ah," replied my gentle fair ; 

" Dear one, what are names but air ? — 

Choose thou whatever suits the Une ; 

Call me Laura, call me Chloris, 

Call me Lalage, or Doris, 

Only — only — call me thine .'" 



Sly Belzcbub took all occasions 

To try Job's constancy, and patience. 

He took his honor, look his health ; 

He took his children, look his wealth. 

His servants, oxen, horses, cows, — 

But cunning Satan did not take his spouse. 

But Heaven, thai brings out good from evil. 

And loves to disappoint the devil. 

Had predetermined to resiore 

Tw()fold all ho had bclijre ; 

His servants, horses, oxen, c>)ws — 

Short-sighted devil, not to lake his spouse ! 



Hoarse Ma^vius reads his hobbling verse 
To all, and at all times : 
And finds them both divinely smooth. 
His voice as well as rhymes. 

227 



218 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



BcT folks say Msevius is no ass ; 
But Ma3\ius makes it clear 
That he 's a monster of an ass — 
An ass without an ear ! 



There comes from old Avaro's grave 
A deadly stench — why, sure, they have 
Immured his soul within his Grave ! 



Last Monday all the papers said, 

That Mr. was dead ; 

Why, then, what said the city ? 
The tenth part sadly shook their head, 
And shaking sigh'd, and sighing said, 
" Pity, indeed, 'tis pity !" 

But when the said report was found 
A rumor wholly without ground. 
Why, then, what said the city ? 
The other 7iine parts shook their head, 
Repeating what the tenth had said, 
" Pity, indeed, 't is pily I " 



Your poem must eternal be. 
Dear Sir! — it cannot fail — 
For 'tis incomprehensible. 
And wants botli head and tail. 



Swans sing before they die — 'twere no bad tliinj 
Did certain persons die before they sing. 



THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN. 



the "Fortunate Isles" of the Muses: and thrn other and mora 
momentous interests prompted a ditTerent voyage, to firmer an 
chorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the 
lines from the Palimpsest tablet of my memory : and I can only 
offer the introductory stanza, which had been committed to 
writing for the purpose of procuring a friend's judgment oa 
the metre, as a specimen. 

Encinctured with a twine of leaves, 

That leafy twine his only dress ! 

A lovely Boy was pluf king fruits. 

By moonlight, in a wilderness. 

The moon was bright, the air was free. 

And fruits and tlowers together grew 

On many a shrub and many a tree: 

And ail put on a gentle hue, 

Hanging in the shadowy air 

Like a piciure rich and rare. 

It was a climate vvliure, they say. 

The night is mote beloved than day. 

But who that henuteous Boy beguiled. 

That beautiMius Boy, to linser here ■? 

Alone, by night, a little child, 

In place so silent and so wild — 

Has he no friend, no loving Mother near 7 

I have here given the birth, parentage, and premature decease 
of the " Wanderings of Cain, a poem," — entreating, however, 
my Readers not In think so meanly of my judgment, as to sup- 
pose that I either regard or olfer it as any excuse for the pub- 
lication of the following fragment (and I may add, of one or 
two others in its neighborhood), or its primitive crudity. But 
1 should find still greater diftii-ulty in forgiving myself, were I 
to record pro tadio pub'ico a set of petty mishaps and annoy- 
ances which I myself wish to forget. I must be content therefore 
wilh assuring the friend'y Reader, that the less he attributes itd 
appearance to the Author's will, choice, or juilgment, the 
nearer to the trulli he will be. S. T. C. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



A prose composition, one not in metre at least, seems prima 
facie to require explanation or apology. It was written in the 
year 1798, near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire, at which place 
(sanctum et amabilcvomen! rich by so many associations and 
recoilections) the Author had taken up his residence in order 
to enjoy the society and close neighborhood of a dear and hon- 
ored friend, T. Poole. Esq. The work was to have been written 
in concert with another, whose name is too venerable within 
the precincts of genius to be unnecessarily brought into connex- 
ion with such a trifle, and who was then residing at a small 
distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were sug- 
gested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the 
contents for each of the three books or cantoes, of which the 
work was to consist, and which, the reader is to be informed, 
was to have been finished in one night! My partner undertook 
the first ranto : I the second ; and whichever had done first, was 
to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by ; yet 
at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile 
moot the question which of the two things was the more im 
practicable, for a mind so eminently original to compose anothe 
man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and 
simple to imitate the Death of Abel ? Melhinlcs I see his grand 
and noble countenance as at the moment when having dispatch- 
ed my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened 
to him with my manuscript — that look of humorous despond- 
ency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its 
eilent mock- piteous admission of failure struggling with the 
BPnse of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme- 
which broke up in alaugh : and the Ancient Mariner was writ 
ten instead. 

Years al'lerward, however, the draft of the Plan and propo- 
sed Incidents, and the portion executed, obtained favor in thi 
eyes of more than one person, whose judgment on a poetic 
work could not but have weighed with me, even though no pa- 
rental parlitility had been thrown into the same scale, as a 
make- weia III: and I determined on commencing anew, and 
composing the whole in stanzas, and made some progress in 
realizing this intention, when adverse gales drove my bark ofTi 



CANTO 11. 



" A LiTTi E fitrthcr, O my (alher, yet a lillle further, 
and we shall come inio the open moonlight." Their 
road was through a forest of fir-trees ; at its entrance 
the trees stood at distances from each other, and the 
path was broad, and tlie moonlight, and the moonhght 
shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to in- 
habit that solitude. But soon the path winded and 
became narrow ; the sun at high noon sometimes 
speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was 
dark as a cavern. 

" It is dark, O my father !" said Enos ; " but the 
path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall 
soon come out into the open moonlight." 

" Lead on, my child I" said Cain : " guide me. 
little child !" And the innocent little child clasped a 
finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous 
Abel, and he guided his father. " The fir branches 
drip upon thee, my son." " Yea, pleasanth', father 
for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher 
and the cake, and my body is ti )t yet cool. How 
happy the sqtiirrels are that feed on these fir-trees ! 
they leap from boiigli lo bough, ri'id tlio old squirrels 
play round their young ones in 'iie nest- I clomb a tree 
yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play 
with them ; but they leapt away fio.n the branches, 
even to the slender twigs did fhey leap, and in a 
moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O n y 
father, would they not play v.idi me ? I would b 
good to them as thou art good to me : and I croancd 
to them even as thou groanest v. hen thou givest tne 
to cat, and when thou covers! me at evening, and as 
often as I stand at thy knee ,and thine eyes look at 
me." Then Cain slopped, and stifling iiis [rroans he 
sank to the earth, and the child Enos siuml in the 
darkness beside hira. 

228 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



219 



And Cain liflcd up his voice and cried biiterly, 
and said, " The Mighly One that pcrsccuteth me is 
on (Ilia side and on that ; he pursnoih my soul hke 
the wind, like the sand-blasl lie passpth tln-oimh ine ; 
lie is around me even as the air! O that I migiit ho 
utterly no more! I desire to die — yea, the things 
that niver had life, neither move liiey u\)on the 
carih — behold ! they scent precious to mine eyes. O 
tiiat a m\n might live without the broaiii of his nos- 
trils! So I might abide in darkness, and blackness, 
and an cmpiy space ! Yea, I would lie down, I would 
not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became 
as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the 
young lion resietli his head wiiilst he slccpelh. For 
the torrent that roarcih far off hath a voice, and the 
clouds in heaven Kvok terribly on ine ; the Mighty 
One who is against me speakcih in the wind of the 
cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then 
Enos spake to his father: " Arise, my father, arise, 
we are Ijut a little way from the place where I Ibund 
the cake and the pitcher." And Cain said, " How 
knowest thou ?" and the child answered — " Behold, 
the bare roclcs are a few of thy strides distant from 
the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up 
thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took 
hold of his father, as if he would raise him: and 
Cain being faint and feeble, rose slowly on his knees 
and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and 
stood upright, and followed the child. 

The path was dark till within three strides' length 
of its termination, w hen it turned suddenly ; the 
thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moon- 
light appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. 
Rnos ran before and stood in th«> open air ; and when 
Cain, his father, emerged from ihc darkness, the 
child was affrighted. For ihe miglity limijs of Cain 
were wasted as by fire ; his hair was as the matted 
curls on the Bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce 
and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant 
locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were 
stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a 
burning iron hand had striven to rend them ; and his 
countenance told in a strange and terrible language 
of agonies that had been, and were, and were still 
lO continue to be. 

The scene around was desolate ; as far as the eye 
could reach it was desolate : the bare rocks faced 
each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin 
while sand. You might wander on and look round 
and round, and peep into the crevices of ihc rocks, 
and discover nothing that acknowledged the influ- 
ence of the seasons. There was no spring, no sum- 
mer, no aiilumn : and the winter's snow, that would 
have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and 
scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised 
himself over this desert ; but the huge serpent often 
hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and 
the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within 
the coils of the seriMjnt. 'J"he jwinted and shattered 
summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude 
mimicrj' of human concerns, and seemed to proph- 
esy mutely of tilings tli.it then were not; steeples, 
and batliemen's. and ships with naked masis. As liir 
from the wood as a Iwy might sHiiit a pchble of the 
brook, there vva.s one roc 
tjtnce from the main ridge 



ed from its point, and between its point and the 
sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here 
that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to 
this place he led his father. But ere they had reach- 
ed the rock they beheld a human sha|(e : his back 
was towards them, and they were advancing unper- 
ceived, when they heard him smile his breast and 
cry aloud, "Woe is me ! woe is me! I must never die 
again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and hun- 
ger." 

Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on 
the heavy-sailing nighl-cloiul, became the face of 
Cain ; but the ciiild Enos took hold of the shaggy 
skin, his father's robe, and raised his eyes to his 
father, and listening whispered, " Kro yet I could 
speak, 1 am sure, O my father ! that 1 heard that 
voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a 
sweet voice? O my father! this is it:" and Cain 
trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, 
but it was thin and querulous like that of a feeble 
slave in misery, who despairs allogelher, yet cannot 
refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, 
behold I Enos glided forward, and creeping softly 
round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, 
and looked up into his face. -And the Shape shriek- 
ed, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his 
limbs and his face were those of his brother Abel 
whom he had killed! And Cain stood like one who 
struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding ter- 
ribleness of a dream. 

Thus as he s'.ood in silence and darkness of soul, 
the Shape fell at his feel, and embraced his luiees, 
and cried out with a bitter outcry, " Thou eldest- 
born of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, 
cease to torment me I I was feeding my flocks in 
green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou 
killedst me ; and now I am in misery." Then Cain 
closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands ; and 
again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, 
and said to Enos," What beholdest thou? Didst thou 
hear a voice, my son ?" " Yes, my father, I beheld 
a m:in in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet 
voice, full of lameniaiion." Then Cain raised up 
the Shape lliat was like Abel, and said : — " The 
Creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, 
and unto thy offering, wherelbrc hath he forsaken 
thee ?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and 
rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the 
wliite sands beneath their feet ; and he siirieked yet 
a third time, and threw himself on his lace upon the 
sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, 
and Cain and Enos sate beside him ; the child by his 
right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all 
three under the rock, and within the shadow. The 
Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and 
spake to the child : " I know w here the cold waters 
are, but I may not drink; wherefore didst thou then 
take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, " Ditlsl thou 
not find favor in Ihe sight of the I/>id thy God i" 
The Shape answeied, "The Lord is Cod of the 
living only, the dead have another God." Then 
the child Enos lificd up his eyes and prayed ; but 
Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. " Wretched shall 
they be all the days of iheir mortal liii-," exclaimed 
by itself at a small dis- ' the Shape, "who sacrilice worlhy and acceplablfi 
It had been precipitated sacrifices to the God of ihe dead; but alter death 



there perliajis by the groan which the Earih uttered | their toil ceaselh. Woe is me, for I was well beloved 
when our first fiilher li-ll. Before you a[)proaclied, it I by ihe God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O 
ajipeared to lie llal on the ground, but its base slant- 1 my brotlicr, who didst snatch me av.ay fruui kui 

30 22J 



220 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



power and his dominion." Having uttered these 
■words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands ; 
and Cain said in his heart, " The curse of the Lord 
is on me ; but who is tlie God of the dead >." and he 
ran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking 
over the sands, and the sands rose liive white mists 
hehind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that 
was hke Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly 
outran Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, 
and came again to the rock where they had been 
silling, and where Enos still stood ; and the child 
caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he 
fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and be- 
holding him not, said, " he has passed into the dark 
woods," and he walked slowly back to the rocks ; 
and when he reached it the child told him that he 
had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and 
that the man had fallen upon the groiuid : and Cain 
once more sale beside him, and .said, " Abel, my bro- 
ther, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit 
within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme 
agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks, and by thy 
pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, 
that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the 
God of the dead ? where doih he make his dwelling ? 
what sacrifices are acceptal)le unto him? for I have 
offered, but have not been received ; I have prayed, 
and have not been heard; and how can I lie afllicted 
more than I already am?" The Shape arose and 
answered, " O that thou hadst had pity on me as I 
will have pity on thee. Follow me. Son of Adam ! 
fvud bring thy child with thee ! " 

And they three passed over the white sands be- 
tween the rocks, silent as the shadows. 



ALLEGORIC VISION. 

A FEELING of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is 
wont to taiie possession of me alike in Spring and in 
Autumn. But in Spring it is the melancholy of 
Hope : in Autumn it is the melancholy of Resigna- 
tion. As I was journeying on foot through the Apen- 
nine, I fell in with a pilgrim in whom the Spring and 
the Autumn and the Melancholy of both seemed to 
have combined. In his discour.se there were the 
freshness and the colors of April: 

Qual ramicel a rnino, 

Tal da pensier pensiero 

In lui germogliava. 

But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I be- 
thought me of the not unlovely decays, both of age 
and of the late season, in the stately elm, after the 
clusters have been plucked from its entwining vines, 
and the vines are as bands of dried withies around 
its trunk and branches. Even so there was a memo- 
ry on his smooth and ample forehead, which blended 
with the dedication of his steady eyes, that still 
looked — I know not, whether upward, or far onward, 
or rather to the line of meeting where the sky rests 
upon tlie distance. But how may I express that 
liimness of abstraction which lay on the lustre of the 
pilgrim's eyes, like the flitting tarnish from the breath 
of a sigh on a silver mirror! and which accorded 
with their slow and reluctant movement, whenever 
lie turned them to any object on the right hand or on 
the left ? It .seemed, mclhoiighf, as if there lay upon 
the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments 



now unfelt, but never forgotten. It was at once the 
melancholy of hope and of resignation. 

We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sud- 
den tempest of wind and rain forced us to seek pro- 
tection in the vaulted door-way of a lone chapeiry : 
and wc sate face to face each on the stone bench 
along-side the low, weather-stained wall, and as close 
as possible to the massy door. 

After a pause of silence : Even thus, said he, like 
two strangers that have fled to the same shelter from 
the same storm, not seldom do Despair and Hope 
meet for the first time in the porch of Death ! All 
extremes meet, I answered ; but yours was a strange 
and visionary thought. The better then doth it be- 
seem both the place and me, he replied. From a 
Visionary wilt thou hear a Vision ? Mark that vivid 
flash through this torrent of rain ! Fire and water. 
Even here thy adage holds true, and its truth is the 
moral of my Vision. I entreated him to proceed. 
Sloping his face towards the arch and yet averting 
his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his 
words : till listening to the wind that echoed within 
the hollow edifice, and to the rain without, 

Which stole on his thoughts with itstwo-fuld sound. 
The clash hard by and the murmur all round, 
he gradually sunk away, alike from me and from his 
own purpose, and amid the gloom of the storm, and 
in the duskiness of that place, he sate like an em- 
blem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like a mourner 
on the sodded grave of an only one — an aged mourner, 
who is watching the waned moon and sorroweth not. 
Starling at length from his brief trance of abstrac- 
tion, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed 
his discouree, and commenced his parable. 

During one of ihose short furloughs from the service 
of the Body, which the Soul may sometimes obtain 
even in this, its militant state, I found myself in a 
vast plain, which I immediately knew to be the Val- 
ley of Life. It possessed an astonishing diversity of 
soils : and here was a sunny spot, and there a dark 
one, forming just such a mixture of sunshine and 
shade, as we may have observed on the mountains' 
side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds 
are scattered over heaven. Almost in the very en- 
trance of the valley stood a large and gloomy pile, 
into which I seemed constrained to enter. Every 
part of the building was crowded with tawdry orna- 
ments and fantastic deformity. On every window 
was portrayed, in glaring and inelegant colors, some 
horrible tale, or preternatural incident, so that not a 
ray of light could enter, untinged by the medium 
through which it passed. The body of the building 
was full of people, some of them dancing, in and 
out, in unintelligible figures, with strange ceremonies 
and antic merriment, while others seemed convulsed 
with horror, or pining in mad melancholy. Inter- 
mingled with ihese, I observed a number of men, 
clothed in ceremonial robes, who appeared, now to 
marshal the various groups and to direct their move- 
ments, and now, with menacing countenances, to 
drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of 
iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the same 
time an immense cage, and the shape of a human 
Colossus. 

I stood for a while lost in won<ler what these things 
might mean; when lo! one of the directors came up 
to me, and with a stern and reproachful look bade 
me uncover my head, for that the place into which 1 
had entered was the temple of the only true Reli 
230 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 



221 



gion, in the holier recess of which the great Goddess 
personally resided. Himself loo he bade nie reverence, 
us the consecrated minister of her rites. Awe-struck 
^y the name of Religion, I bowed bcli)rc the priest, 
and humbly and earnestly entreated him to conduct 
me into her presence. He assented. OHerings he took 
from me, with mystic sprinklings of water and with 
salt he purified, and with strange sufllations he ex- 
orcised nio; and then led me ibrougli many a dark 
and winding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled 
my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my feet, 
mingled, methought, with meanings, atlrighted me. 
At length we entered a large hall, without window, 
or spiracle, or lamp. The asylum and dormitory it 
seemed of perennial night — only that the walls were 
brought to the eye by a number of self-luminous 
inscriptions in letters of a jiale pulchral light, that 
held strange neutrality with the darkness, on the 
verge of which it kept its rayless vigil. I could read 
them, methought ; but though each one of the w^ords 
taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I 
took them in sentences, they were riddles and in- 
comprehensible. As I stood meditating on these hard 
sayings, my guide thus addressed me — Read and be- 
lieve : these are mysteries! — At the extremity of the 
vast hall the Goddess was placed. Her features, blend- 
ed with darkness, rose out to my view, terrible, yet 
vacant. I prostrated myself before her, and then 
retired with my guide, soul-withered, and wondering, 
and dissatisfied. 

As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a 
deep buzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were 
bright, and either piercing or steady, and whose 
ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, 
above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed 
by meditative thought ; and a much larger number, 
who w"ere enraged by the severity and insolence of 
the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected 
in one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry 
of " this is the Temple of Superstition!" after much 
contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment on 
all sides, rushed out of the pile : and 1, methought, 
joined them. 

We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, 
and had now nearly gone round half the valley, 
when we were addressed by a \\oman, tall beyond 
the stature of mortals, and with a something more 
than human in her countenance and mien, which yet 
could by mortals be only felt, not conveyed by words 
or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, ani- 
mated by ardent feelings, was displayed in Ihem : 
and hope, without its uncertainty, and a something 
more than all these, which I understood not, but 
which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine 
unity of expression. Her garments were white and 
matronly, and of the simplest texture. We inquired 
her name. My name, she replied, is Religion. 

The more nmnerous part of our company, affright- 
ed by the very soimd, and sore from recent impostures 
or sorceries, hurried onwards and examined no far- 
ther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition 
of her form and manners to those of the living 
'djl, whom we had so recently abjured, agreed to 
follow her, though with cautious circumspection. 
She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, 
from ihe lop of which we cotild connnand the whole 
plain, and observe the relation of the dilTcrent parts 
of each to the other, and of each lo the whole, and 
of all to each. She then gave us an optic glass which 



assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and 
enabled us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley 
of Life: thougii our eye even thus assisted permitted 
us only to behold a light and a glory, but what we 
could not descry, save only that it tvas, and that it 
was most glorious. 

And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I 
had overtaken and rejoineil the more numerous party 
who had abruptly loft us, indignant at the very name 
of religion. 'J'hey journeyed on, goading eacli other 
with remembrances of past oppressions, and never 
looking back, till in the eagerness to recede from the 
Temple of Superstition, they had rounded the whole 
circle of the valley. And lo ! there faced us the 
moulh of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and 
almost jjcrpendicular rock, the interior side of which, 
unicnown to them, and unsusp(^cted, formed the ex- 
treme and backward wall of the Temple. An im- 
patient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cav^ 
which was the only perforation of the precipice. 
At the mouth of the cave sate two figures ; the first, 
by her dress and gestures, I knew to be Sensuality; 
the second fbrm, from the fierceness of his demeanor, 
and the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared 
himself to be the monster Blaspiiiomv. He uttered 
big words, and yet ever and anon I observed that he 
turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some 
remained in the opening of the cave, with the one or 
the other of its guardians. The rest, and I among 
them, pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber, 
that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of 
the place wa.s unnaturally cold. 

In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an 
old dim-eyed man, poring with a microscope over 
the Torso of a statue which had neither basis, nor 
feet, nor head ; but on its breast was carved Nature! 
To this he continually applied his glass, and seemed 
enraptured with the various inequalities which it 
rendered visible on the seemingly polished surface 
of the marble. — Yet evermore was this delight and 
triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and ve- 
hement railings against a Being, who yet, he assured 
us, had no existence. This mystery suddenly recalled 
to me what I had read in the Holiest Recess of the 
temple of Siipemlition. The old man spoke in divers 
tongues, and continued to utter other and most strange 
mysteries. Among the rest he talked much and ve- 
hemently concerning an infinite scries of causes and 
effects, which he explained to be — a string of blind 
men, the last of whom caught hold of the skirt 
of the one before him, he of the next, and so on till 
they were all out of sight : and that they all walked 
infiiUibly straight, without making one false step, 
though all were alike blind. Methought I borrowed 
courage from surprise, and asked him, — Who then is 
at the head to guide them ? He looked at me with 
incfEible contempt, not unmixed with an angry sus- 
picion, and then replied, " i\'o one. The siring of 
blind men went on for ever without any beginning; 
for although one blind man could not move without 
stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of 
sight." I burst into laughter, which instantly turned lo 
terror — for as he started forward in rage, I caught 
a glance of him from behind ; and lo I i beheld a 
monster biforin and Janus-headed, in the hinder face 
and shape of which I instantly recognized the dread 
countenance of Sijperstition — and in the terror ' 
awoke. 

231 



222 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



THE IMPROVISATORE; 

OR "JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN." 

Scene: — A spacious drawing-room, with music-room 
adjoining. 

CATHERINE. 

What are the words ? 

ELIZA. 

Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes : 
Kate has a favor to ask of you. Sir ; it is that you 
will repeat the ballad that Mr. sung so sweetly. 

FRIEND. 

It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not re- 
collect the words distinctly. The moral of them, 
however, I take to be this — 

Love would remain the same if true, 
When we were neither young nor new : 
Yea, and in all within the will that came, 
By the same proofs would show itself the same. 

ELIZA. 
What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont 
and Fletcher, which my brother admired so much ? 
It begins with something about two vines so close 
that their tendrils intermingle. 

FRIEND. 

You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in " the 
Elder Brother." 

We Ml live together, like our two neighbor vines. 
Circling our souls and loves in one another ! 
We'll spring together, and we'll hear one fruit; 
One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ! 
One age go with us, and one hour of death 
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy. 

CATHERINE. 

A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile 
one to old age — this love, if true I But is there any 
Buch true love ? 

FRIEND. 

I hope so. 

CATHERINE. 

But do you believe it ? 

ELIZA {eagerly). 
I am sure he does. 

FRIEND. 

From a man turned of fifty, Catherine, I imagine, 
expects a less confident answer. 

CATHERINE. 

A more sincere one, perhaps. 

FRIEND. 

Even though he should have obtained the nick- 
name of Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and 
extempore verses at Christmas times ? 

ELIZA. 

Nay, but be serious. 

FRIEND. 

Serious ? Doubtless. A grave personage of my 
years giving a love-lecture to two young ladies, can- 
not well be otlierwise. Tlie difficulty, I suspect, 
would be for them to remain so. It will be asked 
wliether I am not the " elderly gentleman " who sate 
' despairing beside a clear stream," with a willow 
for his wig-block. 

ELIZA. 

Say anotlier word, and we will call it downright 
affectation. 



CATHERINE. 

No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask 

pardon for our presumption in expecting that Mr. 

would waste his sense on two insignificant girls. 

FRIEND. 

Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then 
commences the discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being 
the text. Love, as distinguished from Friendship, on 
the one hand, and from the passion that too often 
usurps its name, on the other — ■ 

LUCIUS. 

(Eliza's brother, who had jusl joined the trio, in a 
whisper to the Friend). But is not Love the union of 
both? 

FRIEND [aside to Lucius). 

He never loved who thinks so. 

ELIZA. 

Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. can- 
not arrange the flower-vase without you. Thank you, 
Mrs. Hartman. 

LUCIUS. 

I '11 have my revenge ! I know what I will say ! 

ELIZA. 

Off! off! Now dear sir, — Love, you were saying — • 

FRIEND. 

Husli ! Preaching, 3'ou mean, Eliza 

ELiza {impatiently). 
Pshaw ! 

FRIEND. 

Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is 
itself not the most common thing in the world : and 
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal 
attachment, so beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet 
melodist, and still more toucliinglj', perhaps, in the 
well-known ballad, "John Anderson, my jo, John," 
in addition to a depth and constancy of character of 
no every-day occurrence, supposes a peculiar sensi- 
bihty and tenderness of nature; a constitutional comr 
municativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a 
deliglit in the detail of sympathy, in the outward and 
visible signs of the sacrament within — to count, as it 
were, the pulses of the life of love. But above all, it 
supposes a soul which, even in the pride and suni- 
mer-tide of life — even in the lustihood of health and 
strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest that 
which age cannot take away, and which in all our 
lovings, is the Love ; 

ELIZA. 

There is something here (pointing to her heart) that 
seems to understand you, but wants the word that 
would make it understand itself. 

CATHERINE. 

I, too, seem to feci what you mean. Interpret the 
feeling for us. 

FRIEND. 

1 mean that willing sense of the insufficing. 

ness of the self for itself, which predisposes a gener- 
ous nature to see, in the total being of another, the 
supplement and completion of its own — that quiet 
perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved 
object modulates, not suspends, where the heart mo- 
mently finds, and, finding, again seeks on — lastly 
when " life's changeful orb lias pass'd the full," a 
confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus 
brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very 
bosom of hourly experience : it supposes, I say, u 
heart-felt reverence for worth, not the less deep be- 
cause divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiar- 
232 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



223 



ity, by mutual iiilirmilios, and even by a feeling of 
modesty wliii-li will arise in delicate minds, when 
they are conscious of possessing the same or the 
correspondent excellence in their own characters. 
In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels 
the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its 
own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call 
Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of 
time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thou- 
sand-foldly endeared partner, we feel foraged Vikti'E 
the caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence 
of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and 
tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same 
affection to the same object when attired in feminine 
loveliness or in manly beauty. 

ELIZA. 

What a soothing — what an elevating idea! 



CATHERINE. 

If it be not only an idea. 

FRIEND. 

At all events, these qualities which I have enumer- 
ated, are rarely found united in a single individual. 
How much more rare must it be, that two such in- 
dividuals should meet together in this wide world 
under circumstances that admit of their union as 
Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estima- 
ble on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, 
liousemate— in short, in all the concentric circles of 
attachment, save only the last and inmost ; and yet 
from how many causes be estranged from the highest 
perfection in this ! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness 
of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious dis- 
position, a passion for display, a sullen temper— one 
or the other — too often proves " the dead lly in the 
compost of spices," and any one is enough to unlit it 
for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty 
good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of 
solemn saturnine, or, if you will, wune vanity, that 
keeps itself aUve by sucking the paws of its own self- 
importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensa- 
tion of their own value is, for the most part, ground- 
ed on negative qualities, so they have no better means 
of preserving the same but by negatives — that is, by 
not doing or saying any thing, that^might be put down 
for fond, silly, or nonsensical,— or (to use their own 
phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of 
their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think 
the most worthless object they could be employed in 
remembering. 

ELIZA {in anstver to a wlusper from Catherine). 
To a hair ! He must have sate for it himself Save 
me from such folks ! But they are out of the question. 

FRIEND. 

True ! but the same effect is produced in thousands 
by the too general insensibility to a very important 
truth; this, namely, that the misery of human life is 
made up of large masses, each sejjarated from the 
other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a 
child ; years after, a failure in trade ; after another 
longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have 
marned unhappily ;_in all but the singulariy un- 
fortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum 
total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily 
counted, and distinctly remembered. The happiness 
of hfe, on the contrary, is made up of minute frac- 
tions—the httle, soon-forgolten charities of a Iciss. a 
emile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the dis- 



guise of playful raillery, and the countless other 
infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial 
feehng. 

CATHERINE. 

Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make mn 
despair of luiding a " John Anderson, my jo, John,"' 
to totter down the hill of hfe with. 

FRIEND. 

Not so ! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer 
than good women, but that what another would find 
in you, you may ho[)e to find in another. But well, 
however, may that boon be rare, the possession of 
which would be more than an adequate reward for 
the rarest virtue. 

ELIZA. 

Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, 
must have possessed it ? 

FRIEND. 

If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had 
believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter 
the disappointment ! 

{Then, after a pause of a few minutes). 

Answer {ex improvise). 
Yes, yes ! that boon, life's richest treat, 
He had, or fancied that he had ; 
Say, 't was but in liis own conceit — 

The fancy made him glad ! 
Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! 
The boon, prefigured in his eariiest wish! 
The fair fulfilment of his poesy. 
When his young heart first yeam'd for sympathy . 

But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain 

Unnourish'd wane ! 
Faith asks her daily bread. 
And Fancy must be fed ! 
Now so it chanced — from wet or dry, 
It i)oots not how — I know not why — 
She miss'd her wonted food : and quickly 
Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly. 
Then came a restless slate, 't vvixt yea a^ Mi* 
His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and ^ w , 
Or like a bark, in some half-sheller'd baj 
Above its anchor driving to and fro. 

Tliat boon, which but to have possess'd 
In a hdief gave life a zest — 
Uncertain both what it had been, 
And if by error lost, or luck ; 
And what it teas: — an evergreen 
Which some insidious blight had struck. 
Or annual flower, which past its blow 
No vernal spell shall e'er revive ; 
Uncertain, and afraid to know. 
Doubts toss'd him to and fro ; 
Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, 
Like babes bewilder'd in a snow. 
That cling and huddle from the cold 
In hollow tree or ruin'd fold. 

Those sparkling colors, once his boast, 

Fading, one by one away, 
Thin and huoless as a ghost. 

Poor Fancy on her sick-bed lay , 
111 at distance, worse when near. 
Telling her dreams to jealous Fear ' 
233 



^c4 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Where was it then, the sociable sprite 
That crovvn'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish ! 
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish, 
Itself a substance by no other right 
But that it intercepted Reason's light ; 
It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow, 
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow ! 
Thank Heaven! 'tis not so now. 



O bliss of blissful hours ! 
The boon of Heaven's decreeing. 
While yet in Eden's bowers 
Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate! 
The one sweet plant which, piteous Heaven agreeing. 
They bore witli them through Eden's closing gate! 
Of life's gay summer-tide the sovran Rose ! 
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows 
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ; 
If this were ever his, in outward being, 
Or but his own true love's projecied shade. 
Now, that at length by certain proof he knows, 
That Avhether real or magic show, 
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ; 
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low. 
Yet, Lady I deem him not unblest : 
The certainty that struck Hope dead, 
Hath left (^^ontentmeni in her stead : 
And that is next to best ! 



THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. 

Of late, in one of those most weary hours. 
When life seems empiied of all genial powers, 
A dreary mood, which lie who ne'er has known 
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone ; 
And, from llie nvimljing spell to win relief, 
Cail'd on the past lor ihougiit of glee or grief. 
In vain ! bereft alike of grief and glee, 
I sate and covver'd o'er my own vacancy ! 
And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache, 
Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake ; 

Friend ! long wont to notice yet conceal, 
And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, 

1 but half saw that quiet hand of thine 
Place on my desk this exquisite design, 
Boccaccio's Garden and its faery. 

The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! 
An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm, 
Framed in the silent poesy of form. 
Like llocks adown a newly-bainetl sleep 

Emerging from a mist : or like a stream 
Of music soft that not dispels the sleep. 

But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream. 
Gazed by an idle eye with silent might 
The picture stole upon my inward sight. 
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest. 
As though an niiant's finger touch'd my breast. 
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought 
All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought, 
In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost 
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost ; 
Or charm'd my youth, that kindled from above, 
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love ; 



Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan 

Of manhood, musing what and whence is man 

Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn cave3 

Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves 

Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, 

That cail'd on Hertha in deep forest glades ; 

Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast ; 

Or rhyme of cily pomp, of monk and priest, 

Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, 

To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. 

And many a verse which to myself 1 sang, 

That woke the tear, yet stole away the pang, 

Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd. 

And last, a matron now, of sober mien. 

Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen. 

Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd 

Even in my dawn of thought — Philosophy. 

Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, 

She bore no other name than Poesy; 

And, like a gift from heaven, in Jifeful glee, 

That had but newly left a mother's knee. 

Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone. 

As if with eltin playfellows well known. 

And life reveal'd to innocence alone. 



Thanks, gentle artist ! now I can descry 

Thy lair creation with a mastenng eye. 

And (ill awake ! And now in fix'd gaze stand, 

Now wander through the Eden of thy hand; 

Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear 

See fragment shadows of the crossing deer, 

And with that serviceable nymph I stoop. 

The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. 

1 see no longer ! I myself am there. 

Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. 

'T is I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings. 

And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings: 

Or pause and listen to ihe tinkling bells 

From the high tower, and think that there she dwells 

With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest. 

And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. 



The brightness of the world, O thou once free. 
And always fair, rare land of courtesy ! 
O, Florence ! with the Tuscan fields and hills ! 
And famous Arno fed \viih all iheir rills ; 
Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy ! 
Rich, ornate, jxipulous, all treasures thine. 
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. 
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old. 
And forests, where beside his leafy hold 
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn. 
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn , 
Palladian palace wiih iis .storied halls; 
Fuunlains, where Love lies listening to their falls 
Gardens, wliere flings the bridge its airy span. 
And Nature makea her happy home with man; 
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed 
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, 
And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its liead, 
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn 
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn, 
Thine all delights, and eveiy muse is thme : 
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine 
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance ' 
'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance 

234 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



225 



See ! Goccace sits, unfolding on his knees 
The new-ibunil roll of old Ma?onides;* 
But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart. 
Peers Ovid's Holy Book ol' Love's sweet smart! t 

O ali-enjoying and all-blending sage, 
Long be it mine to ron thy mazy page. 
Where, half conceai'd, the eye ol lancy views 
Fuuns, nymphs, and wijiged saints, all gracious to thy 
muse ! 

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, 
And see in Uian's vest between the rniiks 
Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes 
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves. 
With that sly satyr peering through the leaves! 



MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY. 

LINES COMPOSED ON A SICK BED, UNDER SEVERE 
BODILY SL'FFEKING, ON MV SriRITUAL BlRTIiDAV, 
OCTOBER 28lh. 

Bow unto God in Christ— in Christ, my All! 
What, that Earth boasts, were not lost cheaply, rather 
Than forfeit that l)!esi Name, by which we call 
The Holy One, the Almighty God, Our Father? 
Father ! in Christ we live and Christ in Thee : 
Eternal Thou, and everlasting We! 

The Heir of Heaven, henceforth I dread not Death, 
In Christ I live, in Christ I draw the brcaih 
Of the true Life. Let Sea, and Earth, and Sky 
Wage war against me : on my front I .'show 
Their mighty Master's seal ! In vain l/tcy try 
To end my Life, who can but end its Woe. 

Is that a Death-bed, where the Christian lies? 
Yes! — But not his: 'Tis Death itself (here dies. 



FRAGMENTS 
FROM THE WRECK OF MEMORY: 

OR 
PORTIONS OF r0E3IS COMPOSED IN EARLY MANHOOD. 

[Note. — It may not be without use or interest to 
youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers 

• Boccaccio claimed for himself the glnry nf having first in- 
troduced ihe works of Homer to his counirymen. 

1 1 know few moreslrikinir or more interesline proofs of the 
overwhelming influence which ihn sludy of Ihe Greek and Ro- 
man classics exercised on Ihn judnmrnls, feelings, and imaci- 
nations of the literati of Europe ul Ihe cnmmenrement of the 
restoration of lileraliire, lh;in the p.isaneu in the Filocopo of 
Boccaccio; where the bhk'' insirnctor. Racheo. as Sdon as the 
roun? prince and the beautiful girl Biancafinre had loarncd 
their leticrs, seta (hem to sludy the Hnlii Book. Ovid's. In nf 
Lovt. Incornciicio Racheo a inettere il suo oflicio in eesccu- 
lione con intera solleciludine. E lorn, in hrove tempo, inseg- 
nato a conoscer le Ictlere. fccc legerc il santo libro d' Ovvidio, 
nel quale tl sommo porta mustra, eomn i santi fuuchi di ye- 
ncre si dcbbano nc frcUdi cuori occcnderc." 

16 



of poetry, to observe, that in the attempt to adapt the 
Greek metres to the English language, we must begin 
by substituting qualihj of sound for quanlity — that is, 
accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables, 
for what, in the Greek and Latin verse, are named 
long, and of which the prosodial mark is " ; and vice 
versa, unaccentuated syllables for short, marked ". 
Now the hexameter verse consists of two sorts oi feel, 
the spondee, composed of two long syllables, and the 
dactyl, comfxised of one long syllable f<)llowed by two 
short. The (bllowiiig verse from the Psalms, is a rare 
instance of a perfect hexameter (i. e. line of six feet) 
in Ihe English langunae: — 

Ciod came | up wTih a | shOut : our | Lord with 
the I sound Of a | trumpeL 

But so few are the truly spondaic words in our lan- 
guage, such as Egypt, uprOar, tiirmOil, &c., that we 
are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the 
trochee, or " a, i. e. such words as merry, lightly, &c. 
f()r the proper spondee. It need only be added, that 
in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and 
the sixth a spomlee, or trochee. 1 will end this note 
with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms. 

There is S, | river tlio | flowing where | Of shall | 
gladden the city. 

Halle I lujah ihc | cily of | God Jehovah! hath | 
blest her.] 



I. HYMN TO THE EARTH. 

Earth ! ihou moi her of numberless children, the nurse 

and the moilier, 
Ilail ! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, 

blessing, I hymn thee ! 
Forth, ye sweet sounds ! from my harp, and my voice 

shall float on your surges — 
Soar thou alofi, O my soul ! and bear up my song on 

thy pillions. 

Travelling the vale with mine eyes — green meadows, 

and lake with green island. 
Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing 

in brightness. 
Thrilled with ihy beauty and love, in the wooded slope 

of the moiinlain, 
Here, Great Mother, I lie, thy child with its head on 

thy bosom ! 
Playful the spirits of noon, that creep or rush through 

thy tresses : 
Green-haired Goddtsss! refresh me; and hark! asthov 

hurry or linger. 
Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it witn musical 

murmurs. 
Into my being thou murmiirest joy; and tenderest 

.sadness 
Shed'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and 

the heavenly gladness 
Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the 

hymns of thanksgiving. 
Earth ! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse 

and the mother. 
Sister thou of the Stars, and beloved by the sun. the 

rejoicer ! 

235 



226 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Guardian and friend of the Moon, O Earth, whom 
the Cornels forget not, 

Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round, and 
again they behold thee! 

Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of 
Creation ?) 

Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon 
thee enamored ! 

Say, mysterious Earth ! Osay, great Mother and God- 
dess! 

Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap 
was nngirdled. 

Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed 
thee and won thee I 

Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes 
of morning ! 

Deep was the shudder, O Earth ! the throe of thy 
self-retention : 

July thou strovesi to flee, and didst seek thyself at 
thy centre! 

Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; 
and forth with 

Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty 
embracement. 

Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thou- 
sand-fold instincts. 

Filled, as a dream, the wide waters: the rivers sang 
on their channels ; 

Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas : the yearn- 
ing ocean swelled upward : 

Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, 
and the echoing mountains. 

Wandered blealing in valleys, and warbled in blos- 
soming branches. 



IV. THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED 
AND EXEMPLIFIED. 

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column ; 
In the pentameter aye failing in melody back. 



IL ENGLISH HEXAMETERS, WRITTEN DURING 
A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN 179'j. 

0, WHAT a life is the Eve's! what a strange and 

inscrutable essence ! 
Hira, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that 

warms him ; 
Him, that never beheld the swelling breast of his 

mother ; 
Him, that smiled in his gladness, as a babe that smiles 

in its slumber ; 
Even for Him it exists! It moves and stirs in its 

prison ! 
Lives with a separate life; and "Is it a Spirit?" 

he murmurs : 
Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only 

a language!" 



in. THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER DESCRIBED 
AND EXEMPLIFIED. 

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless 

billows, 
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and 

the ocean 



V. A VERSIFIED REFLECTION. 

[A Force is the provincial term in Cumberland for 
any narrow fall of water from the summit of a moun- 
tain precipice. — The following stanza (it may not 
arrogate the name of poem) or versified reflection, 
was composed while the author was gazing on three 
parallel Forces, on a moonlight night, at the foot of 
the Saddleback Fell.— S. T. C] 

On stern Bi.encarthur's perilous height 
The wind is tyrannous and strong: 
And flashing forth unsteady light 
From stern Blencarthur's skiey height 
As loud the torrents throng! 

Beneath the moon in gentle weather 
They bind the earth and sky together: 
But oh ! the Sky, and all its forms, how quiet! 
The things that seek the Earth, how full of noise 
and riot! 



LOVE'S GHOST AND RE-EVANITION. 

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE. 

Like a lone Arab, old and blind, 
Some caravan had left behind; 
Who sits beside a ruin'd well, 
Where the shy Dipsads* bask and swell! 
And now he cowers with low-hung head aslant. 
And listens for some hiimnn sound in vain : 
And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant. 
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain— — 
Even thus, in languid mood and vacant hour, 
Resting my eye upon a drooping plant. 
With brow low-bent, within my garden bower, 
I sate upon its couch of Camomile : 
And lo! — or was it a brief sleep, the while 
I watch'd the sickly calm and aimless scope 
Of my own heart ? — I saw the inmate, Hope, 

That once had made that heart so warm, 

Lie lifeless at my feet! 
And Love stole in, in maiden form, 

Toward my arbor-seat! 
She bent and kissed her sister's lips. 

As she was wont to do: 
Alas ! 't was but a chilling breath, 
That woke enough of life in death 
To make Hope die anew. 



* The Asps of the sand-deserts, anciently named Dipsads. 

236 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



227 



UGHT-IIEARTEDNESS IN RHYME. 



" I expect no Reuse, worth listening to, from Uic man who 
never dares talk nonsenso." — .Inon. 



T. THE REPROOF AND REPLY: 
OR, THE flower-thief's APOLOGY, FOR A ROBBERY 

COMMITTED IN MR. AND MRS. 's GARDEN, ON 

SUNDAY MORNING, SOTII OF MAY, 1833, BETWEEN 
THE HOURS OF ELEVEN AND TWELVE. 

" Fie, Mr. Coleridge ! — and can this be you ? 
Break two oommandinents ? — and in cliiircii-time too ? 
Have you not hoard, or have yon heard in vain, 
The birth-and-parentage-recording strain? — 
Confessions shrill, that shrill cried mack'rel drown — 
Fresh from the drop — the youth not yet cut down — 
Letter to sweet-heart — the last dying speech — 
And did'nt all this begin in Sabbath-breach? 
You, that knew better ! In broad open day 
Steal in, steal out, and steal our flowers away ? 
What could possess you ? Ah ! sweet youth, I fear, 
The chap with horns and tail was at your ear !" 

Snch sotinds, of late, accusing fancy brought 

From fair C to the Poet's thought. 

Now hear the meek Parnassian youth's reply : — 
A bow — a pleading look — a downcast eye — 
And then : 

" Fair dame I a visionary wight, 
Hard by your hill-side mansion sparkling white, 
His thought all hovering round the Muses' home, 
Long hath it been your Poet's wont to roam. 
And many a morn, on his bed-charmed sense, 
So rich a stream of music issued thence. 
He deem'd himself, as it flow'd warbling on. 
Beside the vocal fount of Helicon ! 
But when, as if to settle the concern, 
A nymph too he beheld, in many a turn. 
Guiding the sweet rill from its fontal urn ; 
Say, can you blame ? — No ! none, that saw and heard. 
Could blame a bard, that he, thus inly stirr'd, 
A muse beholding in each fervent trail. 

Took Mary H for Polly Hymnia ! 

Or, haply as thou stood beside the maid 
One loftier form in sable stole arrayed. 
If with regretful thought he hail'd in thee, 

C m, his long-lost friend Mol Poraone ? 

But most of you, soft warblings, I complain! 

'T was ye, that from the bee-hive of my brain 

Did lure the fancies forth, a freakish rout. 

And witched the air with dreams turn'd inside out. 

Thus all conspired — each power of eye and ear. 
And this gay month, th' enchantress of the year. 
To cheat poor me (no conjurer, God wot !) 

And C m's self accomplice in the plot. 

Can you then wonder if I went astray ? 

Not bards alone, nor lovers mad as they — 

All Nature day-dreams in the month of May, 

And if I plurk'd ' each flower that sweetest blows' — 

Who walks in sleep, needs follow must his nose. 



Thus long accustomed on the twy-fork'd hill,* 
To pluck both flower and floweret at my will ; 
Tho garden's maze, like No-man's land, I tread. 
Nor common law, nor statute in my head ; 
F'or my own proper smell, sight, fancy, feeling. 
With autocratic hand at once repealing 
Five Ads of Parliament 'gainst private stealing ! 

But yet from C m, who despairs of grace ? 

There 's no spring-gun nor man-trap in that face ! 
Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue. 
That look as if they had little else to do : 

For C m speaks. " Poor youth ! he's but a waif! 

The spoons all right ? The hen and chickens safe ? 

Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards — 

The Eighth Commandment was not made for Bards !" 



II. IN ANSWER TO A FRIEND'S aUESTION. 
Her attachment may differ from yours in degree. 

Provided they are both of one Jcind ; 
But friendship, how tender so ever it be, 

Gives no accord to love, however refined. 

Love, that meets not with love, its true nature 
revealing. 

Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs : 
If you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling, 

You must lower down your state to hers. 



III. LINES TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABU- 
SIVE REVIEW. 

What though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking 

chorus 
From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak: 
So was it, neighbour, in the times before us. 
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak. 
Romped with the Graces: and each tickled Muse 
(That Turk, Dan Phojbus, whom bards call divine, 
Was married to -at least, he kept — all nine) — 
They fled ; but with reverted faces ran ! 
Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse, 
They had allured the audacious Greek to use. 
Swore they mistook him for their own Good Man. 
This Moinus — Aristophanes on earth 
Men called him — maugre all his wit and worth, 
Was croaked and gabbled at. I low, then, should you, 
Or I, Friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew ? 
No : laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee, 
" I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me !" 



IV. AN EXPECTORATION. 

OR SPLENETIC EXTEMPORE, ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURK 
FROM THE CITY OF COLOGNE. 

As I am Rhymer, 

And now at least a merry one, 
Mr. MuM.'s Rudesheimer t 

.\nd the church of St. Geryon 

* The English Parnassus is remarkable for its two summita 
of unequal height, the lower denominated Hampstcad, t)'<) 
higher Highgato. 

t The apotheosis of Rhenish wine. 

31 237 



228 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



Are the two things alone 
That deserve to be known 
In the body-and-soul-stinking town of Cologne. 



EXPECTORATION THE SECOND. 

Lv CoLN.t a town of monks and bones, f 

And pavements fang'd with murderous stones; 

And rags, and hiigs, and hideous wenches; 

I counted two-and-seventy stenches, 

All well-defined and several stinks ! 

Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, 

The river Rhine, it is well known. 

Doth wash your city of Cologne ,• 

But tell me, nymphs! what power divine 

Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine ? $ 



SONG 

ex improvisa on hearing a song in praise of a 

lady's beauty. 

'T IS not the lily brow I prize, 
Nor roseate cheeks, nor sunny eyes. 
Enough of lilies and of roses ! 
A thousand fold more dear to me 
The gentle look that love discloses. 
The look that love alone can see. 



THE POET'S ANSWER 

TO A lady's question RESPECTING THE ACCOMPLISH- 
MENTS MOST DESIRABLE IN AN INSTRUCTRESS OF 
CHILDREN. 

O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule. 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; 
Love, Hope, and Patif.vce, these must be thy Graces, 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school. 
^ot as old Atlas on his broad neck places 
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it ; so 
fo these upbear the little world below 
Of Education, Patience, Love, and Hope. 
Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show. 
The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope 
And robes that touching, as adown they flow, 
Dt.stinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. 

O part them never ! If Hope prostrate lie, 

Love too will sink and Q*ie. 
But Love is subtle, and will proof derive 
From her own life that Hope is yet alive. 
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, 
And the soft murmurs of the Mother Dove, 
Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies: 
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to 
Love. 

tThe German name of Coloene. 

X Of the eleven thousand virsin martyrs. 

^As Necessity 13 the mother of Invention, and extremes 
beget each other, the fact above recorded may explain how this 
ancient town (which, alas ! as sometimes happens with veni- 
son, has been kept loo long.) came to be the birth-place of the 
most fragrant of spirituous fluids, the Eau de Cologne. 



Yet haply there will come a weary day. 
When over-task'd at length 
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. 
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, 
Stands the mute sister. Patience, nothing loth, 
And both supporting does the work of both. 



JULIA. 



medio de fonte leporum 

Sutgit amari aliquid. — Lucrct. 

Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace : 
Small poets loved to sing her blooming face. 
Before her altars, lo ! a numerous train 
Preferr'd their vows ; yet all preferr'd in vain : 
Till charming Florio, born to conquer, came, 
And touch'd the fair one with an equal flame. 
The flame she felt, and ill could she conceal 
What every look and action would reveal. 
With boldness then, which seldom fails to move. 
He pleads the cause of marriage and of love ; 
The course of hymeneal joys he rounds, 
The fair one's eyes dance pleasure at the sounds. 
Nought now remain'd but " Noes" — how little 

meant — 
And the sweet coyness that endears consent. 
The youth upon his knees enraptured fell : — 
The strange misfortune, oh ! what words can tell ? 
Tell ! ye neglected sylphs ! who lap-dogs guard. 
Why snatch'd ye not away your precious ward ? 
Why suflfer'd ye the lover's weight to fell 
On the ill-fated neck of much-loved Ball ? 
The favorite on his mistress casts his eyes, 
Gives a short melancholy howl, and — dies ! 
Sacred his ashes lie, and long his rest ! 
Anger and grief divide poor Julia's breast. 
Her eyes she fix'd on guilty Florio first, 
On him the storm of angry grief must burst. 
That storm he fled : — he wooes a kinder fair. 
Whose fond affections no dear puppies share. 
'T were vain to tell how Julia pined away ; — 
Unhappy fair, that in one luckless day 
(From future almanacs the day be cross'd !) 
At once her lover and her lap-dog lost ! 

1789. 



1 yet remain 

To mourn the hours of youth (yet mourn in vain) 
That fled neglected ; wisely thou hast trod 
The better path — and that high meed which God 
Assign'd to virtue tow'ring from the dust. 
Shall wait thy rising. Spirit pure and just ! 

O God ! how sweet it were to think, that all 
Who silent mourn around this gloomy ball 
Might hear the voice of joy ; — but 't is the will 
Of man's great Author, that through good and ill 
Calm he should hold his course, and so sustain 
His varied lot of pleasure, toil, and pain. 

1793 
238 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



229 



TO THE REV. W. I. IIORT 
Hush! ye clnmorous cares, be mine ! 

Again, dear harmonist, aiiaiii 
Through the hollow of lliy (lute 

Breathe tiiat passion-vvnrMcii strain ; 
Till memory back each form shall bring 

The loveliest of her shadowy throng. 
And hope, that soars on sky-lark's wing, 

Shall carol forth her gladdest song ! 

Oskill'd with magic spell to roll 

The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul ! 

Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again. 

While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild ; 

And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain 

In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild. 

In freedom's undivided dell 
Where toil and health with mellow'd love shall dwell ; 

Far from folly, far from men, 

In the rude romantic glen. 

Up the cliff, and through the glade, 

Wand'ring with the dear loved maid, 

I shall listen to the lay 

And ponder on the far away; — 
Still as she bids those thrilling notes aspire, 
'Making my fond attuned heart her lyre), 
Thy lionor'd form, my friend ! shall reappear. 
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear! 

1794. 



TO CHARLES LAMB. 

WITH AN UN'FIMSHED POEiM. 

Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhym 
Elaborate and swelling; — yet the heart 
Not owns it. From thy spirit-brcalhing powers 
1 ask not now, my friend ! the aiding verse 
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought 
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know) 
From business wand'ring far and local cares 
rhou creepest round a dear loved sister's bed. 
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look. 
Soothing each pang with fond solicitudes 
And tenderest tones medicinal of love. 
I, too, a sister had, an only sister — 
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her ; 
To her I pour'd f()rth all my puny sorrows ; 
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms) 
And of the heart those hidden maladies — 
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed. 
O ! I have waked at midnight, and have wept 
Because she was not ! — Cheerily, dear Charles ! 
Thou thy best friend shall cherish many a year; 
Such warm presages feel I of high hope ! 
For not uninterested the dear maid 
I've vievv'd — her soul afTectionaie yet wise, 
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories 
That play around a sainted infant's head. 
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees, 
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love 
Aught to implore were impKence of mind !) 
VS! 



That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,— 
Prepared, when He his healing ray vouchsafes, 
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart. 
And praise him gracious with a brother's joy ! 

1794. 



TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 

Sister of lovelorn poets, Philomel ! 
How many bards in city garrets pent. 
While at their window they with downward eye 
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud, 
And listen to the drowsy cry of the watchmen, 
(Those hoarse uufeather'd nightingales of time !) 
How many wretched bards address the name. 
And hers, the full-orb'd queen, that shines above. 
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark. 
Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid, 
Thou warblrst sad thy pity-pleading strains. 
Oh, 1 have listen'd, till my working soul. 
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies, 
Absorb'd, hath (Tascd to listen ! Therefore oft 
I hymn thy tmme ; and with a proud delight 
Oft will I tell thee, minstrel of the moon 
Most musical, most melancholy bird! 
That all thy soft diversities of tone, 
Though sweeter far than the delicious airs 
That vibrate from a white-arm'd lady's harp. 
What time the languishment of lonely love 
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow 
Are not so sweet, as is the voice of her. 
My Sara — best beloved of human kind ! 
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness. 
She thrills me with the husband's promised name ! 

1794. 



TO SARA. 

The stream with languid murmur creeps 

In Sumin's flow'ry vale ; 
Beneath the dew the lily weeps. 

Slow waving to the gale. 

" Cease, restless gale," it seems to say, 
" Nor wake me with thy sighing : 

The honotirs of my vernal day 
On rapid wings are flying. 

" To-morrow shall the traveller come, 
That erst beheld me blooming ; 

His searching eye shall vainly roam 
The dreary vale of Sumin." 

W^ith eager gaze and wetted cheek 

My wanton haunts along. 
Thus, lovely maiden, thou shall seek 

The youth of simplest song. 

But I along the breeze will roll 

The voice of feeble power, 
And dwell, the moon-beam of thy soul, 

In slumber's nightly hour 

mL 

239 



230 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



CASIMIR. 

If we except Lucretius and Statius, I know no 
Latin poet, ancient or modern, who has equalled Casi- 
mir in boldness of conception, opulence of fancy, or 
beauty of versification. The odes of this illustrious 
Jesuit were translated into English about 150 years 
ago, by a G. Hils, I think. I never saw the transla- 
tion. A few of the odes have been translated in a 
very animated manner by Watts. I have subjoined 
the third ode of the second Book, which, with the 
exception of the first line, is an effusion of exquisite 
elegance. In the imitation attempted I am sensible 
that I have destroyed the effect of suddenness, by 
translating into two stanzas what is one in the original. 

1796. 
AD LYRAM. 

SoNORA buxi filia sutilis, 
Pendebis alta, barbite populo, 

Dum ridet aer, et supinas 

Solicitat levis aura frondes. 

Te sibiluntis lenior habitus 
Perflabit Euri : me jiuet intrim 

Collum reclinasse, et verenti 

Sic temere jacuisse ripa. 

Eheu ! serenum quas nebuls tegunt 
Repente ccelum : quis sonus imbrium! 

Surgarnus — lieu semper fugaci 

Gaudia prteteritura passu ! 

IMITATION. 

The solemn breathing air is ended — 
Cease, oh Lyre ! thy kindred lay! 

From the poplar branch suspended. 
Glitter to the eye of day ! 

On thy wires, hov'ring, dying 

Softly sighs the summer wind : 
I will slumber, careless lying 

By yon waterfall reclined. 

In the forest hollow-roaring 

Hark ! I hear a deep'ning sound — 

Clouds rise thick with heavy lovv'ring! 
See ! th' horizon blackens round ! 

Parent of the soothing measure, 

Let me seize thy netted string! 
Swiftly flies the flatterer, pleasure, 

Headlong, ever on the wing ! 



DARWINIANA. 

THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. 

'^'^posed during illness and in absence.) 

uiM Hour ! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar. 
Oh, rise and yoke the turtles to thy car! 
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove, 
And give me to the bosom of my love ! 



My gentle love ! caressing and caress'd, 
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest; 
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes, 
Lull the fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs; 
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, 
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek. 
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May 
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day : 
Young day returning at the promised hour, 
Weeps o'er the sorrows of the fav'rite flower, — 
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs, 
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes. 
JVew life and joy th' expanding flovv'ret feels: 
His pitymg mistress mourns, and mourning heals ' 

1796. 

In my calmer moments I have the firmest faith that 
all things work together for good. But, alas! it seems 
a long and a dark process : — 

The early year's fast-flying vapors stray 
In shadowing train across the orb of day; 
And we poor insects of a few short hours. 
Deem it a world of gloom. 
Were it not better hope, a nobler doom. 
Proud to believe, that with more active powers 
On rapid many-colour'd wing. 
We thro' one bright perpetual spring 
Shall hover round the fruits and flowers, 
Screen'd by those clouds, and cherish'd by those 
showers! 1796 



COUNT RUMFORD'S ESSAYS. 

These, Virtue, are thy triumph, that adorn 
Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born 
For loftiest action ; — not to gaze and run 
From clime to clime ; or batten in the sun, 
Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower, 
Like summer insects in a gaudy hour ; 
Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range. 
And cry, ' 'T is pitiful, 'tis passing strange! ' 
But on life's varied views to look around. 
And raise expiring sorrow from the ground : — 
And he — who thus hath borne his part assign'd 
In the sad fellowship of human kind. 
Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain 
Of a poor brother — has not lived in vain. 

1796. 



EPIGRAMS 



ON A LATE MARRIAGE BETWEEN AN OLD MAID AND 
A FRENCH PETIT MAITRE. 



Tho' Miss • 



-'s match is a subject of mirth, 



She consider'd the matter full well. 
And wisely preferr'd leading one ape on earth 
To perhaps a whole dozen in hell. 1796. 

240 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



231 



ON AN AMOROUS DOCTOR. 

From Rufa's eye sly Cupid shot his dart. 
And left it sticking in Sengrado's heart. 
No quiet (i-oin that niomciit lias he iiiiovvn, 
And peaceful sleep has from his eyelids llovvn; 
And opium's force, and what is more, alack I 
His own oration's, cannot bring it back: 
In short unless she pities his alHictiuns, 
Despair will make him take his own prescriptions. 

1796. 



TO A PRIMROSE, 
(the first seen in the season.) 



nitens, et roboris cxpere 

Target et insolida est : ntspe deleclat.— ObW. 



Thy smiles I note, sweet early flower. 
That j)eeping forth thy rustic bower 
The festive news of earth dost bring, 
A fragrant messenger of spring ! 

But tender blossom, why so pale ? 
Dost hear stern winter in the gale ? 
And didst thou tempt th' ungentle sky 
To catch one vernal glance and die ? 

Such the wan lustre sickness wears. 
When health's first feeble beam appears ; 
So languid are the smiles that seek 
To settle on thy care-worn cheek ! 

When timorous hope the head uprears, 
Still drooping and still moist with tears, 
If, through dispersing grief, be seen 
Of bliss the heavenly spark serene. 

1796. 



EPIGRAM. 

Hoarse Msvius reads his hobbling verse 

To all, and at all times ; 
And finds them both divinely smooth, 

Ilis voice, as well as rhymes. 

Yet folks say — " Macvius is no ass :" — 
But Meevius makes it clear. 

That he 'a a monster of an ass, 
An ass without an ear. 

1797. 



INSCRIPTION BY THE REV. W. S. BOWLES. 
IN nether stowey church. 

L^TUS abi; mundi strepitu curisque remotus, 
Lstus abi ! coeli qua vocat alma quies. 

Ipsa Fides loquitur, lacrymanque incausat inamen, 
Quae cadit in restros, care pater, cineres. 

Heu I tantum liceat meritos hos soliere ritus 
Et longum tremula dicere voce, vale I 
2F 



TRANSLATION. 

Depart in joy from this world's noise and strife 
To the deep quiet of celestial life ! 
Depart! — Afltction's self reproves the tear 
Which falls, O honour'd Parent! on thy bier; — 
Yet Nature will be heard, the heart will swell, 
And the voice tremble with a last Farewell! 



INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE 
DARK LAD IE. 

The following poem is intended as the introduction 
to a somewhat longer one. The use of the old ballad 
word Ladie for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness 
in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, 
I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable anti- 
quity, as Camden says, will grant me their pardon, 
and perhaps may bo induced to admit a ibrce and 
propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced 
against the author, that in these times of fear and 
expeclation, when novelties explode around us in all 
directions, he should presume to offer to the public a 
silly tale of old-fiishioned love : and five years ago, 
I ow'n I should have allowed and felt the force of this 
objection. But alas ! explosion after explosion has suc- 
ceeded so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear 
new ; and it is possible that now, even a simple story 
w holly uninspired with politics or personality, may find 
some attention amid the hubbub of revolutions, as to 
those who have remained a long time by the falls of 
Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinctly 
audible. 



1799 



O LEAVE the Illy on its stem ; 

O leave the rose Ufion the spray; 
O leave the elder bloom, fair maids ! 

And listen to my lay. 

A cypress and a myrlle-bough 

This morn around my harp you twined. 
Because it fashion 'd mournfully 

Its murmurs in the wind. 

And now a tale of love and woe, 

A woful tale of love I sing; 
Hark, gentle maidens, hark : it sighs 

And trembles on the string. 

But most, my own dear Genevieve, 
It sighs and trembles most for thee ! 

O come and hear the cruel wrongs 
Befell the Dark Ladie ! 



EPILOGUE TO THE RASH CONJUROR. 

AN UNCOMPOSED POEM. 

We ask and urge — (here ends the story.) 

All Christian Papishes to pay 

That this unhapjiy conjuror may. 

Instead of Hell, be put in Purgatory, — 
For then there 's hope ; — 
Long live the Pope ! 1805. 

241 



232 



COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. 



PSYCHE. 

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made 
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name — 
But the soul escaped the slavish trade 
Of mortal life ! — For in this earthly frame 
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, 
Manifold motions making little speed, 
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed. 

1808. 



COMPLAINT. 

How seldom. Friend .' a good great man inherits 
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains! 
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits. 
If any man obtain that which he merits. 
Or any merit that which he obtains. 



REPROOF. 

For shame, dear Friend ! renounce this canting stram ! 
What would'st thou have a good man to obtain ? 
Place — titles — salary — a gilded chain — 
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain ? — 
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends ! 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends. 
The great good man ? — three treasures, love, and light, 
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; — 
And three firm friends more sure than day and night — 
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death. 

1809. 



AN ODE TO RAIN. 

COMPOSED BEFORE DAY-LIGHT, ON THE MORNING 
APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WOR- 
THY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHOM IT 
WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN. 

I KNOW it is dark ; and though I have lain 
Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, 
I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes, 
But lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. 

Rain ! that I lie listening to. 
You're but a doleful sound at best: 

1 owe you little thanks, 'tis true 

For breaking thus my needful rest. 
Yet if, as soon as it is light, 

Rain ! you will but take your flight, 

1 '11 neither rail, nor malice keep, 
Though sick and sore for want of sleep. 
But only now for this one day. 

Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! 

O Rain ! with your dull two-fold sound, 

The clash hard by, and the murmur all round! 

You know, if you know aught, that we, 

Both night and day, but ill agree : 

For days, and months, and almost years. 

Have limp'd on through this vale of tears, 



Since body of mine and rainy weather. 
Have lived on easy terms together 
Yet if as soon as it is light, 

Rain! you will but take your flight. 
Though you should come again to morrow, 
And bring with you both pain and sorrow ; 
Though stomach should sicken, and knees should 

swell — 

1 '11 nothing speak of you but well. 
But only for this one day. 

Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! 

Dear Rain ! I ne'er refuse to say 
You 're a good creature in your way. 
Nay, I could write a book myself. 
Would fit a parson's lower shelf, 
Showing how very good you are. — 
What then ? sometimes it must be fair. 
And if sometimes, why not to-day ? 
Do go, dear Rain ! do go away ! 

Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy, 

Take no offence ! I '11 tell you why. 

A dear old Friend e'en now is here. 

And with him came my sister dear; 

After long absence now first met. 

Long months by pain and grief beset 

With three dear Friends! in truth, we groan 

Impatiently to be alone. 

We three you mark ! and not one more! 

The strong wish makes my spirit sore. 

We have so much to talk about. 

So many sad things to let out ; 

So many tears in our eye-corners, 

Sitting like little Jaeky Homers — 

In short, as soon as it is day. 

Do go, dear Rain ! do go away. 

And this I '11 swear to you, dear Rain ! 

Whenever you shall come again. 

Be you as dull as e'er you could; 

(And by the bye 'tis understood. 

You 're not so pleasant, as you 're good ;) 

Yet, knowing well your worth and place, 

I'll welcome you with cheerful face; 

And though you stay a week or more. 

Were ten times duller than before ; 

Yet with kind heart, and right good will, 

I '11 sit and listen to you still ; 

Nor should you go away, dear Rain ! 

Uninvited to remain. 

But only now, for this one day. 

Do go, dear Rain ! do go away. 1809. 



TRANSLATION 

OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED's METRICAL PARAPHRASE 
OF THE GOSPELS. 

" This Paraphrase, written about the time of Char- 
lemagne, is by no means deficient in occasional pas- 
sages of considerable poetic merit. There is a flow, 
and a tender enthusiasm in the following lines (at the 
342 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



233 



conclusion of Chapter V.), which even in the trans- 
lation will not, I flatter myself, fail to interest the 
reader. Otifried is dcscribincr the circumstances im- 
mediately follow ing the birth of our Lord." — Biog. 
Lit. vol. i. p. 203. 

She gave with joy her virgin breast; 
She hid it not, she bared the breast, 
Which suckled that divincst babe ; 
Blessed, blessed were the breasts 
Which the Saviour infant kiss'd : 
And blessed, blessed was the mother 
Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes, 
Singing i)laced him on her lap. 
Hung o'er him with her looks of love, 
And soothed him with a lulling motion. 
Blessed ! for she shelter'd him 
From the damp and chilling air; — 
Blessed, blessed ! for she lay 
With such a babe in one blest bed. 
Close as babes and mothers lie I 
Blessed, blessed evermore, 
With her virgin lips she kiss'd, 
With her arms, and to her breast. 
She embraced the babe divine, 
Her babe divine the virgin mother! 
There lives not on this ring of earth 
A mortal that can sing her praise! 
Mighty mother, virgin pure. 
In the darkness and the night 
For us she bore the heavenly Lord. 
1810. 

" Most interesting is it to consider the effect, when 
the feelings are wrought alx)ve the natural pitch by 
the belief of something mysterious, while all the 
images are purely natural ; then it is that religion and 
poetry strike deepest." — Biog. Lit. vol. i. p. 204. 



ISRAEL'S LAMENT, 

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF 
WALES. 

[From the Hebrew of Hyman Huriuite.] 

Mourn, Israel! sons of Israel, mourn ! 

Give utterance to the inward throe, 
As wails of her first love forlorn 

The virgin clad in robes of woe ! 

Mourn the young mother snatch'd away 

From light and life's ascending sun ! 
Mourn for her babe, death's voiceless prey 

Earn'd by long pangs, and lost ere won ! 

Mourn the bright rose that bloom'd and went, 

Ere half disclosed its vernal hue ! 
Mourn the green bud, so rudely rent. 

It brake the stem on which it grew ! 



Mourn for the universal woo. 

With solemn dirge and falt'ring tongue, 
For England's Lady laid full low. 

So dear, so lovely, and so young. 

The blossoms on her tree of life 

Shone with the dews of recent bliss; — 

Translated in that deadly strife. 
She plucks its fruit in Paradise. 

Mourn for the prince, who rfise at mom 
To seek and bless the firstling bud 

Of his own rose, and found the thorn 
Its point bedew'd with tears of blood. 

Mourn f^>r Rriianriia's hopes decay'd; — 
Her daughters wail their deep defence, 

Their fair exnmple, prostrate laid. 
Chaste love, and fervid innocence ! 

O Thou! who mark'st the monarch's path, 
To sad Jeshurum's sons attend ! 

Amid the lightnings of thy wrath 
The showers of consolation send I 

Jehovah frowns' — The Islands bow, 
The prince and people kiss the rod! 

Their dread chast'ning judge wert thou — 
Be thou their comforter, oh God ! 

1817.' 

SENTIMENTAL. 

The rose that blushes like the morn 

Bedecks the valleys low ; 
And so dost thou, sweet infant corn. 

My Angelina's toe 

But on the rose there grows a thorn 
That breeds disastrous woe ; 

And so dost thou, remorseless corn, 
On Angelina's toe. 

1825. 



THE ALTERN.\TIVE. 
This way or that, ye Powers above me ! 

I of my grief were rid — 
Did Enna either really love me, 
Or cease to think she did. 

182G. 

INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE. 
Now ! It is gone. — Our brief hours travel post. 
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How 
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost, 
To dwell within thee — an eternal Now ! 

1830. 



EniTA<MON AYTOrPAnrON. 
Quae lingtiam, ant nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt 

mca ; — cosordcs 
Do Morti; — reddo cajtera, Christe! tibi. 



THE END OF COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS, 



243 



THE 



PROSE WORKS 



OF 



o^Mw^m w^ m^mmmwmm'm 



2d 243 



23iois;v«Dtu»i Hiitvavi^; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPINIONS. 



So vremg er auch beslimmt seyn maK iinilere zu belohren, so wiinacht er doch sich dcncn milzutheilcn, die er sich 
gleichgesinnt wciss odor hotft, dcrcn Anziihl aber in dcr Breile der W'olt zerslrcut ist: er wunscbt seiii Verballniss zu 
den altcstcn Freundeii wicder anzuknuplen, niit iiciit;n es furlzusdzen, und in der letzun Generation sich wiuder 
andere fur seine ubrige Leben-izeil zu guwinnuu. Er wunscbt dur Jusend die Uinwege zu ersparcn, auf denen ei 
Bich selbst verirrte. GOETHE. 

TRANSLATION.— Little call as he may have lo instruct others, he wishes nevertheless to open out his heart to 
such as he either knows or hopes to be of like mind with himself, but who are widely scattered in the world : he 
wishes to knit anew his Ccmnections with his oldest friends, to continue those recently formed, and to win other friends 
among the rising generation for the remaining course of his life. He wishes to spare the young those circuitous 
patJis, oD which be himself had lost his way. 



CHAPTER I. 

The motives of the present work — Reception of the Author's 
tirst publication — The discipline of his taste at school — The 
elTect of contemporary writers on youthful minds— Bowles's 
sonnets— Comparison between the Poets before and since 
Mr. Pope. 

It has been my lot to have had my name intro- 
duced, both in conversation and in print, more f're- 
queiMly than I find it easy to explain, whether I 
consider the fewmess, unimportance, and limited cir- 
culation of my writings, or the retirement atid dis- 
tance in which I have lived, both from the literary 
and political world. Most often it has been connect- 
ed with some charge which I could not acknowledge, 
or some principle which I had never entertained. 
Nevertheless, had I had no other motive, or incite- 
ment, the reader would not have been troubled with 
this exculpation. What my additional purposes were, 
will be seen in the following pages. It wdl he 
found, that the least of what I have written concerns 
myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly 
for the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, 
in part fijr the sake of the miscellaneous reflections 
suggested to me by particular events, but still more 
as introductory to the statement of my principles in 
politics, religion, and philosophy, and the application 
of the rules, deduced from philosophical principles, 
to poetry and criticism. But of the objects which 1 
proposed to myself, it was not the least important to 
effect, as far as possible, a settlement of the long 
continued controversy concertiing the true nature of 
poetic diction : and, at the same time, to define with 
the utmost impartiality, the real poetir character of 
the poet, by whose writings this controversy was 
first kindled, and has been since fuelled and fanned. 
In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of 
manhood, I published a small volume of juvenile 
poems. They were received with a degree of Ibvor 
W 



which, young as I was, I well knew was bestowed 
on them not so much for any positive merit, as be- 
cause they were considered buds of hope, and pro- 
mises of better works to come. The critics of that 
day, the most flattering, equally with the severest, 
concurred in objecting to them, obscurity, a general 
turgidness of diction, and a profusion of new-coined 
double epithets* The first is the fault which a 
writer is the least able to detect in his own com- 
jxjsitions; and my mind was not then sufficiently 
disciplined to receive the authority of others, as a 
subsiitute for my own conviction. Satisfied that the 
thoughts, such as they were, could not have been 
expressed otherwise, or at least more perspicuously, 
I forgot to inquire, whether the thoughts themselves 
did not demand a degree of attention unsuitable to 
the nature and objects of poetry. This remark, 
however, applies chiefly, though not exclusively, to 



* The aiitheriiy of Milton and Phakspeare may be useful- 
ly pointed out to young authors. In the Comus, and earlier 
poems of Milton, there is a superfluity of double epithets; 
whil(Mn the Piiriidise Lost we find very few, and in the Para- 
dise Regained, scarce any. The same remark holds almost 
( (lually true of the Love's Labor Lost, Romeo and Juliet, 
Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece, compared with the Lear, 
Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet of our great dramatist. The 
rule for the admission of double epithets seems to be this: 
either that they should be already denizens of our language, 
such as blood stained, terror-stricken, self-applauding ; or 
when a new epithet, or one found in books only, is hazarded, 
thiit it, at least, be one word, not two words made one by 
mere virtue of the printer's hyphen. A language which, like 
the Rnclish, is almost without cases, is indeed in its very 
genius unfilted for compounds. If a writer, every time a com- 
pounded word suggests itself to him, would seek for some 
other mode of expressing the same sense, the chances are 
always greatly in favor of his finding a heller >vord. '" Tan 
quam scopulum sic viles insolens verbum," is the wise ad 
vice of I'a'sar lo the Roman oralors, and the precept applies 
with double force to the writers in our own language. But 
it must not be forgotten, that the same Ca>sar wrote a gram- 
matical treatise for Ihe purpose of reforming the ordinary 
language, by bringing it to a greater accordance with th« 
principles of logio or uoivertal grammar. 

245 



236 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tlie Religious Musings. The remainder of the charge | 
I admitted to its full extent, and not without sincere | 
acknowledgments to both my private and public i 
censors for their friendly admonitions. In the after j 
editions, I pruned the double epithets with no sparing 
hand, and used my best efforts to tame the swell and 
glitter, both of thought and diction ; though, in truth, 
these parasite plants of youthful poetry had insinuat- 
ed themselves into my longer poems with such intri- 
cacy of union, that I was obliged to omit disentang- 
ling the weed, from the fear of snapping the flower. 
From that period to the date of the present work, I 
have published nothing, with my name, which could, 
by any possibility, have come before the board of 
anonymous criticism. Even the three or four poems, 
printed with the works of a friend, as far as they 
were censured at all, were charged with the same or 
similar defects, though, I am persuaded, not with 
equal justice : with an excess of oRxNament, in 
addition to strained and elaborate diction. 
{Vide the criticism on the "Ancient Mariner," in 
the Monthly and Critical Reviewers of the first volume 
of the Lyrical Ballads.) May I be permitted to add, 
that, even at the early period of my juvenile poems, 
I saw and admitted the superiority of an austerer, 
and more natural style, with an insight not less clear 
than I at present possess. My judgment was stronger 
than were ray powers of realizing its dictates ; and 
the faults of my language, though indeed partly 
owing to a wrong choice of subjects, and the desire 
of giving a poetic coloring to abstract and meta- 
physical truths, in which a new world then seemed 
to open upon me, did yet, in part likewise, originate 
in unfeigned diffidence of my own comparative 
talent. During several years of my youth and early 
manhood, I reverenced those who had re-introduced 
the manly simplicity of the Grecian, and of our own 
elder poets, with such enthusiasm, as made the hope 
seem presumptuous of writing successfully in the 
same style. Perhaps a similar process has happened 
to others ; but my earliest poems were marked by an 
ease and simplicity which I have studied, perhaps 
with inferior success, to impress on my later com- 
positions. 

At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of 
very sensible, though at the same time, a very 
severe master. He* early moulded my taste to the 
preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and 
Theocritus to Virgil, and again Virgil to Ovid. He 
habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such ex- 
tracts as I then read,) Terence, and, above all, the 
chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman 
poets of the, so called, silver and brazen ages, but 
with even those of the Augustan era ; and on 
grounds of plain sense and universal logic, to see 
and assert the superiority of the former, in the truth 
and nativeness, both of their thoughts and diction. 
At the same time that we were studying the Greek 
tragic poets, he made us read Shakspeare and Millon 
as lessons : and they were lessons, too, which re- 



* The Rev. James Bowyer, many years Head Master of 
tbe Grammar school, Christ Hospital. 



quired most time and trouble to bring up, so as to 
escape his censure. I learnt from him that poetry, 
even that of the loftiest, and, seemingly, that of the 
wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that 
of science ; and more difficult, because more subtle, 
more complex, and dependent on more, and more 
fugitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would 
say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every 
word, but for the position of every word ; and I well 
remember, that, availing himself of the synonymes 
to the Homer of Didymus, he made us attempt to 
show, with regard to each, iDhy it would not have 
answered the same purpose ; and wherein consisted 
the peculiar fitness of the word in the original text. 

In our own English compositions, (at least for the 
last three years of our school education,) he showed 
no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported 
by a sound sense, or where the same sense might 
have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in 
plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre ; muse, muses, 
and inspirations ; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene, 
were all an abomination to him. In fancy, I can 
almost hear him now, exclaiming, " Harp ? Harp? 
Lyre ? Pen and ink, boy, you mean ! Muse, boy. 
Muse ? Your Nurse's daughter, you mean ! Pierian 
spring ? Oh, ay ! the cloister-pump, I suppose .'" 
Nay, certain introductions, similes, and examples, 
were placed by name on a list of interdictioik 
Among the similes, there was, I remember, that of 
the Manchineel fruit, as suiting equally well with 
too many subjects ; in w hich, however, it yielded the 
palm at once to the example of Alexander and Cly- 
tus, which was equally good and apt, whatever 
might be the theme. Was it Ambition ? Alexander 
and Clytus! Flattery? Alexander and Clytus! 
Anger? Drunkenness? Pride? Friendship? In- 
gratitude? Late repentance ? Still, still Alexander 
and Clytus ! At length, the praises of agriculture 
having been exemplified in the sagacious observa- 
tion, that, had Alexander been holding the plough, 
he would not have run his friend Clytus through 
with a spear, this tried and serviceable old friend 
was banished by public edict in secula seculorum. 
I have sometimes ventured to think, that a list of 
this kind, or an index expurgatorius of certain well- 
known and ever-returning phrases, both introductory 
and transitional, including the large assortment of 
modest egotisms, and flattering illeisms, &c. &c. 
might be hung up in our law-courts, and both houses 
of parliament, with great advantage to the public, 
as an important saving of national time, an incal- 
culable relief to his Majesty's ministers, but, above 
all, as ensuring the thanks of the country attorneys 
and their clients, who have private bills to carry 
through the house. 

Be this as it may, there was one custom of our 
master which I cannot pass over in silence, because 
I think it imitable and worthy of imitation. H 
would often permit our theme exercises, under som^ 
pretext of want of time, to accumulate, till each lad 
had four or five to be looked over. Then placing the 
whole number abreast on his desk, he would ask the 
writer, why this or that sentence might not have 
246 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



237 



found as appropriatca place under ibis or that thesis : 
and if no satisfying answer could bo returned, and 
two faults of the same kind were found in one ex- 
ercise, the irrevocable verdict followed ; the exercise 
was torn up, and another on the same subject to be 
produced in addition to the tasks of the day. The 
reader will, I trust, excuse this tribute of recollection 
tp a man. whose severities, even now, not .seldom 
furnish the dreams, by which the blind fancy would 
fain interpret to the mind the painful sensations of 
distempered sleep, but neither lessen nor dim the 
deep sense of my moral and intellectual ohlitralions. 
He sent us to the Universiiy excellent Latin and 
Greek scholars, and tolerable Hebraists. Yet our 
classical knowledge was the least of the good gifts 
which we derived from his zealous and conscientious 
tutorage. He is now gone to his linal reward, full of 
years, and full of honors, even oftho.se honors which 
were dearest to his heart, as gratefully bestowed by 
that school, and still binding him to the interests of 
that school, in which he had been himself educated, 
and to which, during his whole life, he was a dedi- 
cated thing. 

From causes, which this is not the place to investi- 
gate, no models of past times, however perfect, can 
have the same vivid effect on the youthful mind, as 
the productions of contemporary genius. The dis- 
cipline ray mind had undergone, " Ne falleretur ro- 
tundo sono et versuum cursu, cincinnis et floribus ; 
Bed ut inspiceret quidnam subesset, qua; sedes, quod 
firmaraentum, quis fundus verbis; an figurae essent 
raera omatura et orationis fucus: vel sanguinis e 
materia! ipsius corde efflnentos rubor quidam nativus 
et incalescentia genuina ;" removed all obstacles to 
the appreciation of excellence in style without di- 
minishing my delight. That I was thus prepared 
for the perusal of Mr. Bowles's sonnets and earlier 
poems, at once increased their influence and my en- 
thusiasm. The great works of past ages seem, to a 
young man, things of another race, in respect to 
which his faculties must remain passive and submiss, 
even as to the stars and mountains. But the writings 
of a contemporary, perhaps not many years elder 
than himself, surrounded by the same circumstances, 
and disciplined by the same manners, possess a realili/ 
for him, and inspire an actual friendship as of a man 
for a man. His very admiration is the wind which 
fans and feeds his hope. The poems themselves as- 
sume the properties of flesh and blood. To recite, to 
extol, to contend fur them, is but the payment of a 
debt due to one who exists to receive it. 

There are indeed modes of teaching which have 
produced, and are producing, youths of a very differ- 
ent stamp; modes of teaching, in comparison with 
which we have been called on to despise our great 
public schools and universities, 

" In whose hnlls are hung 
ArmoFy of the invincible knights of old" 

modes by which children are to be metamorphosed 
into prodigies. And prodigies, with a vengeance, 
have I known thus produced ! Prodigies of selfcon- 
ceit, shallowness, arrogance and infidelity ! Instead 



of storing the memory, during the period when the 
j memory is the preilominant liicully, with fact.s for 
the after exercise of the judgment; and instead of 
awakening, by the noblest models, the firnd and un- 
j mixed i.ovk and admiration, which is the natural 
land graceful temper of early youth : l/iene nurslings 
of improved pedagogy arc taught to dispute and de- 
cide; to suspect nil but their own and their lecturer's 
wisdom, and to hold nothing sacred from their con 
tempt but their own contemptible arrogance ; boy 
graduates in all the technicals, and in all the dirty 
passions of anonymous criticism. To such dis|X)sition8 
alone can the admonition of Pliny be requisite — 
" IVeque enim debet operibus ejus obesse. quod vivit. 
An si inter eos, quos nunquam vidimus, lloruisset, 
non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines con- 
quireremus, ejusdem nunc honor prxsentis, et gratia 
quasi salietate languescet ? At hoc pravum, malig- 
numque est, non admirari hominem admiratione 
dignissimum, quia videro, complecti, hec laudare 
tantum, verum etiam aniare contingit." Plm. Epist. 
Lib. I. 

I had just entered on my seventeenth year, when 
the sonnets of Mr. Bowles, twenty in number, and 
just then published in a quarto pamphlet, were first 
made known and presented to me by a school-fellow, 
who had quitted us for the university, and who, 
during the whole time that he was in our first form, 
(or, in our school language, a Grecian,) had been my 
patron and protector. I refer to Dr. Middleton, the 
truly learned, and every way excellent Bishop of 
Calcutta : 

" Qui laudibus amplis 
Ingpnium celebrare meum, ealiinmniquc solebat, 
Calcar agens animo validum. Non omnia terrae 
Obruta 1 Vivit amor, vivit dolor ! Ora negatur 
Dulcia conspicere ; et flere nieminisse* reliclum cet. 

Pctr. Ep. Lib. I. Ep. I. 

It was a double pleasure to me, and still remains 
a tender recollection, that I should have received 
from a friend so revered, the first knowledge of a 
poet, by whose works, year after year, I was so en- 
thusiastically delighted and inspired. My earliest 
acquaintances will not have forgotten the undis- 
ciplined eagerness and impetuous zeal with which I 
labored to make proselytes, not only of my compan- 
ions, but of all with whom I conversed, of whatever 
rank, and in whatever place. As my school finances 
did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within 
less than a year and a half, more than forty transcrip- 
tions, as the best presents I could offer to those who 
had in any way won my regard. And with almost 
equal delight did I receive the three or four follow 
ing publications of the same author. 

Though I have seen and known enough of man- 
kind to be well aware that I shall perhaps stand 
alone in my creed, and that it will be well if I sub- 
ject myself to no worse charge than that of singular- 

* I am most happy to have the necessity of informing the 
reader, that sintc; this possane was written, the roi)ort of Dr. 
Aliddleton's death, on his voyage to India, has been proved 
crrunoous. He lives, and long may lie live; fur I dtire pro- 
phesy, that Willi his life only will his exertions for the tempo- 
ral and spiritual welfare of his fellow-men be limited. 
247 



238 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ity, I am not therefore deterred from avowing, that I 
regard, and ever have regarded the obligations of 
intellect, among the most sacred of the claims of 
gratitude. A valuable thought, or a particular train 
of thoughts, gives me additional pleasure, when I 
can safely refer and attribute it to the conversation 
or correspondence of another. My obligations to 
Mr. Bowles were mdeed important, and for radical 
good. At a very premature age, even before my 
fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in metaphys- 
ics, and in theological controversy. Nothing else 
pleased me. History, and particular facts lost all 
interest in my mind. Poetry, (though for a school-boy 
of that age, I was above par in English versification, 
and had already produced two or three compositions 
which, I may venture to say, without reference to 
my age, were somevihat above mediocrity, and which 
had gained me more credit than the sound good sense 
of my old master was at all pleased with,) poetry. 
Itself, yea novels and romances, became insipid to 
me. In my friendless wanderings on our leave days * 
(for I was an orphan, and had scarce any connexions 
in London,) highly was I delighted if any passenger, 
especially if he were drest in black, would enter into 
conversation with me. For I soon found the means 
of directing it to my favorite subjects 

or providence, fore-lsnovvledse, will, and fate, 
Fix'd fate, free will, fore-knowledge absolute, 
And found no end in « andering mazes lost. 
This preposterous pursuit was, beyond a doubt, in- 
jurious, both to my natural powers, and to the pro- 
gress of my education. It would perhaps have been 
destructive, had it been continued ; but from this I 
was auspiciously withdrawn, partly indeed by an 
accidental introduction to an amiable family, chiefly, 
however, by the genial influence of a style of poetiy 
so tender, and yet so manlj', so natural and real, and 
yet so dignified and harmonious, as the sonnets, &c. 
of Mr. Bowles ! Well were it for me, perhaps, had 
I never relapsed into the same mental disease ; if I 
had continued to pluck the flower and reap the har- 
vest from the cultivated surface, instead of delving 
in the imwholesome quicksilver mines of metaphysic 
depths- But if, in after time, I have sought a refuge 
from bodily pain and mismanaged sensibility, in ab- 
struse researches, which exercised the strength and 
subtlety of the understanding without awakening 
the feelings of the heart; still there was a long and 
blessed interval, during which my natural faculties 
were allowed to expand, and my original tendencies 
to develop themselves; my fancy, and the love of 
nature, and the sense of beauty in forms and soimds. 
The second advantage, which I owe to m)' early 
perusal and admiration of these poems, (to which let 
me add, though known to me at a somewhat later 
period, the Lewsdon Ilill of Mr. Crow.) bears more 
immediately on my present subject. Among those 
with whom I conversed, there w-ere, of course, very 
many who had formed their taste, and their notions 
of poetry, from the writings of Mr. Pope and his 



* riie Christ Hospii:il phrase, not for holidays allogelher. 
but for those on which ihe boys are permitted to go beyond 
the precincts of the school. 



followers ; or, to speak more generally, in that school 
of French poetry, condensed and invigorated by 
English understanding, which had predominated 
from the last century. I was not blind to the merits 
of this school, yet, as from inexperience of the world, 
and consequent want of sympathy with the general 
subjects of these poems, they gave me little pleasure, 
I doubtless undervalued the Jiind, and with the pre- 
sumption of youth, withheld from its masters the 
legitimate name of poets. I saw that the excellence 
of this kind consisted in just and acute observations 
on men and manners in an artificial state of society, 
as its matter and substance ; and in the logic of wit, 
conveyed in smooth and strong epigrammatic coup- 
lets, as its /or»z. Even when the subject was ad- 
dressed to the fancy, or the intellect, as in the Rape 
of the Lock, or the Essay on Man ; nay, when it was 
a consecutive narration, as in that astonishing product 
of matchless talent and ingenuity. Pope's translation 
of the Iliad ; still, a point was looked for at the end 
of each second line, and the whole was as it were a 
sorites, or, if I may exchange a logical for a gram- 
matical metaphor, a conjunction disjunctive of epi- 
grams. Meantime the matter and diction seemed to 
me characterised not so much by poetic thoughts, as 
by thoughts translated into the language of poetry. 
On this last point, I had occasion to render my own 
thoughts gradually more and more plain to myself, 
by frequent amicable disputes concerning Darwin's 
Botanic Garden, which, for some years, was great- 
ly extolled, not only by the reading public in general, 
but even by those whose genius and natural robust- 
ness of understanding enabled them afterwards to 
act foremost in dissipating these "painted mists " that 
occasionally rise from the marshes at the foot of Par- 
nassus. During my first Cambridge vacation, I as- 
sisted a friend in a contribution for a literary society 
in Devonshire ; and in this I remember to have com- 
pared Darwin's work to the Russian palace of ice, 
glittering, cold and transitory. In the same essay, 
too, I assigned sundry rea.sons, chiefly drawn from a 
comparison of passages in the Latin poets with the 
original Greek, from which they were borrowed, for 
the preference of Collins's odes to those of Gray ; 
and of the simile in Shakspeare : 

" How like a younker or a prodigal. 
The sharfed bark puis from her native bay 
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! 
How like a prodigal doth she return. 
With over- weaiher'd ribs and ragged sails. 
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind 1" 
to the imitation in the bard : 

" Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows. 

While proudly riding o"er the azure realm. 

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, 

Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm, 

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway. 

That, hush'd in grim repose, e.xpects its evening prey." 

(In which, by-the-by, the words " realm" and " sway" 
are rhymes dearly purchased.) I preferred the ori- 
ginal, on the ground that in the imitation it depended 
wholly in the compositor's putting, or not putting, a 
small capital, both in this and many other passages 
of the same poet, whether the words should be per- 
248 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



239 



sonifications, or mere abstracts. I mention tliis be- 
cause, in referring various lines in (iray to their 
original in Sliakspeare ami Milion, and in the clear 
j>crce|)tion liow completely all the propriety was lost 
in the transler; I was, at that early period, led to a 
conjecture, which many years afterwards, was re- 
called to me from the same thought having been 
started in conversation, but far more ably, and de- 
veloped more fully, by Mr. Wordsworth; namely, 
that this style of }K)etry, which I have characterised 
alxjve, as translations of prose thoughts into poetic 
language, had been kept up by, if it did nol wholly 
arise from, the custom of writing Latin verses, and 
the great iin|K)riance attached to these exercises in 
our public schools. Whatever might have been tlic 
case in the fd"ieenth century, when the use of the 
Latin tongue was so general among learned men 
that Erasmus is said to have forgotten his native lan- 
guage ; yet, in the present day, it is not to be sup- 
[wsed that a youth can l/iiiik in Latin, or that he can 
have any other reliance on the force or fitness of his 
phra.ses, but the authority of the author from whence 
he has adopted them. Consequently, he must first 
prepare his thoughts, and then pick out, from Virgil, 
Elorace, Ovid, or perhaps more compendiously from 
his Gradiis,* halves and quarters of lines in which 
to embody them. 

I never object to a certain degree of disputatious- 
ne.ss in a young man from the age of seventeen to 
that of four or five-and-twenty, provided I find him 
always arguing on one side of the question. The 
controversies occasioned by my unfeigned zeal for 
the honor of a favorite contemporary, then known 
to me only by his works, were of great advantage 
in the formation and establishment of my taste and 
critical opinions. In my defence of the lines run- 
ning into each other, instead of closing at each 
couplet ; and of natural language, neither bookish 
nor vulgar, neither redolent of the lamp or of the 
kennel, such as I will remember thee ; instead of the 
same thought, tricked up in the rag-fair finery of 

Thy imaRe on her wing. 

Before my Fana/'s eye Bhrill Memory bring, 

I had continually to adduce the metre and diction of 
the Greek poets, from Homer to Theocritus, inclusive ; 
and still more of our elder English poets, from Chau- 
cer to Milton. Nor was this all. But as it was my 
constant reply to authorities brought against me from 
later poets of great name, that no authority could 
avail in opposition to Tkl'tii, IVaturp:, Logic, and 
Laws of Universai. Gka.mmar ; actuated, too, by 
my former passion for metaphysical investigations, I 
labored at a solid foundation on which, permanently, 
t*} ground my opinions in the component faculties of 



* In the Nulricia of PoUiian, there occurs this line 
" Pura cuioratns interslrcpit unda laiiillos." 
Casting my eye on a University prize poem, I met this line: 
" Lactea purpureos inlcrslrc|iil unda lapiilnR." 
Now look out in the firadus for Piiriis, and you find, as the 
first synonyrne lacteus ; lor cnloratus, and the first synonynie. 
is purpureas. 1 mention this by way of elucidalint' one of 
Uie most ordinary prncesses in the ferruminalion of these 
ccntuB. 

17 W2 



the human mind itself, and their comparative dignity 
and ini|M)rtaiice. According to the faculty, or source, 
from which the pleasure given by any poem or pas- 
sage was derived, I estimated the merit of such poem 
or passage. As the result of all my reading and 
meditation, I abstracted two critical ajjhorisnis, deem- 
ing them to comprise the conditions and criteria of 
poetic style ; first, that not the poem which we have 
rend, but that to which we return, with the greatest 
])leasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims 
the name of eKxeiilial poetry. Second, that whatever 
lines can be translated into other words of the same 
language without diminution of their sigiiificancc, 
either in sense or association, or in any wortliy feel- 
ing, are so far vicious in their diction. l!c it, how- 
ever, observed, that I excluded from the list of 
worthy feelings, the pleasure derived fn;m mere 
novelty, in the reader, and the desire of exciting 
wonderment at his j^wers in the author. Oftentimes 
since then, in perusing French tragedies, I have fan- 
cied two marks of admiration at the end of each line, 
as hieroglyphics of the author's own admiration at 
his own cleverness. Our genuine admiration of a 
great poet is a contintious under-current of feeling: 
it is every where present, but seldom any where as 
a separate excitement. I was wont boldly to affirm, 
that it would be scarcely more difficult to push a 
stone from the pyramids with the bare hand, than to 
alter a word, or the position of a word, in Milton ot 
Shakspeare, (in their most important works at least,) 
without making the author say something else, or 
something worse than he does say. One great dis 
tinction I appeared to myself to see plainly, between 
even the characteristic faults of our elder poets, and 
the false beauty of the moderns. In the former, 
from DowE to Cowley, we find the most fantastic 
out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and 
genuine mother English; in the latter, the most ob- 
vious thoughts in language the most fimtastic and 
arbitrary. Our faulty elder poets sacrificed the pas- 
sion, and passionate flow ol" poetry, to the subtleties 
of intellect, and to the starts of wit ; the moderns to 
the glare and glitter of a perpetual, yet broken and 
heterogeneous imagery, or rather to an amphibious 
something, made up half of image, and half of ab- 
stract * meaning. The one sacrificed the heart to 
the head, the other both heart and head to point and 
drapery. 

The reader must make himself acquainted with 
the general style of composition that was at that 
time deemed poetry, in order to understand and ac- 
coimt for the effect produced on me by the So.nnets, 
the Monody at Matlock, and the Hope, of Mr. 
Bowles ; for it is peculiar to original genius to become 
less and less striking, in proportion to its success in 
improving the taste and judgment of its contempo- 
raries. The poems of West, indeed, had the merit 
of chaste and manly diction, but they were cold, and, 

t I remember u ludicrous instance in the poem of a young 
tradesman 

" No more will I endure love's pleasing pain. 
Or round my hearCs leg tie his galling chain." 

249 



240 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



if 1 may so express it, only dead-colored ; while in 
the best of Warton's there is a stiffness, which too 
often gives them the appearance of imitations from 
the Greek. Whatever relation, therefore, of cause 
or impulse, Percy's collection of Ballads may bear 
to the most popular poems of the present day ; yet, 
in the more sustained and elevated style of the then 
living poets, Bowles and Covvper* were, to the best 
of my knowledge, the first who combined natural 
thoughts with natural diction; the first who recon- 
ciled the heart with the head. 

It is true, as I have before mentioned, that from 
diffidence in my own powers, I for a short time 
adopted a laborious and florid diction, which I my- 
self deemed, if not absolutely vicious, yet of very 
inferior worth. Gradually, however, my practice 
conformed to my better judgment; and the com- 
positions of my twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth years, 
(ex. gr. the shorter blank verse poems, the lines 
which are now adopted in the introductory part of 
the Visiox, in the present collection in Mr. Southey's 
Joan of Arc, 2d book, 1st edition, and the Tragedy 
of Rejiorse,) are not more below my present ideal 
in respect of the general tissue of the style, than 
those of the latest date. Their faults were, at least, 
a remnant of the former leaven, and among the 
many who have done me the honor of putting my 
poems in the same clai-s with those of my betters, 
the one or two who have pretended to bring exam- 
ples of affected simplicity from my volume, have 
been able to adduce but one instance, and that out 
of a copy of verses half ludicrous, half splenetic, 
which I intended, and had myself characterized, as 
sermoni propriora. 

Every reform, however necessary, will by weak 
minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need 
reforming. The reader will excuse me for noticing, 
that I myself was the first to expose risu honesto the 
three sins of poetry, one or the other of which is the 
most likely to beset a young writer. So long ago as 
the publication of the second number of the Monthly 
Magazine, under the name of Nehemiah Higgen- 
BOTTOM, I contributed three sonnets, the first of which 
had for its object to excite a good-natured laugh, at 
the spirit of doleful egotism, and at the recurrence of 
favorite phrases, with the double defect of being at 
once trite and licentious. The second, on low, creep- 
ing language and thoughts, under the pretence of 
simpliciUj. And the third, the phrases of which were 
borrowed entirely from my own poems, on the indis- 
criminate use of elaborate and swelling language 



*Covvper'3Task wns published some time before the son- 
nets of Mr. Bowles, but I was not familiar with it till many 
years afterwards. The vp.in of satire which runs through 
that excellent poem, together with the sombre hue of its reli- 
gious opinions, would probably, at that time, have prevented 
its laying any strong hold on my affections. The love of na- 
ture seems to have led Thomson to a cheerful religion; and 
a gloomy religion to have ied Cowper to a love of nature. 
The one wnnhl cirry his fellow-men along with him into na- 
lUie; the oilier flies to nature from his fellow-men. In chas- 
tity of diction, however, and the harmony of blank verse, 
Cowper leaves Tliomson unmeasurably below him ; yet still 
I feel the latter to have been the burn poet. 



and imagery. The reader will find them in the notet 
below, and will, I trust, regard them as reprinted for 
biographical purposes, and not for their poetic merits. 
So general at that time, and so decided was the opin- 
ion concerning the characteristic vices of my style, 
that a celebrated physician, (now, alas! no more,) 
speaking of me, in other respects, with his usual kind- 
ness, to a gentleman who was about to meet me at a 
dinner party, could not, however resist giving him a 
hint not to mention the " House that Jack built " in 



t SONNET I. 
Pensive at eve, on the hard world I mused, 
And my poor heart was sad ; so at the Moon 
I gazeil, and si^'lad, and sighed ; for ah, how soon 
Eve saddens in'o night 1 m'jie eyes perused 
With tearful vacancy the dampy grass 
That wept and glittcr'd in the paly ray; 
And I did pause me on my lonely way. 
And mused me un the wretched ones that pass 
O'er the bleak heath of sorrow. But alas! 
Rlost of myself I thought '. when it befel. 
That the soothe spirit of the breezy wood 
Breathed in mine ear: " All this is very well, 
But much of one thing is for no thing good." 
Oh my poor heart' s inexplicable swell! 

SONNET II. 
Oh I do love thee, meek Simplicity ! 
For of thy lays the lulling simpleness 
Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress. 
Distress tho' small, yet haply gr'-at to me; 
'Tis true, on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad 
T amble on ; and yet I know not why 
.So snd I am ! but should a friend and I 
Frown, pout and part, then I am very sad. 
And then with snnnets and with sympathy 
My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall ; 
Now of my false friend 'plaining plaintively. 
Now raving at mankind in general ; 
But whether sad or fierce, 't is simple all, 
All very simple, meek Simplicity ! 

SONNET III. 

And this reft house is that, the which he built. 

Lamented Jack 1 and here his malt he piled. 

Cautious in vain ! these rats, that squeak so wild. 

Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt. 

Did he not see her gleaming through the glade 1 

Belike 't was she, the maiden all forlorn. 

What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn. 

Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd ; 

And aye, beside her stalks her amorous knight ! 

Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn. 

And through those brogues, still taiter'd and betorn 

His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white. 

Ah ! thus through broken clouds nt night's high noon. 

Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest moon ! 

The following anecdote will not be wholly out of place 
here, and may, perhaps, amuse the reader. An amateur per- 
former in verso expressed to a common friend, a strong desire 
to be introduced to me, but hesitated in accepting my friend's 
immediate offer, on the score that " he was, he must acknow- 
ledge, the author of a confounded severe epigram on my 
.Ancient Mariner, which had given me great pain." I as- 
sured my friend that if the epigram was a good one, it would 
only increase my desire to become acquainted with the author, 
and begged to hear it recited : whe'n, to my no less surprise 
than amusement, it proved to be one which I had myself some 
time before written, and inserted in the Morning Post. 

To the .Author of the ..Incient Mariner. 
Vour poem must eternal be, 
Dear sir, it cannot fail. 
For 'tis incomprehensible. 
And without head or tail. 

250 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



341 



my presence, for " that I was ns sore an a bile about 
that sirtinet ;" he not knowing that I was, niysolf, the 
author of it. 



CIIAPTKR II. 

Siippospcl irritnbility or nion of genius— Sroi:iil)t to tho led 
of fuels— Causes and occasions of (ho churgo— (ts iiijustice. 

I HAVE often thought that it would be neilfier un- 
instruclive nor uiiamusing to analyze and bring for- 
ward into distinct consciousness, that complex fcel- 
insr, with which readers in general take part acrain.st 
the author, in favor of the critic; and iho readiness 
with which they apply to all pnei.« the old sarcasm 
of Horace upon the scribblers of his time, " Genus 
irritabile vatuni." A debility and dimness of the 
imaginative power, and a consequent necessity of re- 
liance on the immediate impressions of the senses, do, 
we well know, render the mind liable to superstition 
and fanaticism. Having a deficient portion of inter- 
nal and proper warmth, minds of this class seek in 
the crowd circum funa for a warmth in common, 
which they do not pwsscss singly. Cold and phleg- 
matic in their own nature, like tiamp hay, they heat 
and inflame by coaccrvation ; or, like bees, they be- 
come restless and irritable througli the increased 
temperature of collected multitudes. Hence the 
German word for fanaticism (such, at least, was ite 
original import,) is derived from the swarming of 
bees, namely, Schwarmen, Schwarmery. The pas- 
sion being in an inverse proportion to the iasight, 
that the more vivid as tliis the less distinct, anger is 
the inevitable consequence. The absence of all 
foundation within their own minds for that which 
they yet believe both true and indispensable for their 
eafety and happiness, cannot but produce an uneasy 
state of feeling, an involuntary sense of fear, from 
which nature has no means of rescuing herself but 
by anger. Experience informs us, that the first de- 
fence of weak minds is to recriminate. 

"There's no philosopher but sees. 
That rage and fear are one disease ; 
Though that may burn, and this may freeze, 
They 're both alike the ague." 

Mad Ox. 

But where the ideas are vivid, and there exists an 
endless power of combining and modifying them, the 
feelings and affections blend more easily and inti- 
mately with these ideal creations, than with the ob- 
jects of the senses ; the mind is affected by thoughts, 
rather than by things; and only then feels the requi- 
eite interest, even for the most important events and 
accidents, when by means of meditation thoy have 
passed into thoughts. The sanity of the mind is be- 
tween superstition with fanaticism on the one hand, 
and enthusiasm with indifTerence and a diseased slow- 
ness to action on the other. For the conceptions of 
the mind may be so vivid and adonuato as to preclude 
that impulse to the realizing of ihcm, which is 
strongest and most restless in those who possess more 
than the mere talent, (or the faculty of appropriating 
and applying the knowledge of others,) yet still want 
33 



something of the creative and self-sufficing power of 
absolute geniuss. For this reason, therefore, they are 
men of commanding genius. While the former rest 
content between thought and reality, as it were in 
an intcrmundium, of which their own living spirit 
supplies the substance, anA their imagination the ever 
varying/orm ; the latter must impress their precon- 
ceptions on the world without, in order to present 
them back to their own view with the satisfying de- 
gree of clearness, distinctness, and individuality. 
These, in tranquil times, are li)rincd to exhibit a per- 
fect poem in palace, or temple, or landscape-garden; 
or a tale of romance in canals that join sea with sea, 
or in walls of rock, which, shouldering back the bil- 
lows, imitate the power, and supply the benevolence 
of nature to sheltered navies; or in aqueducts, that, 
arching the wide vale from mountain to mountain, 
give a Palmyra to the desert. But, alas! in times 
of tumult, they are the men destined to come forth 
as the shaping spirit of Ruin, to destroy the wisdom 
of ages, in order to sub.siitute the fancies of a day, 
and to change kings and kingdoms, as the wind shifts 
and shapes the clouds.* The records of biography 
seem to confirm this theory. The men of the great- 
est genius, as far as we can judge from their own 
v>orks, or from the accounts of their contemporaries, 
appear to have been of calm and tranquil temper in 
all that related to themselves. In the inward assu- 
rance of permanent fame, they seem to have been 
either indifferent or resigned with regard to imme- 
diate reputation. Through all the works of Chaucer, 
there reigns a cheerfulness, a manly hilarity, which 
makes it almost impossible to doubt a correspondent 
habit of feeling in the author himself. Shakspeare's 
evenness and sweetness of temper were almost pro- 
verbial in his own age. That this did not arise from 
ignorance of his own comparative greatness, we have 
abundant proof in his sonnets, which could scarcely 
have been known to Mr. Popet when he asserted 



* "Of old things all are over old, 

Of Eood things none are good enough ; — 
We 'II show that we can help to frame 
A world of other stuff." 
t Mr. Pope was under the common error of his age, an 
error far from being sufficipnily exploded, even at the present 
day. It consists, (as 1 explained at lar^c, and proved in de- 
tail in my public lectures,) in niistakins for the essentials of 
the Greek stage, certain rules which the wise poets imposed 
upon themselves, in order to render all the remaining parts of 
the drama, consistent with those that had been forced upon 
them by circumstances independent of their will ; out of 
which circumstances the drama itself arose. The circum- 
stances in the time of Shakspeare, which it was equally out 
of his power to alter, were different, and such as, in my 
opinion, allowed a far wider sphere, and a deeper and more 
human inierest. Critics are too apt to forget that rules are 
but means to nn end ; consequently, where the ends are dif- 
ferent, the rules must be likewise so. We must have ascer- 
tained what the end is before wo can determine what the rules 
ou^At to be. Jtidijing under this impression, I did not hesi- 
tate to declare my full conviction, that the consummate judg- 
ment of Shakspeare, not only in the general construction, 
but in all the detail of his dramas, impressed me with greater 
wonder than even the might of his genius, or the depth of hig 
philosophy. The substance of these lectures I hope soon to 
publish ; and it is but a debt of justice to myself and my 
friends, to notice, that the first course of .ecturos, which dif- 
I fcred from the following courses only by occasionally varyiof 
251 



242 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



that our great bard " grew immortal in his own de- 
spite." Speaking of one whom he had celebrated, 
and contrasting the duration of his works with that 
of his personal existence, Shalispeare adds: 

"I too will have my kings, that take 
From me the sign of life and death ; 
Kingdoms shall shitt about liko clouds, 
Obedient to my breath." 

WordsmorMs Rob Roy. 

" Yoiir name from hence immortal life shall have, 
Tho' I once gone, to all the world must die ; 
The earth can yield me but a common grave. 
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. 
Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
Which eyes not yet created sliall o'er-read : 
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse. 
When all the breathers of this world are dead ; 
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen. 
Where breath most breathes, e'en in the moath of men." 

Sonnet 8lst. 

I have taken the first that occurred ; but Sliakspeare's 
readiness to praise his rivals, ore pleno, and the con- 
fidence of his ow-n equality with those whom ho 
deemed most worthy of his praise, are alike mani- 
fested in the 86th sonnet : 

Was it the proud full sail of hig great verse. 
Bound for the praise of ail-too precious you. 
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, 
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew 1 
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write 
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? 
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night 
Giving him aid, my verse astonished. 
He, nor that affable familiar ghost. 
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence. 
As victors of my silence cannot boast; 
I was not sick of any fear from thence! 
But when your countenance fill'd up his line. 
Then lack'd I matter, that enfeebled mine." 

In Spenser, indeed, we trace a mind constitution- 
ally tender, delicate, and, in comparison with his 
three great compeers, I had almost said, effeminate: 
and this additionally saddened by the unjust perse- 
cution of Burleigh, and the severe calamities which 
overwhelmed his latter days. These causes have 
diffused over all his compositions "a melancholy 
grace," and have drawn forth occasional strains, the 
more pathetic from their gentleness. But nowhere 
do we find the least trace of irritability, and still less 
of quarrelsome or affected contempt of hiscensurers. 

The same calmness, and even greater self-posses- 
sion, may be affirmed of Milton, as far as his poems 
and poetic character are concerned. He reserved 
his anger for the enemies of religion, freedom, and 
his country. My mind is not capable of forming a 
more august conception, than arises from the contem- 
plation of this great man in his latter days: poor, 
sick, old, blind, slandered, persecuted, 

" Darkness before, and danger's voice behind," 

m an age in \vliich he was as little understood by 
the party /or whom as by that a^ains< whom, he had 
contended ; and among men before whom he strode 

the illustrations of the same thoughts was addressed to very 
numerous, and, I need not add, respectable audiences, at the 
Royal Institution, before Mr. Schlegel gave his lectures on the 
fame subjects at Vienna. 



so far as to dvaarf himself by the distance ; yet slill 
listening to the music of his own thoughts, or if ad- 
ditionally cheered, yet cheered only by the prophetic 
faith of two or three solitary individuals, he did 
nevertheless 



' Argue not 



Agaiiict Heaven's hand or v/ill, nor bate a jot 
Of heart or hope ; but still bore up, and steer'd 
Right onward." 

From othsrs only do we derive our knowledge that 
Milton, in Iiis latte/ day, had his scorners and de- 
tractors; and even in his day of youth and hope, that 
he had enemies would have been unknown to us, 
had they not been likewise the enemies of his 
country. 

I am well aware, that in advanced stages of litera- 
ture, when there exist many and e.xcellent model& 
a high degree of talent, combined with taste and 
judgment, and employed in works of imagination, 
will acquire for a man the name of a great genius ; 
though even that analogon of genius, which, in cer- 
tain states of society, may even render his writings 
more popular than the absolute reality could have 
done, would be sought for in vain in the mind and 
temper of the author himself Yet even in instances 
of this kind, a close examination will often detect 
that the irritability, which has been attributed to the 
author's g^eniMs as its cause, did really originate in an 
ill conformation of body, obtuse pain, or constitutional 
defect of pleasurable sensation. What is charged to 
the author, belongs to the man, who would probably 
have been still more impatient, but for the human- 
izing influences of the very pursuit, which yet bears 
the blame of his irritability. 

How then are we to explain the easy credence 
generally given to this charge, if the charge itself be 
not, as we have endeavored to show, supported by 
experience ? This seems to me of no very difficult 
solution. In whatever country literature is widely 
diffused, there will be many who mistake an intense 
desire to possess the reputation of jwetic genius, for 
the actual powers, and original tendencies which 
constitute it But men, whose dearest wishes are 
fixed on objects wholly out of their power, become 
in all cases more or less impatient and prone to anger. 
Besides, though it may be paradoxical to assert, that 
a man can know one thing, and believe the opposite, 
yet assuredly, a vain person may have so habitually 
indulged the wish, and persevered in the attempt to 
appear what he is not, as to become himself one of 
his own proselytes. Still, as this counterfeit and 
artificial persuasion must differ, even in the person's 
own feelings, from a real sense of inward power, 
what can be more natural than that this difference 
should betray itself in suspicion and jealous irritabil- 
ity ? Even as the flowery sod, which covers a hoi 
low, may be often detected by its shaking and trem 
bling? 

But, alas ! the multitude of books, and the general 
diffusion of literature, have produced other and more 
lamentable effects in the world of letters, and such 
as are abundant to explain, though by no means to 
justify, the contempt with which the best grounded 
252 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



243 



complaints of injured genius are rejected as frivo- 
luiis, or entertained as matter of merriment. In the 
days of Chaucer and Gower, our language might 
(with duo allowance for the imperfections of n simile,) 
be compared to a wilderness of vocal reeds, from 
which the favorites only of Tan or A|X)llo could 
construct even the rude Syrinx; and from this the 
constructors alone could elicit strains of music. But 
now, ixirtly by the labors of Euccessive poets, and in 
part by the more artificial slate of society and social 
intercourse, language, mechanized as it were into a 
barrel-organ, supplies at once both instrument and 
tune. Thus even the deaf may play, so as to delight 
the many. Sometimes, (for it is with similes as it is 
with jests at a wine table, one is sure to suggest 
another,) I have attempted to illustrate the present 
state of our language, in Us relation to literature, by a 
press-room of larger and smaller stereotype pieces, 
which, in the present anglo-gallican fashion of un- 
connected, epigrammatic periods, it requires but an 
ordinary portion of ingenuity to vary indefinitely, and 
yet still produce something, which, if 7iot sense, will 
be so like it as to do as well. Perhaps better; for it 
spares the reader the trouble of thinking ; prevents 
vacancy, while it indulges innocence ; and secures 
the memory from all danger of an intellectual ple- 
thora. Hence, of all trades, literature at present de- 
mands the least talent or information ; and, of all 
modes of literature, the manufacturing of poems. 
The difference, indeed, between these and the works 
of genius, is not less than between an egg and an 
eggshell ; yet at a distance they both look alike. 

Now it is no less remarkable than true, with how 
little examination the works of polite literature are 
commonly perused, not only by the mass of reader.^, 
but by men of the first-rate ability, till some accident 
or chance* discussion have aroused their attention, 



* In the course of my lectures, I have occasion to point out 
the almost faultless position and choice of wnrds, in Mr. 
Pope's orixinal compositions, particularly in his satires and 
mural essays, for the purpose of comparing them with his 
translation of Homer,#^hich I do not stand alone in regarding 
Bs the main source of our pseudo-poetic diction. And this, 
tiythc-by, is an additional confirmation of a remark made, I 
believe, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that next to the man who 
formed and elevated the taste of the public, ho that corrupt- 
ed it is commonly tho greatest genius. Among other pas- 
sages, I analyzed, sentence by sentence, and almost word by 
word, tho popular hncs, 

" As when the moon, resplendent lamp of light," &c. 

much in the same way as has been since done, in an excellent 
article on Chalmers' British Poets, in the Quarterly Review. 
The impression on the audience, in general, was sudden and 
evident : and a number of enlightened and highly educated 
individuals, who at diflercnt times afterwards addressed me 
on the subject, expressed their wonder, that truth so obvious 
should not have struck them before : but at tho same lime 
acknowledged (so much had they been accustomed, in read- 
ing poetry, to receive pleasure from the separate images and 
phrases successively, without asking themselves whether the 
collective meaning wae sense or nonsen!;e,) that they might 
in nil probability have read the same piissaire again twenty 
times with imdiminishcd admiralinn, and without onro reflect- 
ing that "nspa ipaitvrtv a)i(pi &cXiivr]v ipatvu apnrpcTTca" 
(i. e. the stars around, or ne:ir the full moon, shine pre-emi- 
nently bright) eonvny-i a JMsl and happy irniige of n moonlight 
sky : w!iilo it is difficult to determine whether in the lines, 



and put them on their guard. And hence, individual 
below mediocrity, not less in natural power than ac- 
quired knowledge ; nay, bunglers that had liiiled in 
tho lowest mechanic crafts, and whose presumption 
is in due projwrtion to their want of sense and sensi- 
bility; men who, being first scribblers from idleness 
and ignorance, next become libellers from envy and 
malevolence, have been able to drive a successful 
trade in the employment of booksellers, nay, have 
raised themselves into temporary name and reputation 
with the public at large, by that most powerful of all 
adulation, the appeal to the bad and malignant pas- 
sions of mankind.! But as it is the nature of scorn, 
envy, and all malignant projicnsitics to require a quick 
change of objects, such writers are sure, sooner or 
later, to awake from their dream of vanity to disap- 
pointment and neglect, with embittered and enve- 
nomed feelings. Even during their short-lived suc- 
cess, sensible, in spite of themselves, on what a 
shifting foundation it rested, they resent the mere re- 
fusal of praise, as a robbery, and at the justest cen- 
sures kindle at once into violent and undisciplined 
abuse ; till the acute disease changing into chronical, 
the more deadly as the less violent, they become tho 



" Around her throne the vivid planets roll. 
And stars tinnumber' d gild the glowins pole" 

the sense or the diction be the more absurd. My answer was, 
that though I had derived peculiar advantages from my school 
discipline, and though my general theory of poetry was the 
same then as now, 1 had yet experienced tho same sensations 
myself, and felt almost as if I had been newly couched, when 
by Mr. Wordsworth's conversation, I had been induced to 
re-examine with impartial strictness Gray's celebrated elegy. 
I had long before detected the defects in " tho Bard ;" but 
"tho Elegy" I had considered as proof against all fair at 
lacks; and to this day I cannot read either without delight, 
and a'poriioo of enthusiasm. At all events, whatever plea- 
sure 1 may have lost by the clearer perception of the faults in 
certain passages, has been more than repaid to me, by tho 
additional delight with which I read the remainder. 

t Especially " in this age of personality, this age of literary 
and political gossiping, when the meanest insects are wor- 
shipped with a sort of Egyptian superstition, if only the 
brainless head be atoned for by the sling of personal malignity 
in tha tail I W^hcn the most vapid satires have become the 
objects of a keen public interest, purely from the number of 
conleitiporary characters named in tho patchwork notes 
which possess, however, the comparative merit of being more 
poetical than the text,) and because, to increase the stimulus, 
the author has sagaciously left his own name for whispers and 
conjectures ! In an age, when even scrmtms are published 
with a double appendix stuffed with names— in a generation 
so transformed from the characteristic reserve of Britons, that 
from the ephemeral sheet of a London newspaper, to tho 
everlasting Scotch Professorial Quarto, almost every publica- 
tion exhibits or flatters the epidemic distemper; that the very 
' last year's rebusci' in tho Ladies' Diary, are answered in a 
serious elegy 'on my father's death,' with the name and habi- 
tat of the elegiac CEdipus subscribed ; and ' other inge- 
nious solutions were likeicise given' to the said rebuses— 
not, as heretofore, by Crito, Philander, A, B. Y, &c.--bnt by 
fifiy or sixty plain English surnames at full length, with their 
several places of abode ! In an age, when a bashful Philale- 
Ihcs, or Philtleuthervs, is as rare on the lille-pnges, and 
among the signatures of our magazines, as a real name used 
to he in the days ofourshyand noiice-shunning grandfathers ! 
When (more exquisite than all) I see an Epic Poem (spirits 
ofMaro and Miconides, make ready to welcoine your new 
compeer:) advertised wiih the speciiil recoqimendation, that 
the s.iid Kpie Poem contains more than an hundred names 
of lieing persons." Friend, No. 10. 



244 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



fit instruments of literary detraction and moral slander. 
They are then no longer to be questioned without ex- 
posing the complainant to ridicule, because, forsooth, 
they are anonymous critics, and authorized as " syno- 
dical individuals"* to speak of themselves plurali 
majestatico ! As if literature formed a caste, like that 
of the Paras in Hindostan, who, however maltreated, 
must not dare to deem themselves wronged ! As if 
that, which in all other cases adds a deeper die to 
slander, the circumstance of its being anonymous, 
here acted only to make the slanderer inviolable ! 
Thus, in part, from the accidental tempers of indivi- 
duals, (men of undoubted talent, but not men of 
genius,) tempers rendered yet more irritable by their 
desire to appear men of genius ; but still more effec- 
tively by the excesses of the mere counterfeits both 
of talent and genius; the number, too, being so in- 
comparably greater of those who are thoi/g/d to be, 
than of those who really are men of real genius; and 
m part from the natural, but not therefore the less 
partial and unjust distinction, made by the public 
itself between literanj and all other property ; I be- 
lieve the prejudice to have arisen, which considers 
an unusual irascibility concerning the reception of its 
products as characteristic of genius. It might correct 
the moral feelings of a numerous class of readere, to 
suppose a review set on foot, the object of which 
was to criticise all the chief works presented to the 
public by our ribbon-weavers, calico-printers, cabinet- 
makers, and china-manufacturers ; a review con- 
ducted in the same spirit, and which should take the 
same freedom with personal character as our literary 
journals. They would scarcely, I think, deny their 
belief, not only that the " genus irritabile" would be 
found to include many other species beside that of 
bards, but that the irritability of trade would soon re- 
duce the resentments of poe<s into mere shadow-tights 
(sKto/iaxicii) in the comparison. Or is wealth the only 
rational object of human interest ? Or even if this 
were admitted, has the poet no property in his works ? 
Or is it a rare or culpable case, that he who serves at 
the altar of the muses should be compelled to derive 
his maintenance from the altar, when, loo, he has 
perhaps deliberately abandoned the fairest prospects 
of rank and opulence in order to devote himself, an 
entire and undistracted man, to the instruction or 
refinement of his fellow-citizens ? Or should we pass 
by all higher objects and motives, all disinterested 
benevolence, and even that ambition of lasting praise, 
which is at once the crutch and ornament, which at 
once supports and betrays the infirmity of human 
virtue; is the character and property of the indi- 
vidual who labors for our intellectual pleasures, less 
entitled to a share of our fellow-feeling than that of 
the wine-merchant or milliner? Sensibility, indeed, 
both quick and deep, is not only a characteristic 
feature, but may be deemed a component part of 
genius. But it is no less an essential mark of true 
genius, that its sensibility is excited by any other 
cause more powerfully than by its own personal in- 
terests, for this plain reason, that the man of genius 

* A phrase of Andrew Marvel's. 



lives most In the ideal world, in which the present is 
still constituted by the future or the past ; and because 
his feelings have been habitually associated with 
thoughts and images, to the number, clearness, and 
vivacity of which the sensation of self is always in 
an inverse proportion. And yet, should he perchance 
have occasion to repel some false charge, or to rectify 
some erroneous censure, nothing is more common, 
than for the many to mistake the general liveliness 
of his manner and language, whatever is the subject, 
for the effects of peculiar irritation from its accidental 
relation to himself* 

For myself, if from my own feelings, or from the 
less suspicious test of the observations of others, I had 
been made aware of any literary testiness or jealousy, 
I trust that I should have been, however, neither silly 
or arrogant enough to have burlhened the imperfec- 
tion on GENIUS. But an experience, (and I should 
not need documents in abundance to prove my words, 
if I added,) a tried experience of twenty years has 
taught me that the original sin of my character con- 
sists in a careless indiflference to public opinion, and 
to the attacks of those who influence it ; that praise 
and admiration have become, yearly, less and less 
desirable, except as marks of sympathy; nay, that it 
is difficult and distressing to me, to think with any 
interest even about the sale and profit of my works, 
important as, in my present circumstances, such con- 
siderations must needs be. Yet it never occurred to 
me to believe, or fancy, that the quantum of intellec- 
tual power bestowed on me by nature or education 
was in any way connected with this habit oi' my feel- 
ings ; or, that it needed any other parents, or fosterers, 
than constitutional indolence, aggravated into lan- 
guor by ill-health ; the accumulating embarrass- 
ments of procrastination; the mental cowardice, 
which is the inseparable companion of procrastina- 
tion, and which makes us anxious to think and con- 
verse on any thing rather than on what concerns our- 
selves ; in fine, all those close ve.vations, whether 
chargeable on my faults or my fortunes, which leave 
me but little grief to spare for evils comparatively 
distant and alien. • 

Indignation at literary wrongs, I leave to men bom 
under happier stars. I cannot afford it. But so far 
from condemning those who can, I deem it a writer's 
duty, and think it creditable to his heart, to feel and 
express a resentment proportioned to the grossness of 



tThis is one instance, among many, of deception, by tell- 
ing the half of a fact, and omitting the other half, when il is 
from their mutual counteraction and neutralizalion, that the 
whole truth arises, as a tertiam aliquid difTerent from either. 
Thus in Dryden's famous line, " Great wit" (which here 
means genius) " to madness sure is near allied." Now, as far 
as t'ne profound sensibility, which is doubtless nne of the com- 
ponents of genius, were alone considered, singlo and unbal- 
anced, it might be fairly described as exposing the imlividual 
to a greater chance of menial derangement; but then a more 
than usual rapidity of association, a more than usual power 
of passing from thought to thought, and image to image, is a 
component equally essential ; and in the due modification of 
cacli by tho other, the genius itself consists , so that it 
would be just as fair to describe the earth as in imminent dan- 
ger of exorbilating, or of falling into the sun, according as 
the asserter of tho absurdity confined his attention either to 
the projectile or to the attractive force exclusively. 
254 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



245 



the provocation, and the importance of the object, i 
There is no profession on earlh whicli requires an 
attention so early, so long, or so uniiiiermitting, as 
that of iKjetry ; and, indeed, us that of literary com- 
position in general, if it bo such ns at all saiislies the 
demands both of the taste and of sound logic, llow 
diflicult and delicate a task even the mere meuhan- 
ism of verse is, may be conjectured from the failure 
of those who have attempted poetry late in life. 
Where, then, a man has, from his earliest youth, de- 
voted his whole being to an object which, by the ad- 
mission of all civdized nations in all ages, is honor- 
able as a pursuit, and glorious as an attainment ; what, 
of all that relates to himself and his family, if only 
we except his moral character, can have fairer claims 
to his protection, or more authorize acts of self-de- 
fence than the elaborate products of his intellect, and 
intellectual industry? Prudence itself would com- 
mand us to shou; even if defect or diversion of natu- 
ral sensibility had prevented us from feeling, n due 
interest and qualified anxiety for the offspring and 
representatives of our nobler being. I know' it, alas! 
by vvoful experience ! I have laid too many eggs in 
the hot sand of this wilderness, the world, with ost- 
rich carelessness and ostrich oblivion. The greater 
part, indeed, have been trod under foot, and are for- 
gotten; but yet no small number have crept forth 
into life, some to furnish feathers for the cajis of others, 
and still more to plume the shafls in the quivers of 
my enemies; of them that, unprovoked, have lain in 
wait against my soul, 

" Sic V08, non vobis mcllificatiB, apes !" 

An instance in confirmation of the note, p. 243, oc- 
curs to me as I am correcting this sheet, with the 
Faithful Suepherdess open before me. Mr. Sew- 
ard first traces Fletcher's lines : 

" More foul diseases than e'er yet the hot 

Sun bred through his hurninus, whilo the dog 

Pursues the raging lion, throwing the fog 

And deadly vapor from his anary breath. 

Filling the lower world with plague and death," — 

To Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, 

" The rampant lion hunts he fast 

With dogs of noisome breath. 
Whose baleful barking brings, in haste, 

Pyne, plagues, and dreary death!" 

He then takes occasion to introduce Homer's simile 
of the sight of Achilles's shield to Priam, compared 
with the Dog Star, literally thus — 

" For this indeed is most splendid, but it was made 
an evil sign, and brings many a consuining disease to 
wretched mortals." Nothing can be more simple as 
a de.scriplion, or more accurate as a simile ; which, 
says Mr. S., is thus jinely translated by Mr. Pope : 

"Terrific Glory ! for his burning breath 

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death !" 

Now here (not to mention the tremendous bom- 
bast) the Dog Star, so called, is turned into a real 
Dog— a ver}' odd Dog — a fire, fever, plague, and 
death-breathing, rc(f-air-tainting Dog; and the whole 
visual likeness is lost, while the likeness in the effects 



is rendered absurd by the exaggeration. In Spenser 
and Fletcher, the thought is justifiable ; for the imoges 
are at least consistent, and it was the intention of the 
writers to mark the seasons by this allegory of visual- 
ized Funs. 



CHAPTER nr. 

The author's obligations to critics, and the probable occasion 
—Principles of modern criticism— Mr. Southey's works and 
cliarucler. 

To anonymous critics in reviews, magazines, and 
news journals of various name and rank, and to satir- 
ists, with or without a name, in verse or i)rose, or in 
verse text aided by prose comment, I do seriously be- 
lieve and profess, that I owe full iwo-lhirds of what- 
ever reputation and publicity I happen to possess. 
For when the name of an individual has occurred so 
frequently, in so many works, for so great a length of 
time, the readers of these works, (which with a shelf 
or two of Beauties, Klegant E.xtracts and Anas, 
form nine-tenths of the reading public)* cannot but 
be familiar with the name, without distinctly remem- 
bering whether it was introduced for an eulogy or 
for censure. And this becomes the more likely, if 
(as I believe) the habit of perusing the periodical 
works may be properly added to Averrhoe'st cata- 
logue of Anti-M.nemomcs, or weakeners of the me- 
mory. But where this has not been the case, yet the 
reader will be apt to suspect, that there must be 

* For as to the devotees of the circulation libraries, I dare 
not compliment tlieir pans time, or rather kill time, with the 
name otrrailim. Call it rather a sort of beggarly day-dream- 
ing, during which the mind of the dreamer furnishes for iteelf 
nothing but laziness and a liitle mawkish sensibility ; while 
the whole materiii and imagery of the doze is supplied ab 
extra by a sort of mental camera obscura manufactured at 
the printing office, which pro tempore fixes, reflects, and 
transmits the moving phantiisms of one man's delirium, so aa 
to people the barrenness of an hundred other brains afflicted 
with the same trance or su.'^pcnsion of all common sense and 
all dclinite purpose. We should, therefore, transfer this spe- 
cies of amusement, (if indeed those can be said to retire a 
musis, who were never in their company, or relaxation be 
attributable to those whoso bows are never bent,) from the 
genus, reading, to that comprchcnsivo class characterized by 
the power of reconciling the contrary yet co-existing propen- 
sities of human nature, namely, indulgence of sloth and hatred 
of vacancy. In addition to novels and talcs of chivalry in 
prose or rhyme, (by which last I mean neither rhythm nor 
metre,) this genus comprises as its species, gaming, swinging, 
or swaying on a chair or gate ; spitting over a bridge ; smo- 
king ; snufl'-laking ; tele-a-lete quarrels after dinner between 
husband and wife; cunning, word by word, all the advertise- 
ments of the daily advertiser in a public house on a rainy 
day, &c. &c. &c. 

t Ex. gr. Pediculog e capillis exccrptus in arenam jacere 
inconlusds : eating of unripe fruit ; gazing on the clouds, and 
(in gencrc) on moveable things suspended in the air; riding 
among a multitude of camels ; fretiucnt laughter; listening 
to a series of jests and humorous anecdotes, as when (so to 
modernize the learned Saracen's meaning) onu man's droll 
story of an Irishman, inevitably occasions another's droll 
story of a Scotchman, which, again, by the same sort of con- 
junction disjunctive, leads to some otourderie of a Welch- 
man, and that again to some sly hit of a Yorkshireman ; the 
habit of reading tombstones in churchyards, &c. By-tbe- 
by, this catalogue, strange as it may ai)pear, is not Insuscepti- 
ble of a Bound psychological commentary. 

255 



246 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



something more than usually strong and extensive in 
a reputation, that could either require or stand so 
merciless and long-continued a cannonading. With- 
out any feeling of anger, therefore, (for which, indeed, 
on my own account, I have no pretext.) I may yet be 
allowed to express some degree of surprise that after 
having run the critical gauntlet for a certain class 
of faults which I had, nothing having come before 
the judgment-seat in the interim, I should, year after 
year, quarter after quarter, month after month, (not 
to mention sundry petty periodicals of still quicker 
revolution, "or weekly or diurnal,") have been for 
at least seventeen years consecutively, dragged forth 
by them into the foremost ranks of the pmscribed, and 
forced to abide the brunt of abuse, for faults directly 
opposite, and which I certainly had not. How shall 
I explain this ? 

Whatever may have been the case with others, I 
certainly cannot attribute this persecution to per- 
sonal dislike, or to envy, or to feelings of vindictive 
animosity. Not to the former ; for, with the excep- 
tion of a very few who are my intimate friends, and 
were so before they were known as author.?, I have 
had little other acquaintance with literary characters 
than what may be implied in an accidental introduc- 
tion, or casual meeting in a mixt company. And, as 
far as words and looks can be trusted, I must believe 
that, even in these instances, I had excited no un- 
friendly disposition.* Neither by letter, or in con- 

* Some years ago, a gentleman, the chief writer and con- 
ductor of a celebrated review, distinguished by its hostility to 
Mr. Soutbey, spent a day or two at Keswick. That he was. 
without diminution on this account, treated with every hos- 
pitable attention by Mr. Southey and myoelf, I trust I need 
not say. But one thing I may venture to notice, that at no 
period of my life do I remember to have received so many, 
and such high colored compliments in so short a space of 
time. He was likewise circumstantially informed by what 
series of accidents it had happened, that Mr. Wordsworth, 
Mr. Southey, and I, had bpcome neighbors; and how utterly 
unfounded was the supposition, that we considered ourselves 
Q9 belonging to any common school, but that of good sense, 
confirmed by the long-esiablished models of the best times of 
Greece, Rome, Italy, and England; and still more ground- 
less the notion, that Mr. Southey, [for, as to myself, I have 
published so little, and that little of so little importance, as to 
make it almost ludicrous to mention my name at all,] could 
have been concerned in the firmation of a poetic sect with 
Mr. Wordsworth, when so many of his works had been pub- 
lished, not only previously to any acquaintance between them, 
but before Mr. Wordsworth himself had written any thing 
but in a diction ornate, and uniformly sustained : when, too, 
the slightest examination will make it evident, that between 
those and the after writings of Mr. Southey, there exists no 
other difference than that of a progressive degree of excel- 
lence from progressive development of power, and progres- 
sive facility from habit and increase of experience. Yet 
among the first articles which this man wrote after hia return 
from Keswick, we were characterized as " the School of 
whining and hypochondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes." 
In reply to a letter from the game gentleman, in which he 
had asked me, whether I was in earnest in preferring ihe style 
of Hooker to that of Dr. Johnson, and Jeremy Taylor to 
Burke, I stated, somewhat at large, the comparative excel- 
lences and defects which characterised our best proso writers, 
from the reformation to the first half of Charles II. ; and that 
of those who had flourished during the present reign, and the 
preceding one. About twelve months afterwards, a review 
appeared on the same subject, in Ihe concluiling parrigraph 
of which Ihe reviewer asserts, that his chief motive for en- 
tering into the discussion, was to separate a rational und 



versation, have I ever had dispute or controversy 
beyond the common social interchange of opinions. 
Nay, where I had reason to suppose my convictions 
fundamentally different, it has been my habit, and I 
may add, the impulse of my nature, to assign the 
grounds of my belief, rather than the belief itself; 
and not to express dissent, till I could establish some 
points of complete sympathy, some grounds common 
to both sides, from which to commence its explana- 
tion. 

Still less can I place these attacks to the charge 
of envy. The few pages which I have published, 
are of too distant a date ; and the extent of their sale 
a proof too conclusive against their having been 
popular at any time, to render probable, I had almost 
said passible, the excitement of envy on their ac- 
count; and the man who should envy me on any 
other, verily he must be envy-mad ! 

Lastly ; with as little semblance of reason could I 
suspect any animosity towards me from vindictive 
feelings as the cause. I have before said, that my 
acquaintance with literary men has been limited and 
distant; and that I have had neither dispute nor con- 
troversy. From my first entrance into life, I have, 
with few and short intervals, lived either abroad or 
in retirement. My different essays on subjects of 
national interest, published at different times, first in 
the Morning Post and then in the Courier, with my 
cou."ses of lectures on the principles of criticism as 
applied to Shakspeare and Milton, constitute my 
whole publicity ; the only occasions on which I could 
offend any member of the republic of letters. With 
one solitary exception, in which my words were first 
mis-stated, and then wantonly applied to an individ- 
ual, I could never learn that I had excited the dis- 
pleasure of any among my literary contemporaries. 
Having announced my intention to give a course of 
lectures on the characteristic merits and defects of 
the English poetry in its different eras; first, from 
Chaucer to Milton ; second, from Dryden inclusive 

qualified admiration of our elder writers, from the indiscrimi- 
nate enthusiasm of a recent school, who praised v/hat they 
did not understand, and caricatured what they were unable 
to imitate. And, that no doubt might be left concerning the 
persons alluded to, the writer annc^ies Ihe names of Miss 
Baillie, R. Soulhey, ffordsworth, and Culeriilgc. For that 
which follows, I have only hear-say evidence, but yet such as 
demands my belief; viz. that on being questioned concerning 
this apparently wanton attack, more especially with refer- 
ence to Miss Baillie, the writer had stated as his motives, that 
this lady, when at Edinburgh, had declined a proposal of in- 
troducing him to her; that Mr. Soulhey had written against 
him ; and Mr. Wordsworth had talked contemptuously of 
him; but that as to Coleridge, he had noticed him merely 
because the names of Southey and Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge always went together. But if it were worth while to 
mix toceiher, as ingredients, half the anecdotes which I either 
myself know to be true, or which 1 have received from men 
incapable of inlentional falsehood, concerning the characters, 
qualifications, and motives of our anonymous critics, whose 
decisions are oracles for our reading public, I might satdy 
borrow the words of the apocryphal Daniel ; " Oive me leave, 
O Sovereign Puhlic, and I shall slap this dragon without 
sir ord or staff." For the compound would be the " Pitck, 
find fat, and hair, wliich Daniel took, and did seethe them 
together, and made lumps thereof, and put into the dragon's 
■mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder ; and Daniel said- 
lo, these are the gods ye worship." 

856 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



247 



to Thomson ; ami ihird, from Cowpor to the present 
day, I chani,'e(l my plan, nnd confined my disquisi- 
tion to the irto (brnier ems, that I might furnish no 
possible pretext lor the unihinkinc; to misconslrue, or 
the malignant to misapply, my wnnls, and having 
stamped their own meuning on them, to pass them 
OS current coin in the marls of liarruliiy or detraction. 
Praises of the un\vorlliy are ielt liy ardent minds 
as rabberies of the deserving; and it is too true, and 
too frequent, that Bacon, Harrington, AFachiavel and 
Spinosa, are not read, because Hume, Condilinc, and 
Voltaire are. Hut in promiscuous company, no pru- 
dent man will oppugn the merits of a contemjwrary 
in his own supposed department; contenting himself 
with praising in his turn those whom he deems ex- 
cellent. If I should ever deem it my duty at all to 
oppose the pretensions of individuals, 1 would oppose 
them in books which could be weighed nnd an- 
swered, in which I could evolve the whole of my 
reason and feelings, with their requisite limits and 
modifications; not in irrecoverable conversation, 
where, however strong the reasons might be, the 
feelings that prompted them would assuredly be at- 
tributed by some one or oilier to envy and discon- 
tent. Besides, I well know, and 1 trust, have acted 
on that knowledge, that it must be the ignorant and 
injudicious who extol the unworthy ; and the eulogies 
of critics without taste or judgment, are the natural 
reward of authors without feeling or genius. " Sint 
unicuique sua premia." 

How, then, dismissing, as I do, these three causes, 
am 1 to account for attacks, the long continuance and 
inveteracy of which it would require all three to 
explain ? The solution may seem to have been given, 
or at least suggested, in a note to a preceding page. 
/ was in habits of intimacy with Mr. Wordsworth and 
Mr. Southet/.i This, however, transfers, rather than 
removes, the difficulty. Be it, that by an uncon- 
scionable extension of the old adage, "noscitur a 
socio," my literary friends are never under the wa- 
ter-fall of criticism, but I must be wet through with 
the spray : yet, how came the torrent to descend upon 
them? 

First, then, with regard to Mr. Southey. I well 
remember the general reception of his earlier publi- 
cations, viz. the poems published with Mr. Lovell, 
under the names of Mosehus and Bion ; the two vo- 
lumes of poems under his own name, and the Joan 
of Arc. The censuresof the critics by profession are 
extant, and may be easily referred to : — careless lines, 
inequality in the merit of the different poems, and, 
(in the lighter works,) a predilection for the strange 
and w'himsical ; in short, such faults as might have 
been anticipated in a young and rapid writer, were 
indeed sufficiently enforced. Nor was there at that 
time wanting, a party spirit to aggravate the defects 
of a poet, who, with all the courage of uiicorrupted 
youth, had avowed his zeal for a cause which he 
deemed that of liberty, and his abhorrence of oppres- 
sion, by whatever name consecrated. But it was as 
little objected by others, as dreamt of by the poet 
himself, that he preffrri-d careless an<l prosaic lines 
on rule and of forethought, or, indeed, that he pre- 



tended to any other art or theory of poetic diction 
beside that which we may all learn from Horace, 
Quintilian, the admirable dialogue de Causis Corrup- 
j tas r,l(K]uentia, or Sirada's Prolusions; if, indeed, 
natural good sense, and the early study of the best 
I models in his own language, had not infused the 
\ same maxims more securely, nnd, if I may venture 
the expression, more vitally. All that could havo 
been fairly deduced, was, that in his taste and esti- 
[ mation of writers, Mr. Southey agreed far more with 
Warton than with Johnscm. IVor do I mean to deny 
! that, at all times, Mr. Southey was of the same mind 
I with Sir Philip Sydney, in preferring an excellent 
I ballad in the humblest style of poetry, to twcntv indif- 
ferent poems that strutted in the highest. And by 
what have his works, published since then, been 
characterized, each more strikingly than the preced- 
ing, but by greater splendor, a deeper pathos, pro- 
founder retleclions, and a more sustained dignity of 
language and of metre ? Distant may the period be 
— but whenever the time shiill come when all his 
works shall be collected by some editor worthy to bo 
his biographer, I trust, that an excerpta of all the 
passages in which his writings, name, and character, 
have been attacked, from the pamphlets and period- 
ical works of the last twenty years, may be an accom- 
paniment. Yet that it would prove medicinal in 
after limes I dare not hope; for as long as there are 
readers to be delighted with calumny, there will be 
found reviewers to calumniate, and such readers will 
become, in all probability, more numerous in propor- 
tion as a still greater diffusion of literature shall pro- 
duce an increase of sciolists, and sciolism brings with 
it petulance and presumption. In times of old, books 
were as religious oracles; as literature advanced, 
they next became venerable preceptors; ihey then 
descended to the rank of instructive friends; and, as 
their numbers increased, they sunk still lower, to that 
of entertaining companions; and, at present, they 
seem degraded into culprits to hold up their hands at 
the bar of every self-elected, yet not the less peremp*- 
t'jry, judge, who chooses to write from humour or 
interest, from enmity or arrogance, and to abide the 
decision, (in the words of Jeremy Taylor.) " of him 
that reads in malice, or him that reads after dinner." 
The same gradual retrograde movement may be 
traced in the relation which the authors themselves 
have assumed toward their readers. From the lofty 
address of Bacon: " the-^ie are the meditations of 
Francis of Verulam, which, that posterity should be 
]X)sses3ed of he deemed their interest ;" or from dedi- 
cation to monarch or pontiff, in which the honoj 
given was asserted in equipoise to the patronage ac- 
knowledged from Pindar's 

'cir' (j'XXoi- 



Si 5'aAXoi iiCyd\ot. t6 i'ci^arov nopv 

-(pS:ll /JaflXtUSI. nflKlTI. 

rid'-Tnil't T!Op\lOV^ 
El/? {f r« TUTOV 

Tf Toaait vocaptfpois 
OjtiXhv, TTOoipavTov iopiav Ka&' EX- 
-Xava itovra navra. Oi.ymp Od. I. 

257 



24SI 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Poets and Philosophers, rendered diffident by their ' 
very number, addressed themselves to "learned 
readers;" then aimed to conciliate the graces of 
"the candid reader;" till the critic, still rising as the 
author sunk, the amateurs of literature, collectively, 
were erected into a municipality of judges, and ad- 
dressed as THE town! And now, finally, all men 
being supposed able to read, and all readers able to 
judge, the multitudinous public, shaped into per- 
sonal unity by the magic of abstraction, sits nominal 
despot on the throne of criticism. But, alas ! as in 
other despotisms, it but echoes the decisions of its in- 
visible ministers, whose intellectual claims to the guar- 
dianship of the muses seem, for the greater part, ana- 
logous to the physical quahfications which adapt their 
oriental brethren for the superintendence of the 
harem. Thus, it is said that St. Nepomuc was in- 
stalled the guardian of bridges, because he had fiillen 
over one, and sunk out of sight; thus, too, St. Cecilia 
is said to have been first propitiated by musicians, 
because, having failed in her own attempts, she had 
taken a dislike to the art, and all its successful pro- 
fessors. But I shall probably have occasion, here- 
after, to deliver my convictions more at large con- 
cerning this state of things, and its influences on taste, 
genius and morality. 

In the " Thalaba," the "Madoc," and still more 
evidently in the unique* " Cid," the " Kehama," and 
as last, so best, the "Don Roderick," Southey has 
given abundant proof, " se cogitasse quam sit mag- 
num dare aliquid in manus horainum : nee persuadere 
sibi posse, non scepe tractandum quod placere et sem- 
per et omnibus cupiat." Plin. Ep. Lib. 7. Ep. 17. 
Bui, on the other hand, I guess that Mr. Southey was 
quite unable to comprehend wherein could consist 
the crime ormischief of printing half a dozen or more 
playful poems ; or, to speak more generally, composi- 
tions which would be enjoyed or passed over, accord- 
ing as the taste and humor of the reader might chance 
to be; provided they contained nothing immoral. In 
the present age, "periturce parcerc chartae," is em- 
phatically an unreasonable demand. The merest 
trifle he ever sent abroad had tenfold better claims 
to its ink and paper, than all the silly criticisms, which 
prove no more than that the critic was not one of 
those for whom the trifle was written, and than all 
tke grave exhortations to a greater reverence for the 
public. As if the passive page of a book, by having 
an epigram or doggerel tale impressed on it, instantly 
assumed at once locomotive power and a sort of ubi- 
quity, so as to flutter and buzz in the ear of the public 
to the sore annoyance of the said mysterious person- 
age. But what gives an additional and more ludi- 
crous absurdity to these lamentations is the curious 



*I have ventured to call it " unique," not only becau.se I 
know no work of the kind in our language (if we except a 
few chapters of the old transhtion of Froissart.) none which, 
uniting the charms of romance and history, keeps the imagi- 
nation so constantly on the wing, and yet leaves so much for 
after reflection ; but likewise, and chiefly, because it is a 
compilation which, in the various excellences of translation, 
selection, and arrangement, required, and proves greater ge- 
iius in the compiler, as living in the present stale of society, 
thaa in the uriginal composers. 



fact, that if, in a volume of poetry, the critic should 
find poem or passage which he deems more especially 
worthless, he is sure to select and reprint it in the 
review ; by which, on his own grounds, he wastes as 
much more paper than the author as the copies of a 
fashionable review are more numerous than those of 
the original book; in some, and those the most promi- 
nent instances, as ten thousand to five hundred. I 
know nothing that surpasses the vileness of deciding 
on the merits of a poet or painter (not by characteristic 
defects ; for where there is genius, these always point 
to his ch.aracteristic beauties ; but) by accidental fail- 
ures or faulty passages; except the impudence of de- 
f(?nding it, as the proper duty, and most instructive part, 
of criticism. Omit, or pass slightly over, the expression, 
grace, and grouping of Raphael's /^i^rfis ; but ridicule 
in detail the knitting-needles and broom-twigs, that 
are to represent trees in his back grounds ; and never 
let him hear the last of his gallipots .' Admit, that 
the Allegro and Penseroso of Milton are not without 
meril ; but repay yourself for this concession, by re- 
printing at length the two poems on the University 
Carrier ! As a fair specimen of his sonnets, quote 
" a book IMS writ of late called Tetrachordon ,-" and 
as characteristic of his rhythm and metre, cite his ht- 
eral translation of the first and second psalm ! In or- 
der to justify yourself, you need only assert, that had 
you dwelt chiefly on the beauties and excellences of 
tb.e poet, the admiration of these might seduce the 
attention of future writers from the objects of their 
love and wonder, to an imitation of the few poems and 
passages in which the poet was most unhke himself. 
But till reviews are conducted on far other prin- 
ciples, and with far other motives; till, in the place 
of arbitrary dictation and petulant sneers, the review- 
ers stipport their decisions by reference to fixed can- 
ons of criticism, previously established and deduced 
from the nature of man, reflecfing minds will pro- 
nounce it arrogance in them thus to announce them- 
selves, to men of letters, as the guides of their taste 
and judgment. To the purchaser and mere reader, 
it is, at all events, an injustice. He who tells me 
that there are defects in a new work, tells me nothing 
which I should not have taken for granted without 
his information. Btit he who points out and eluci- 
dates the beauties of an original work, does indeed 
give me interesting information, such as experience 
would not have authorized me in anticipating. And 
as to compositions which the authors themselves 
announce with " IIa;c ipsi novimus esse nihil," why 
should we judge by a different rule two printed 
works, only because the one author was alive, and 
the other in his grave? What literary man has not 
regretted the prudery of Spratt in refusing to let his 
friend Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing 
gown ? I am not perhaps the only one who has 
derived an innocent amusement from the riddles, 
conundrums, tri-syllable hnes, &c. &c. of Swift and 
his correspondents, in hours of languor, when, to 
have read his more finished works would have been 
useless to myself, and, in some sort, an act of in- 
justice to the author. But I am at a loss to conceive 
by what perversity of judgment these relaxations of 
258 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



249 



his genius coulii ho cinploynl to diminish his fame 
as the writer of " Gulliver's Travels, " and the " Tale 
of tlie Tub." Had Mr. Southoy written twice as 
many |ioems of inlerior merit, or partial interest, as 
have enlivened the journals of the day, they wouUl 
have adtled to his honor with good and wise men, 
not merely, or priiifipally, ns proving the versatility 
of his talents, but as evidences of the purity of tliat 
mind which, even in its levities, never wrote a line 
which it need regret on any moral account. 

I have, in imagination, transferred to the future 
biographer the duty of contrasting Southey's fixed 
and well-earned fame, with the abuse and indefati- 
gable hostility of his anonymous critics from his 
early youth to his ripest manhood. But I cannot 
think so ill of human nature as not to believe, that 
these critics have already taken shame to themselves, 
whether they consider the object of their abuse in 
his moral or his literary character. For reflect but 
on the variety and extent of his acquirements! lie 
stands second to no man, either as an historian or as 
a bibliographer; and when I regard him as a popu- 
lar essayist, (for the articles of his composition in the 
reviews are, for the greater part, essays on subjects 
of deep or curious interest, rather than criticisms on 
particular works,*) I look in vain for any writer, who 
has conveyed so much information, from so many 
and such recondite sources, with so many just and 
original reflections, in a style so lively and poignant, 
yet so uniformly classical and perspicuous; no one, 
in short, who has combined so much wisdom with so 
much wit ; so much truth and knowledge with so 
much life and fancy. His prose is always intelligible 
and always entertaining. In poelry he has attempted 
almost every species of composition known before, 
and he has added new ones; and if we except the 
highest lyric, (in which how few, how very few even 
of the greatest minds have been fortunate,) he has 
attempted every species successfidly ; from the politi- 
cal song of the day, thrown ofTin the playful overflow 
of honest joy and patriotic exultation, to the wild 
ballad ;t from epistolary ease and graceful narrative, 
to austere anil impetuous moral declamation; from 
the pastoral claims and wilil streaming lights of the 
"Thalaba," in which sentiment and imagery have 
given permanence even to the excitement of curiosi- 
ty ; and from the full blaze of the " Kehama," (a gal- 
lery of finished pictures in one spiendid fancy piece, 
in which, notwithstanding tho moral grandeur rises 
gradually above the brilliance of the colouring, and 
the boldness and novelty of the machinery,) to the 
more sober beauties of the " Madoc ;" and, lastly, from 
the Madoc to his " Roderick," in which, retaining all 
his former excellences of a poet eminently inventive 
and picturesque, he has surpassed himself in lan- 
guage and metre, in the construction of the whole, 
and in the splendor of particular passages. 

Here, then, shall I conclude? No! The charac- 
ters of the deceased, like the encomia on tombstones, 

•See the articles on Mi-ihodism, in the finarlcrly Review; 
tlie pmnll vohime of the New System of Education. &c. 

t See the incomparable " Return from Moscow," and the 
"Old Woman of Berkeley." 

34 



as they are described with religious tenderness, so 
are they read, with allowing sympathy, indeed, but 
yet with rational deduction. There are men who 
deserve a higher record ; men with whose characters 
it is the interest of their contemporaries, no less than 
that of posterity, to be made acquainted ; while it is 
yet possible for impartial censure, and even for quick- 
sighted envy, to cross-examine tho lale without offenca 
to the courtesies of humanity ; and while the eulogist 
detected in exaggeration or falsehood, must pay the 
full penalty of his baseness in the contempt which 
brands the convicted flatterer. Publicly has Mr. 
Southey been reviled by men, who (I would fain 
hope for the honor of human nature) hurled fire- 
brands against a figure of their own imagination • 
publicly have his talents been depreciated, his princi- 
ples denounced ; as publicly do 1, therefore, who have 
known hira intimately, deem it my duty to leave re- 
corded, that it is Soutiiey's almost unexampled feli- 
city to possess the best gifts of talent and genius free 
from all their characteristic defects. To those who 
remember the state of our public schools and univer- 
sities some tw'enty years past, it will appear no ordi- 
narj' praise in any man to have passed from innocence 
into virtue, not only free from all vicious habit, but 
unstained by one act of intemperance, or the degra- 
dations akin to intemperance. That scheme of head, 
heart, and habitual demeanor, which, in hi.s early 
manhood and first controversial writings, Milton, 
claiming the privilege of self-defence, asserts of him- 
self, and challenges his calumniators to disprove; this 
will his school-mates, his fellow collegians, and his 
maturer friends, with a confidence proportioned to 
tlie intimacy of their knowledge, bear witness to, as 
again realized in the life of Robert Southey. But 
still more striking to those who, by biography, or by 
their own experience, are familiar with the general 
habits of industry and perseverance in his pursuits; 
the worthiness and dignity of those pursuits ; his ge- 
nerous submission to tasks of transitory interest, or 
such as his genius alone could make otherwise; and 
that, having thus more than satisfied the claims ofaf- 
feciion or prudence, he should yet have made for 
himself time and power to achieve more, and in more 
various departments, than almost any other writer 
has done, though employed wholly on subjects of his 
own choice and ambition. But as Southey possesses, 
and is not possessed by, his genius, even so is he the 
master even of his virtues. The regular and method- 
ical tenor of his daily labors, which would be deemed 
rare in the most mechanical pursuits, and might be 
envied by the mere man of business, loses all sem- 
blance of formality in the dignified simplicity of his 
manners, in the spring and healthful cheerfulness of 
his spirits. Always employed, his friends find him 
always at leisure. No less punctual in trifles, than 
steadfast in the performance of highest duties, he in- 
flicts none of those small pains and discomforts which 
irregular men scatter about them, and which in the 
aggregate, so often become formidable obstacles botr» 
to happiness and utility : while, on the contrary, he 
bestows all the pleasures, and inspires all that ease of 
mind on those around him, or connected with him. 
259 



250 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



which perfect consistency, and (if such a word might 
be framed) absolute reliability, equally in small as in 
great concerns, cannot but inspire and bestow : when 
this, too, is softened without being weakened by kind- 
ness and gentleness. I know few men who so well 
deserve the character which an ancient attributes to 
Marcus Calo, namely, that he was likest virtue, inas- 
much as he seemed to act aright, not in obedience to 
any law or outward motive, but by the necessity of a 
happy nature, which could not act otherwise. As 
Bon, brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves 
with firm, yet light steps, alike unostentatious, and 
alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made 
his talents subservient to the best interests of huma- 
nity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause 
has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liber- 
ty, of national independence, and of national illumi- 
nation. When future critics shall weigh out his 
guerdon of praise and censure, it will be Southey 
the poet only, that will supply them with the scanty 
materials for the latter. They will likewise not fail 
to record, that as no man was ever a more constant 
friend, never had poet more friends and honorers 
among the good of all parties; and that quacks in 
education, quacks in politics, and quacks in criticism, 
were his only enemies.* 

* It is not easy to estimate the effects which the exBmple 
of a young man, as highly distinauished for strict purity of 
disposition and conduct as for intellectual power and literary 
acQuirements, may produce on those of the same age with 
himself, especially on those of similar pursuits and congenial 
minds. For many years, my opportunities of intercourse 
with Mr. Southey have been rare, and at long intervals ; but 
I dwell with unabated pleasure on the strong and sudden, yet, 
I trust, not fleeting influence, which my moral being under- 
went on my acquaintance with him at Oxford, whither I had 
gone at the commencement of our Cambridge vacation on a 
visit to an old school-fellow. Not, indeed, on my moral or 
religious principles, for t/iC!/ had never been contaminated; 
but in awakening the sense of the duly and dignity of making 
my actions accord with those principles both in word and 
deed. The irregularities only not universal among the young 
men of my standing, which I always knew to be wrong, I 
then learnt to feel as degrading ; learnt to know that an op- 
posite conduct, which was at that time considered by us as 
the easy virtue of cold and selfish pruilence. might originate 
in the noblest emotions, in views the most disinterested and 
imaginative. It is not, however, from grateful recollections 
only, that / have been impelled thus to leave these, my delibe- 
rate sentiments, on record ; but, in some sense, as a debt of 
justice to the man whose name has been so often connected 
with mine, for evil to which he is a stranger. As a specimen, 
I subjoin part of a note, from "the Beauties of the Anti- 
Jacobin," in which, having previously informed the public 
that I had been dishonored at Cambridge for preaching deism, 
at a time when, for my youthful ardor in defence of Chris- 
tianity, I was decried as a bigot by the proselytes of the 
French Phi- (or to speak more truly, Psi-) losophy, the 
writer concludes with these words: "Since this time he has 
left his native country, commenced citizen of the world, lift 
his poor diil'lren fatherless, and his wife destitute. Ex his 
disco, his friends, J^amb and Southey." With severest 
truth it may be asserted, that it would not be easy to select 
two men more exemplary in their domestic affections than 
those whose names were thus printed at full length as in the 
same rank of morals with a denounced infidel and fugitive, 
and who had left his children fatherless, and his wife desti- 
tute! Is it surprising, that many good men remained longer 
than, perhaps, they otherwise would have done, adverse to a 
party which encouraged and openly rewarded the authors of 
euch atrocious calumnies 1 Qualis es, nescio ; sed per quales 
Bgis .8CI0 et doleo. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Lyrical Ballads with the preface— Mr. Wordsworth'* 
earlier poems-On fancy and imagination— The investigation 
of the distinction important to the fine arts. 

I HAVE wandered far from the object in view, but 
as I fancied to myself readers who would respect the 
feelings that had tempted me from the main road, so 
I dare calculate on not a few who will warmly sym- 
pathise with them. At present it will be sufficient 
for my purpose, if I have proved, that Mr. Southey's 
writings, no more than my own, furnished the ori- 
ginal occasion to this fiction of a new school of pwetry, 
and of clamours against its supposed founders and 
proselytes. 

As little do I believe that " Mr. Wordsworth'3 
Lyrical Ballads " were in themselves the cause. I 
speak exclusively of the two volumes so entitled. A 
careful and repeated examination of these, confirms 
me in the belief, that the omission of less than an 
hundred lines would have precluded nine-tenths of 
the criticism on this work. I hazard this declaration, 
however, on the supposition, that the reader had 
taken it up, as he would have done any other col- 
lection of poems purporting to derive their subjects 
or interests from the incidents of domestic or ordi- 
nary life, intermingled with higher strains of medi- 
tation, which the poet utters in his own person and 
character ; with the proviso, that they were perused 
without knowledge of, or reference to, the author's 
peculiar opinions, and that the reader had not had 
his attention previously directed to those peculiarities. 
In these, as was actually the case with Mr. Southey's 
earlier works, the lines and passages which might 
have offended the general taste, would have been 
considered as mere inequalities, and attributed to 
inattention, not to perversity of judgment. The men 
of business who had passed their lives chiefly in 
cities, and who might therefore be expected to derive 
the highest pleasure from acute notices of men and 
manners, conveyed in easy, yet correct and pointed 
language ; and all those who, reading but little poet- 
ry, are most stimulated with that species of it which 
seems most distant from prose, would probably have 
passed by the volume altogether. Others more catho- 
lic in their taste, and yet habituated to be most pleased 
when most excited, would have contented themselves 
with deciding that the author had been successful in 
proportion to the elevation of his style and subject. 
Not a few, perhaps, might, by their admiration of 
" The lines written near Tintern Abbey," those " left 
upon a seat under a Yew Tree," the "old Cum- 
berland beggar," and " Ruth," have been gradually 
led to peruse with kindred feeling the " Brothers," 
the " Hart leap well," and whatever other poems in 
that collection may be described as holding a middle 
place between those written in the highest and those 
in the humblest style ; as, for instance, between the 
" Tintern Abbey," and " the Thorn," or the " Simon 
Lee." Should their taste submit to no farther change, 
and still remain unreconciled to the colloquial phrases, 
or the imitations of them, that are, more or less, scat 
250 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



251 



tered through the class last mentioned; yet, even 
from the small iiuraber of the latier, they would have 
deemed them but an inconsiderable subtraction from 
the merit of the whole work ; or, w hat is sometimes 
not unpleasing in the publication of a new writer, as 
serving to ascertain the natural tendency, and conse- 
quently, the proper direction of the author's genius. 
In the critical remarks, therefore, prefixed and an- 
nexed to the " Lyrical Ballads," I believe, that we 
may safely rest, as the true origin of the unexampled 
opposition which Mr. Wordsworth's writings have 
been since doomed to encounter. The humbler pas- 
sages in the poems themselves, were dwelt on and 
cited to justify the rejection of the theory. What in 
and for themselves would have been either forgotten 
or forgiven as imperfections, or at least comparative 
failures, provoked direct hostility when announced 
as intentional, as the result of choice after full delib- 
eration. Thus the poems, admilied by all as excel- 
lent, joined with those which had pleased the far 
greater number, though they formed two-thirds of the 
whole work, instead of being deemed (as in all right 
they should have been,) even if we take for granted 
that the reader judged aright) an atonement for the 
few exceptions, gave wind and fuel to the animosity 
against both the poems and the poet. In all per- 
plexity there is a portion of fear, which predisposes 
the mind to anger. Not able to deny that the author 
possessed both genius and a powerful intellect, they 
felt very positive, but were not quite certain, that he 
might not be in the right, and they themselves in the 
wrong; an unquiet state of mind, which seeks alle- 
viation by quarrelling with the occasion of it, and by 
wondering at the perverseness of the man who had 
written a long and argumentative essay to persuade 
them that 

" Fair ia foul, and foul is fair ;" 

in other words, that they had been all their lives ad- 
miring without judgment, and were now about to 
censure without reason.* 



* In opinions of long coniinuancR, and in which we had 
never before been mulested by a single diiubt, to be suddenly 
convinced of an error, is almost lilte being convicted of a 
fault. There is a stale of mind, which is the direct antithesis 
of that which takes place when wc make a bull. The bull. 
namely, consists in the brinfrine together two incompatible 
thoughts, with the sensation, but without the sense of their 
connexion. The psycholosical coDdiiion, or that which cnn- 
etitutes the possibility of this slate, beini; such disproportion- 
ate vividness of two distinct thoughts, as extinguishes or ob- 
ecurcs the consciousness of the intermediate images or con- 
ceptions, or wholly abstracts the attention from them. Thus 
in the well-known bull, " / was a fine child, but they changed 
me ;" the first conception expressed in the word " /," is that 
of personal identity — Ego eontemplans ; the secnnd express- 
ed in the word " me,^' is the visual image or object by which 
the mind represents to itself its past condition, or rather, its 
personal identity under the form in which it imagined itself 
previously to have existed — Ego contemplalus. Now, the 
change of ono visual image for another involves in itself no 
absurdity, and becomes absuid only by its imniedialo juxta- 
position with the first thought, which is rendered possible by 
the whole attention being successively absorbed in each 
singly, so as not to notice the interjacent notion, "changed," 
which, by its incongruity with the first (houMht, " 1," con- 
etitutes the bull. Add only, that this process is facilitated by 
the ciicumstance of the words •• j" aod " me" beuig Bomo- 
X2 



That this conjecture is not wide from the mark, I 
am induced to N?lieve from the noticeable fact, which 
I can state on my own knowledge, that the same 
general censure sliould have been grounded almost 
by each diflcrcnt person on some different poem. 
Among those, who.se candour and judgment I esti- 
mate highly, I distinctly remember six who expressed 
their objections to the " Lyrical Ballads," almost in 
the same words, and altogether to the same purport, 
at the same time admitting, that several of the poeraa 
had given them great pleasure ; and, strange as it 
might seem, the composition whicli one had cited aa 
execrable, another had quoted as his favorite. I am 
indeed convinced, in my own mind, that could the 
same experiment have been tried with these volumes 
as was made in the well-known story of the picture, 
the result would have been thesame ; the parts which 
had been covered by the number of the black spota 
on the one day, would be found equally alho lapide 
notatnG on the succeeding. 

However this may be, it is assuredly hard and un- 
just to fix the attention on a few separate and insu- 
lated poems, with as much aversion as if they had 
been so many plague-spots on the whole work, in- 
stead of passing them over in silence, as so much 
blank paper, or leaves of bookseller's catalogue ; es- 
pecially, as no one pretends to have found immorality 
or indelicacy ; and the poems, therefore, at the worst, 
could only be regarded as so many light or inferior 
coins in a roleaii of gold, not as so much alloy in a 
weight of bullion. A friend whosa talents I hold in 
the highest respect, but whose judgment and strong 
sound sense I have had almost continued occasion to 
revere, making the usual complaints tome concerning 
both the style and subjects of Mr. Wordsworth's mi- 
nor poems : I admitted that there were some few tales 
and incidents, in which I could not myself find a 
EuflTicient cause for their having been recorded in 
metre. I mentioned "Alice Fell" as an instance; 
" nay," replied my friend, with more than usual 
quickness of manner, " I cannot agree with you tliere '. 
that I own does seem to me a remarkably pleasing 
poem." In the " Lyrical Ballads," (for my experi- 
ence does not enable me to extend the remark equally 
unqualified to the two subsequent volumes) I have 
heard, at different times, and from different individu- 
als, every single poem extolled and reprobated, with 
the exception of those of loftier kind, which, as was 
before observed, seem to have won universal praise. 
This fact of itself would iiave made me diffident in 
my censures, had not a still stronger ground been fur- 



times equivalent, and sometimes having a distinct meaning ; 
somciioies, namely, signifying the act of self consciousness, 
sometimes ilie external imago in and by which the mind re- 
presents that I'.cl to itself, the result and symbol of its indi- 
viduality. Now, suppose the direct contrary state, and you 
will have a distinct sense of the Cf-nnectio;! between two con- 
ceptions, without that sensation of such connexion which IS 
supplied by habit. The man feels, as if he were standing on 
his head. Ihouuh he cannot but see, that he is truly standing 
on his feet. 'I'liis. as a painful sensation, will of course have 
a tendency to associate itself with the person who occasions 
it ; even as persons, w ho have been by painful means restored 
from derangement, are known to feel an iDvoluntary dislilw 
towards their physician. 



252 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



nished by the strange contrast of the heat and long 
continuance of the opposition, with the nature of the 
faults stated as justifying it. The seductive faults, 
the dulcia vitia of Cowley, Mnrini, or Darwin, might 
reasonably be thought capable of corrupting the pub- 
lic judgment for half a century, and require a twenty 
years' war, campaign after campaign, in order to de- 
throne the usurper, and re-establish the legitimate 
taste. But that a downright .simpleness, under the 
affectation of simplicity, prosaic words in feeble me- 
tre, silly thoughts in childish phrases, and a prefer- 
ence of mean, degrading, or, at best, trivial associa- 
tions and characters, should succeed in forming a 
school of imitators, a company of almost religious ad- 
mirers, and this among young men of ardent minds, 
liberal education, and not 

" With academic laurels unbestowcd ;" 
and that this bare and bold counterfeit of poetry, 
which is characterised as below criticism, should, for 
nearly twenty years, have well nigh engros.'<ed criti- 
cism as the main, if not the only, butt of review, ma'- 
gazine, pamphlets, poem, and paragraph; — this is, 
indeed, matter of wonder! Of yet greater is it, that 
the contest should still continue as* undecided as 
that between Bacchus and the frogs in Aristophanes \ 
when the former descended to the realms of the de- 
parted to bring back the spirit of old and genuine 
poesy. 

Xopo; Barpa^iov ; Atovujoj. 

X. ppcKCKCKi^, /coaf, Koaf. 

A. aXX' efpXolJ^9■' avTui Ko«'|. 
oii&iv yap £5-' d'XX' ^ Kod^. 
oljiii^tT ' ov yap HOI fiiXei. 

X. aWa jxtiv KtKpa^Ojjiis^d 

y', birdsov ri (papvy^ av ijZv 
^avSavrj SI fifiiSas, 
PpCKtKCKC^, (coaf, Kod^. 

A. TOVTU) yap ov viKtjstTC. 

X. ovSi fiijv r]n3s si TrdvTiiig. 

A. ovSe iii]v ii/iEis ye irj jx' 



* Without, however, the apprehensions attributed to the 
Pagan reformer of the poetic republic. If we may judge 
from the preface to the recent collection of his poems, Mr. W. 
would have answered with Xanthias— 

Sti 5' «K £^£(fas Tov xpoipov T(i)v 'prjixaTOiv, 

Kai ras avctXas ; HAN. Sfjia Ai', »i5' e(Ppovri;a. 

And here let me dare hint to the authors of the numerous 
parodies and pretended imitations of Mr. Wordsworth's style, 
that, at once to convey wit and wisdom in the semblance of 
folly and dulness, as is done in the clowns and fools, nay, even 
in the Dogberry of our Shakspoare, is, doubtless, a proof of 
genius; or, at all events, of satiric talent; but that the at- 
tempt to ridicule a silly and childish poem, by writing another 
Btill sillier and still more childish, can only prove, (if it prove 
any thing at all,) that the parodist is a still greater blockhead 
than the original writer, and, what is far worse, a malignant 
coxcomb to boot. The talent for mimicry seems strongest 
wheie the human race are most degraded. The poor, naked, 
half human savages of New Holland, were found excellent 
mimics ; and in civilized society, minds of the very lowest 
stamp alone satirize by copying. At least the difference, 
which must blend with, and balance the likeness, in order to 
constitute a just imitation, existing here merely in caricature, 
detracts from the libeller's heart, without addinff an iota to 
the credit of his understaadiug. 



oiiiiTzoTC. KcxSa^Oftai yap. 
Kav pc Shi, SI fip(pa;, 
cios uv vpZv iiTiKpaTrjiO) tov Koa^, 
X. PpiKZKtKil, KOAH, KOAE! 

During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 
I I became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first pub- 
' lications, entitled "Descriptive Sketches;" and sel- 
j dom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic 
! genius above the literary horizon more evidently an- 
j nounced. In the form, style, and manner of the 
I whole poem, and in the structure of the particular 
I lines and periods, there is a harshness and an acer- 
bity connected and combined with words and images 
all a-glow, which might recall those products of the 
vegetable world, where gorgeous blossoms rise out 
of the hard and thorny rind and shell, within whicn 
the rich fruit was elaborating. The language was 
not only peculiar and strong, but at times knotty and 
contorted, as by its own impatient strength ; while 
the novelty and struggling crowd of images, acting 
in conjunction with the difficulties of the style, de- 
manded always a greater closeness of attention than 
poetry, (at all events, than descriptive poetrj',) has a 
right to claim. It not seldom, therefore, justified the 
complaint of obscurity. In the following extract I 
have sometimes fancied that I saw an emblem of 
the poet itself, and of the author's genius as it was 
then displayed. 

" 'T is storm ; and hid in mist from hour to hour, 
All dny the floods a deepening murmur pour ; 
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight; 
Dark is the region as with coming night ; 
And yet what frequent bursts of overpowering light 
Triumphant on the bosom of the storm. 
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form ; 
Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 
The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline • 
Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold. 
At once to pillars turned that flame with gold; 
Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun 
The West, that burns like one dilated sun. 
Where in a mighty crucible expire 
The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire." 

The poetic Psyche, in its process to full develop- 
ment, undergoes as many changes as its Greek name- 
sake, the butterfly .t And it is remarkable how soon 
genius clears and purifies itself from the faults and 
errors of its earliest products; faults which, in its 
earliest compositions, are the more obtrusive and 
confluent; because, as heterogeneous elements whiia 
had only a temporary use, they constitute the very 
ferment by which themselves are carried off Or 
we may compare them to some diseases, which must 
work on the humours, and be thrown out on the sur- 



t The fact that in Greek, Psyche is the common name for 
the soul, and the butterfly, is thus alluded to in the followiDS 
stanza from an unpublished poem of the author : 

" The butterfly the ancient Grecians made 
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name- 
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade 
Of mortal life ! For in this earthly frame 
Our'e is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, 
Manifold motions making litlle speed. 
And to deform and kill the tilings whereon we feed.'' 

S. i.C 
S62 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



253 



face, m order to secure the patient from their future 
recurrence. I was in my tweiily-fourth year when 
I had the happiness of knowing Mr. Wordsworth 
personally, and while memory Insts, I shall hardly 
forget the sudden elfect produced on my mind, by 
his recitation of a manuscript (wcm, which still re- 
mains un(iublislied, but of which the stanza, and 
tone of style, were the same as those oi'the " Female 
A'agrant," ns originally printed in the first volume of 
the " Lyrical Ballads." There was here nt) mark of 
strained thought or forced diction, no crowd or tur- 
bulence of imagery ," and as the poet hath himself 
well described in his lines "on revisiting the Wye," 
manly relleclion, and human associations, had given 
both variety and an additional interest to natural ob- 
jects, which in the passion and appetite of the first 
love, they had seemed to him neithc^r to need or per- 
mit. The occasional obscurities which had risen 
from an imperfect control over tiie resources of his 
native language, had almost wholly disappeared, 
together with that worse defect of arbitrary and il- 
logical phrases, at once hackneyed and fantastic, 
which holds so distinguished a place in the technique 
of ordinary poetry, and will, more or less, alloy the 
earlier poems of the truest genius, unlc.«s the atten- 
tion has been specifically directed to their worthless- 
ness and incongruity.* I did not perceive any thing 
particular in the mere style of the poem alluded to 
during its recitation, except, indeed, such difference 
as was not separable from the thought and manner ; 
and the Spenserian stanza, which always, more or 
less, recalls to the readers mind Spenser's own style, 
would doubtless have authorized, in my then opinion, 
a more frequent descent to the phrases of ordinary 
life, than could, without an ill effect, have been 
iiazarded in the heroic couplet. It was not, however, 
the freedom from false taste, whether as to common 
defects, or to those more properly his own, which 
made so unusual an impression on my feelings im- 
mediately, and subsequently on my judgment. It 
vva."* the union of deep feeling with profound thought; 
the fine balance of trulh in observing, with the 
imaginative faculty in modifying the objects ob- 
served ; and, above all, the original gift of spreading 
the tone, the atmosphere, and, with it, the depth and 
height of the ideal world around forms, incidenti.-, 



* Mr. Wordsworth, even in hia two earliest, " tho Evening 
Walk," und "the Descriptive Sketches," is more free fiom 
this latter defect than most of tho younu poets, his conlempo- 
rariea. Ii may, however, be exemplifiid — together with the 
harsh and obscure construction, in which he more often 
offended — in the following lines : 

" 'Mid stormy vapors ever driving by, 
Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry ; 
Where hardly given the hopeless waste to cheer. 
Denied the bread of life the foodful car. 
Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray. 
And apple sickens pale in summer's ray ; 
E'en here content has fixed her smilinir rci^n 
IVUh independence, child of high disdain." 

I hope I need not say, that I have quoted these' lines for no 
other purpose than to make my meaning fully und(?rslood. It 
IS to be regretted that Mr. Wordbworth haa not re-publishcd 
the^e two poems entire. 



and situations, of which, for the common view, cus- 
tom had bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up the 
sparkle and the dew drops. " To find no contradic 
tion in the union of old and new; to conlemplale the 
Ancient of days and all his works with feelings as 
fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first 
creative fiat; characterizes the mind that feels the 
riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it. 
To carry on the feelings of childhood into the pow- 
ers of manhood ; to combine the child's sense of 
wonder and novelty with the appearances which 
every day, for, perhaps, forty years, had rendered 
familiar ; 

" With sun and moon and stars throughout tho year, 
And man and woman ;" 

this is the choracter and privilege of genius, and one 
of the marks which distinguish genius from talents. 
And therefore, it is the prime merit of genius, and its 
most unequivocal mode of manifestation, so to repre- 
sent familiar objects as to awaken in the minds of 
others a kindred feeling concerning them, and that 
freshnes.« of sensation which is the constant accompa- 
niment of mental, no less than of bodily convales- 
cence. Who has not a thousand times seen snow 
fall on water? Who has not watched it with a new 
feeling from the time that he has read Burns' compa- 
rison of sensual pleasure, 

" To snow that falls upon a river, 

A moment white — then gone forever I" 

"In poems, equally as in philosophic disquisitions, 
genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty, 
while it rescues the most admitted truths from the 
impotence, caused by the very circumstance of their 
universal admission. Truths, of all others the most 
awful and mysterious, yet being, at the same time, of 
universal interest, are too often considered as so true, 
that they lo.se all the life anil efficiency of truth, and 
lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the .soid, side by 
side with the most despised and exploded errors." 
The FRiEND,t page 76. No. 5. 

This excellence, which, in all Mr. W'ordsworlh's 
writings, is more or less predominant, and which 
constitutes the character of his mind, I no sooner felt 
than I sought to understand. Repeated meditations 
led me first to suspect, (and a more intimate analysis 
of the human faculties, their appropriate marks, fimc- 
tions and effects, matured my conjecture info full 
conviction,) that fancy and imagination were two dis- 
tinct and widely different faculties, instead of being, 
according to the general belief, either two names with 
one meaning, or, at furthest, the lower and higher 
degree of one and the same power. It is not, I own, 
easy to conceive a more opposite translation of the 
Greek phantasia than the Latin imaginatio: but it is 
equally true, that in all societies there exists an in- 
stinct of growth, a certain collective, unconscious 



t As " The Friend" was printed on stnmpt sheets, and 
sent only by the post, to n very hmiled number of subscri- 
bers, llie author has felt less objccliun to quote from it, though 
a work of his own. To the public at large, indeed, it IB tlie 
same as a volume in manuscript. 

263 



254 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



good sense, working progressively to desynonymise* 
those words, originally of the same meaning, which 
the conflux of dialects had supplied to the more ho- 
mogeneous languages, as the Greek and German: 
and which the same cause, joined with accidents of 
translation from original works of different countries, 
occasion in mixed languages like our own. The first 
and most important point to be proved, is, that two 
conceptions perfectly distinct are confused under one 
and the same word, and, (this done,) to appropriate 
that word exclusively to one meaning, and the syno- 
nyme, (should there be one,) to the other. But if (as 
will be often the case in the arts and sciences,) no sy- 
nonyme exists, we must either invent or borrow a 
W'ord. In the present instance, the appropriation had 
already begun, and been legitimated in the derivative 
adjective: Milton had a highly i/naginaJive, Cowley 
a very fanciful mind. If, therefore, I should succeed 
in establishing the actual existences of two faculties 
generally different, the nomenclature would be at 
once determined. To the faculty by which I had 
characterized Milton, we should confine the term 
imagination ; while the other would be contra-dis- 
tinguished as fancy. Now, were it once fully ascer- 
tained, that this division is no less grounded in nature 
than that of delirium from mania, or Otway's 

" Lutes, lobsters, seus of milk, and ships of amber," 

from Shakspeare's 

" What, have his daughters brought him to this pass V 

or from the preceding apostrophe to the elements ; the 
theory of the fine arts, and of poetry in particular, 
could not, I thought, but derive some additional and 
important light. It would, in its immediate effects, 
furnish a torch of guidance to the philosophical critic ; 
and, ultimately, to the poet himself In energetic 
minds, truth soon changes, by domestication, into 



* This is effected cither by giving to the one word a gen- 
eral, and to the other an exclusive use ; as, " to put on the 
back," and "to endorse;" or, by an actual distinction of 
meanings, as "naturalist," and " physician ;" or, by difTer- 
ence of relation, as "1," and "me;" (each of which the 
rustics of our different provinces still use in all the cases sin- 
gular of the first personal pronoun.) Even the mere differ- 
ence, or corruption, in the pronunciation of the same word, 
if it have become generiil, will produce a new word with a 
distinct signification; thus, "property," and "propriety," 
the laUer of which, even to the time of Charles II. was 
the written word for all the senses of both. Thus, too, 
"mister," and "master," both hasty pronunciations of 
the same word; " magister," "mistress," and "miss," 
"if," and "give," &c. &c. There is a sort of minim 
immortal among the animalcula infusoria, which has not, 
naturally, either birth or death, absolute beginning or ab- 
solute end ; for, at a certain period, a small point appears 
on its back, which deepens and lengthens till the creature 
divides into two, and the same process recommences in each 
of the halves now become integral. This may be a fanciful, 
but it is by no means a bad emblem of the formation of 
words, and may facilitate the conception, how immense a 
nomenclature may be organized from a few simple sounds by 
rational beings in a social stale. For each new application 
or excitement of the same sound will call forth a different 
Bensation, which cannot but affect the pronunciation. The 
after recollecliim of the sound, without the same vivid sensa- 
tion, will modify it still further ; till, at length, all trace of 
the original likeness is worn away. 



power ; and from directing m the discrimination and 
appraisal of the product, becomes influencive in the 
production. To admire on principle, is the only way 
to imitate without loss of originality. 

It has been already hinted, that metaphysics and 
psychology have long been my hobby-horse. But to 
have a hobby-horse, and be vain of it, are so com- 
monly found together, that they pass almost for the 
same. I trust, therefore, that there will be more 
good humor than contempt, in the smile with which 
the reader chastises my self-complacency, if I confess 
myself uncertain, w hether the satisfaction from the 
perception of a truth new to myself, may not have 
been rendered more poignant, by the conceit that it 
would be equally so to the public. There was a 
time, certainly, in which I took some little credit to 
myself, in the belief that I had been the first of my 
countrymen who had pointed out the diverse meaning 
of which the two terms were capable, and analyzed 
the faculties to which they should be appropriated. 
Mr. W. Taylor's recent volumes of synonymes, I 
have not yet seen ;t but his specification of the terms 
in question, has been clearly shown to be both insuf- 
ficient and erroneous by Mr. Wordsworth, in the 
preface added to the late collection of his " Lyrical 
Ballads and other poems." The explanation which 
Mr. Wordsworth has himself given, will be found to 
differ from mine, chiefly, perhaps, as our objects are 



t I ought to have added, with the exception of a single 
sheet which 1 accidentally met with at the printer's. Even 
from this scanty specimen, I found it impossible to doubt the 
talent, or not to admire the ingenuity of the author. That 
his distinctions were, for the greater part, unsatisfactory to 
my mind, proves nothing against their accuracy ; but it may 
possibly be serviceable to him in case of a second edition, if 
I take this opportunity of suggesting the query, whether he 
may not have been occasionally misled, by having assumed, 
as to me he appeared to have done, the non-existence of any 
absolute synonymes in our language'? Now, I cannot but 
think, that there are many which remain for our posterity to 
distinguish and appropriate, and which I regard as so much 
reversionary wealth in our mother tongue. When two dis- 
tinct meanings are confounded under one or more words, 
(and such must be the case, as sure as our knowledge is pro- 
gressive, and, of course, imperfect) erroneous consequences 
will be drawn, and what is true in one sense of the word, 
will be affirmed as true in toto. Men of research, startled by 
the consequences, seek in the things themselves (whether in 
or out of the mind) for a knowledge of the fact, and having 
discovered the difference, remove the equivocation either by 
the substitution of a new word, or by the appropriation of 
one of the two or more words, that had before been used 
promiscuously. When this distinction has been so natura- 
lized and of such general currency that the language itself 
does, as it were, tjiink for us, (like the sliding rule which is 
the mechanic's safe substitute for arithmetical knowledge,) 
we then say, that it is evident to common sense. Common 
sense, therefore, differs in different ages. What was bom 
and christened in the schools, passes by degrees into the world 
at large, and becomes the property of the market and the tea- 
table. At least, I can discover no other meaning of the term 
common sense, if it is to convey any specific difference from 
sense and judgment in genere, and where it is not used 
scholastically for the universal reason. Thus, in the reign 
of Charles II., the philosophic world was called to arras by 
the moral sophisms of Hobbs, and the ablest writers exerted 
themselves in the detection of an error which a school-boy 
would now be able to confute by the mere recollection, that 
compulsion and obligation conveyed two ideas perfectly dis 
parate, and that what appertained to the one had been falsely 
transferred to the other, by a D.cre confusion of teims. 
2G4 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



255 



different. It could scarcely, indeed, happen other- 
wise, from the advantage 1 have enjoyed of frequent 
conversation with him on a subject to whicii a jioeni 
of his cvn lirsl directed my altenlion, and my conch'- 
siona concerning which, he had made more lucid to 
myself by many happy instancss drawn from the 
operation of natural objecta on the mind. But ii was 
Mr. Wordsworth's puri^oso to consider the influences 
of fancy and imagination as they are manifested in 
poetry, and, from the different effects, to conclude 
their diversity in kind ; while it is my object to inves- 
tigate the seminal principle, and then, I'rom the kind, 
to deduce the degree. My friend has drawn a mas- 
terly sketch of the branches, with their poetic fruit- 
age. I wish to add the trunk, and even the roots, as 
far as they lift themselves above ground, and are vi- 
sible to the naked eye of our common concciousness. 
Yet, even in this attempt, I am aware that '. shall 
be obliged to draw more largely on the reader's at- 
tention, than so imraelhodical a miscellany can au- 
thorize; when in such a work (the Ecclesiastical 
Policy) of such a mind as Hooker's, the judicious 
author, though no less admirable for the perspicuity 
than for the port and dignity of his language; and 
though he wrote for men of learning in a learned 
age, saw, nevertheless, occasion to anticipate and 
guard against "complaints of obscurity," as often as 
he was to trace his subject " to the highest well- 
spring and fountain." Which, (continues he,) " be- 
cause men are not accustomed to, the pains we take 
are more needful, a great deal, than acceptable ; and 
the matters we handle seem, by reason of newness, 
(till the mind grow better acquainted with them,) 
dark and intricate." I would gladly, therefore, spare 
both myself and others this labour, if I knew how 
without it to present an intelligible statement of my 
poetic creed ; not as my opinions, which weigh for 
nothing, but as deductions from established premises, 
conveyed in such a form as is calculated either to 
effect a fundamental conviction, or to receive a fun- 
damental confutation. If I may dare once more 
adopt the words of Hooker, " they, unto whom T\e 
shall seem tedious, are in no wise injured by us, be- 
cause it is in their own hands to spare that labour, 
which they are not willing to endure." Those at 
least, let me be permitted to add, who have taken so 
much pains to render me ridiculous for a perversion 
of taste, and have supprorted the charge by attributing 
strange notions to me on no other authority than their 
own conjectures, owe it to themselves, as well as to 
me, not to refuse their attention to my own statement 
of the theory, which I do acknowledge; or shrink 
from the trouble of examining the grounds on which 
I rest it, or the arguments which I offer in its justifi- 
cation. 



CHAPTER V. 

On the law of association — Its history traced from Aristotle 
to Hartley. 

There have been men in all ages, who have been 
impelled, as by an instinct, to propose their own na- 
ture as a problem, and who devote their attempts to 
18 



its solution. The first step was to construct a table 
of distinctions, which they seem to have formed on 
the principle of the absence or presence of the will. 
Our various sensations, perceptions, and movements, 
were classed as active or passive, or as media partak- 
ing of both. A still finer distinction was soon estab- 
lished betweon the voluntary and the spontaneous. 
In our perceptions we seem to ourselves merely pas- 
sive to an external power, whether as a mirror re- 
fiecting the landscape, or as a blank canvas on which 
some unknown hand paints it. For it is worthy of 
notice, that the latter, or the system of idealism, may 
be traced to sources equally remote with the former, 
or materialism ; and Berkeley can boast an ancestry 
at least as venerable as Gassendi or llobbs. These 
conjectures, however, concerning the mode in which 
cur perceptions originated, could not alter the natural 
difference in things and thoughts. In the former, the 
cause appeared wholly external ; while in the latter, 
sometimes our will interfered as the producing or de- 
termining cause, and sometimes our nature seemed 
to act by a mechanism of its own, without any con- 
scious effort of the will, or even against it. Our in- 
ward experiences were thus arranged in three sepa- 
rate classes, the passive sense, or what the school- 
men call the merely receptive quality of the mind ; 
the voluntary' ; and the spontaneous, which holds the 
middle place between both. But it is not in human 
nature to meditate on any mode of action, without 
inquiring after the law that governs it; and in the 
explanation of the spontaneous movements of our be- 
ing, the metaphysician took the lead of the anatomist 
and natural philosopher. In Egj-pt, Palestine, Greece, 
and India, the analysis of the mind had reached its 
noon and manhood, while experimental research was 
still in its dawn and infancy. For many, very many 
centuries, it has been difficult to advance a new 
truth, or even a new error, in the philosophy of the 
intellect or morals. With regard, however, to the 
laws that direct the spontaneous movements of 
thought, and the principle of their intellectual me- 
chanism, there exists, it has been asserted, an import- 
ant exception, most honorable to the modems, and in 
the merit of which our own country claims the largest 
share. Sir James Mackintosh (who, amid the variety 
of his talents and attainments, is not of less repute for 
the depth and accuracy of his philosophical inquiries, 
than for the eloquence with which he is said to ren- 
der their most didicnlt results perspicuous, and the 
driest attractive,) aflirmecl, in the lectures delivered 
by him at Lincoln's Inn Hall, that the law of associa- 
tion, as established in the contemporaneity of the ori- 
ginal impressions, formed the basis of ail true psycho. 
logy ; and any oiitological or metaphysical science, 
not contained in such (i. c. empirical) psychology, was 
but a web of abstractions and generalizations. Of 
this prolific truth, of this great fundamental law, he 
declared Hodds to have been the original discoverer, 
while its full application to the whole intellectual 
system we owe to David Hartley; who stood in the 
same relation to Hobbs, as Kewlon to Kepler ; the 
law of association being that to the mind, which gra- 
vitation is to matter. 

2R5 



256 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Of the former clause in this assertion, as it respects 
the comparative merits of the ancient metaphysicians, 
including their commentators, the school-men, and of 
the modern French and British philosophers, from 
Hobbs to Hume, Hartley, and Condillac, this is not 
the place to speak. So wide indeed is the chasm be- 
tween this gentleman's philosophical creed and mine, 
that so far from being able to join hands, we could 
scarce make our voices intelligible to each other : and 
to bridge it over, would require more time, skill, and 
power, than I believe myself to possess. But the lat- 
ter clause involves for the greater ])art a mere ques- 
tion of fact and history, and the accuracy of the state- 
ment is to be tried by documents rather than reason- 
ing. 

First, then, I deny Hobbs's claim in toto : for he 
had been anticipated by Des Cartes, whose work 
"De Methodo" preceded Hobbs's " De Natura Hu- 
mana," by more than a year. But what is of much 
more importance, Hobbs builds nothing on the prin- 
ciple which he had announced. He does not even 
announce it, as differing in any respect from the gen- 
eral laws of material motion and impact: nor was it, 
indeed, possible for him so to do, compatibly with his 
system, which was exclusively material and mechan- 
ical. Far otherwise is it with Des Cartes ; greatly 
as he too, in his after writings, (and still more egre- 
giously his followers, De la Forge, and others,) ob- 
scured the truth by their attempts to explain it on the 
theory of nervous fluids and material configurations. 
But in his interesting work " De Methodo," Des 
Cartes relates the circumstance which first led him 
to meditate on this subject, and which since then has 
been often noticed and employed as an instance and 
illustration of the law. A child who, with his eyes 
bandaged, had lost several of his fingers by amputa- 
tion, continued to complain for many days succes- 
sively of pains, now in his joint, and now in that of 
the very fingers which had been cut off Des Cartes 
was led by this incident to reflect on the uncertainty 
with which we attribute any particular place to any 
inward pain or uneasiness, and proceeded, after long 
consideration, to establish it as a general law, that 
contemporaneous impressions, whether images or sen- 
sations, recal each other mechanically. On this prin- 
ciple, as a ground work, he built up the whole sys- 
tem of human language, as one continued process of 
association. He showed in what sense not only gen- 
eral terms, but generic images, (under the name of 
abstract ideas,) actually existed, and in what consists 
their nature and power. As one word may become 
the general exponent of many, so, by association, a 
simple image may represent a whole class. But in 
truth, Hobbs himself makes no claims to any discov- 
ery, and introduces this law of association, or, (in his 
own language,) discursus mentalis, as an admitted 
fact, in the solution alone of w'nich it is, by causes 
purely physiological, he arrogates any originality. 
His system is briefly this : whenever the senses are 
impinged on by external objects, whether by the rays 
of light reflected from them, or by effluxes of their 
finer particles, theie results a correspondent motion 
of the innermost and subtlest organs. Tliis motion 



constitutes a representation, and there remains an im- 
pression of the same, or a certain disposition to repeat 
the same motion. Whenever we feel several objects 
at the same time, the impressions that are left (or, in 
the language of iVIr. Hume, the ideas) are linked to- 
gether. Whenever, therefore, any one of the move- 
ments which constitute a complex impression, are re- 
newed through the senses, the others succeed me- 
chanically. It follows of necessity, therefore, that 
Hobbs, as well as Hartley, and all others who derive 
association from the connexion and interdependence 
of the supposed matter, the movements of which con- 
stitute our thoughts, must have reduced all its forms 
to the one law of time. But even the merit of an- 
nouncing this law with philosophic precision cannot 
be fiiirly conceded to him. For the objects of any 
two ideas* need not have co-existed in the same sen- 
sation in order to become mutually associable. The 
same result will follow, when one only of the two 
ideas has been represented by the senses, and the 
other by the memory. 

Long, however, before either Hobbs or Des Cartes, 
the law of association had been defined, and its im- 
portant functions set forth by Melancthon, Ammer- 
bach, and Ludovicus Vives ; more especially by the 
last. Phantasia, it is to be noticed, is employed by 
Vives to express the mentalpovver of comprehension. 



* I here use the word " idea" in Mr. Hume's sense, on ac 
count of its general currency among the English metaphy- 
sicians, though against my own judgment ; for I believe that 
the vague use of this word has been the cause of much error 
and more confusion. The word \hca, in its original sense, as 
used by Pindar, Aristoplianes, and in the gospel of Matthew, 
represented the visual abstraction of a distant object, when 
we see the whole without distinguishing its parts. Plato 
adopted it as a technical term, and as the antithesis to 
Ei5a)Xa, or sensuous images; the transient and perishable 
emblems, or mental words, of ideas. The ideas themselves 
he considered as mysterious powers, living, seminal, forma- 
tive, and exempt from time. In this sense the word became 
the property of the Platonic school ; and it seldom occurs in 
Aristotle, without some such phrase annexed to it, as accord- 
ing to Plato, or as Plato says. Our English writers to the end 
of Charles 2rid's reign, or somewhat later, employed it either 
in the original sense, or Plutonically, or in a sense nearly 
correspondent to our present use of ihe substantive, Ideal, 
always, however, opposing it, more or less, to image, whether 
of present or absent objects. The reader will not be displeased 
with the following interesting exemplification from bishop 
Jeremy Taylor: " St. Lewis Ihe king sent Ivo bishop of 
Chartres on an embassy, .ind he told, that he met a grave and 
stately matron on the way, with a censer of fire in one hand, 
and a vessel of water in the other ; and observing her to have 
a melanchtily, religious, and phanlastic deportment and look, 
he asked her what those symbols meant, and what she meant 
to do with her fire and water ; she answered, my purpose is 
with the fire to burn paradise, and with my water to quench 
the flames of hell, that men may serve God purely for the 
love of God. But we rarely meet with such spirits, which 
love virtue so metaphysically as to abstract Iter from all sen- 
sible compositio?>s, and lore the purity of the idea." Des 
Cartes having introduced into his philosophy the fanciful hy- 
pothesis of material ideas, or certain configurations of the 
brain, which were as so many moulds to the influxes of the 
external world ; Mr. Locke adopted the term, but extended its 
signification to whatever is the immediate object of the mind's 
attention or consciousness. Mr. Hume, distinguishing those 
representations which are accompanied with a sense of a pre- 
sent object, from those reproduced by the mind itself, desig- 
nated the former by impressions, and co.ifined the word idea 
to the latter. 2G6 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



257 



or the active function of the mind ; and imnginatio 
for tlio receptivity (vis receptiva) of impressions, or 
for the passive perception. Tlie jxiwer of combinn- 
tion he appnipriatcs to the former: — ■•t]ua; siiijiiila et 
simphciter acce|)crat iniaginaiio, en conjiiiiiiil et (lis- | 
giingit phantasia." And the h>\v by which the ' 
thoughts are sjHintaneously presented i!)llo\vs thus: — j 
'•qurcsimul sunt a phantasa coniprehensa si nltcrii- 
trum occurral, solet secnni allerinii reprcsentare." j 
To time, therefore, he subordinates all the other e\- \ 
citing causes of association. The soni proceeds " a 
causa ad affectum, ab hoc ad inslrumenlum, a parte 
ad totum ;" thence to the place, from phice to pci-son, 
and from this lo whatever preceded or (i)liowed, all 
as being parts of a total impression, each of w hich 
may recal the other. The apparent springs " JSaltus 
vel transitns etiam longisimos," he explains by the 
same thought having been a component part of tuo 
or more total impressions. Thus " ex Scipione venio 
incogitationem potentia; Turcica; proper victorias ejus 
in ea parte Asise in qua regnabat Aniiochiis." 

But from Vives I pass at once to the source of his 
doctrines, and (as far as we can judge liom the re- 
mains yet extant of Greek philosophy) as to the firsf, 
80 lo the fullest and most perfect enunciation of the 
associative principle, viz : to the writings of .Aristo- 
tle; and of these principally to the books " De .Ani- 
ma," " De Memoria," and that which is entitled in 
the old translations " Farva Natnralia." In as much 
as later writers have either deviated from, or added 
to his doctrines, they appear to me to have introduced 
either error or groundless supposition. 

In the first place, it is to be observed, that Aristo- 
tle's positions on this subject are unmixed with fic- 
tion. The wise Stagyrite speaks of no successive 
particles propagating motion like billiard balls, (as 
Hobbs ;) nor of nervous or animal spirits, where inani- 
mate and irrational solids are thawed down, and dis- 
tilled, or filtrated by ascension, into living and intel- 
ligent fluids, tiiat etch and re-etch engravings on the 
brain, (as the followers of Des Cartes, and the hu- 
moral pathologists in general :) nor of an oscillating 
ether which was to effect the same service for the 
nerves of the brain considered as solid fibres, as the 
animal spirits perform for them imder the notion of 
hollow tubes, (as Hartley teaches) — nor finally, (with 
yet more recent dreamers,) of chemical compositions 
by elective affinity, or of an electric light at once the 
immediate object and the ultimate organ of inward 
vision, which rises to the brain like an Aurora Bore- 
alis, and there disporting in various shapes, (as the 
balance of plus and minus, or negative and positive, 
is destroyed or re-established,) images out both past 
and present. Aristotle delivers a just theory, without 
pretending to an hypothesis ; or in other words, a 
comprehensive survey of the different facts, and of 
their relations to each other, without supposition, i. e. 
a fact placed under a number of facts, as their com- 
mon support and explanation ; though in the majority 
of instances, these hypotheses or suppositions better 
deserve the name of YTrojroujstif, or sujjictions. He 
nses, indeed, the word Kivmcls, to express what we 
nail rtoresentations or idea.s, but he carefully disiin- 
35 



guishes them fmm material motion, designatmg the 
lallcr always by annexing the words Ei' roirio.or Kara 
roTTov. On the contrary, in his treatise ' DeAiiiraa," 
lie excludes )ilace and motion from all the operations 
of thought, whether representations or volitions, as 
attributes utterly and absurdly heterogeneous. 

The gineral law of association, or more accurately 
the rnmmon condition under which all exciting causes 
act, and in which they may be generalized, accord- 
ing to Aristotle, is this : Ideas, by having been toge- 
llier, acquire a power of recalling each other; or 
every partial repre.'^entalion awakes the total repre- 
sentation of which it had been a part. In the practi- 
cal determination of this common principle to partic- 
ular recoUcclions, he admits five agents or occasion- 
ing causes: 1st, connexion in time, whether simul- 
taneous, preceding or successive ; 2d, vicinity or 
connexion in S|.ace; 3d, interdependence or neces- 
sary connexion, as cause and effect; 4th, likeness; 
and 5th, contrast. As an additional solution of the 
occasional seeming chasms in the continuity of repro- 
duction, he proves that niovenienis or ideas possess- 
ing one or the other of these five characters had 
passed through the mind as intermediate links, suffi- 
ciently clear to recal other parts of the same total 
impressions with which they had co-existed, though 
not vivid enough to excite that degree of attention 
which is requisite for distinct recollection, or as we 
may aptly express it, aflrr-conscioiisncss. In associa- 
tion, then, consists the whole mechanism of the re- 
production of impressions, in the Aristotelian Psy- 
chology. It is the universal law of the /wss/jie fancy 
and mrcliamcal memory ; that which supplies to all 
other faculties their objects, to all thought the ele- 
ments of its materials. 

In consulting the excellent commentary of St. Tho- 
mas Aquinas on the Parva Naturalia of Aristotle, I 
was struck at once with its close resemblance to 
Hume's es.say on association. The main thoughts 
were the same in both, the order of the thoughts was 
the same, and even the illustrations differed only by 
Hume's occasional svihstitution of more modern ex- 
amples. I mentioned the circumstance to several of 
my literary acquaintances, who admitted the close- 
ness of the resemblance, and that it seemed too great 
to be explained by mere coincidence ; but they 
thought it improbable that Ilume should have held 
the pages of the angelic Doctor worth turning over. 
But some time after, Mr. Payne, of the King's mews, 
showed Sir James Mackintosh some odd volumes of 
St. Thomas .Aquinas, partly perhaps from having 
heard that Sir James (then Mr.) Mackintosh had in 
his lectures passed a high encomium on this canon- 
ized philosopher, but chiefly from the fact, that the 
volumes had belonged to Mr. Hume, and had here 
and there marginal marks and notes of reference in 
his own haud-wriiinir. .Among these volumes was 
that which contains the Parva Natnralia, in the old 
latin versions, swathed and swaddled in the com- 
mentary afore mentioned ! 

It remains, then, fi)r me, first, to state wherein 
Hartley diflers from .Aristotle ; then, to exhibit the 
grounds of my conviction, that he differed only to 
267 



258 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



err; and next, as the result, to show, by what in- 
fluences of the choice and judgment the associative 
power becomes either memory or fancy ; and, in con- 
clusion, to appropriate the remaining offices of the 
mind to the reason and the imagination. With my 
best efforts to be as perspicuous as the nature of lan- 
guage will permit on such a subject, I earnestly so- 
licit the good wishes and friendly patience of my 
readers, while I thus go " sounding on my dim and 
perilous way." 



CHAPTER VI. 

That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from that of Aris- 
totle, is neither tenable in theory, nor founded in facts. 

Of Hartley's hypothetical vibrations in his hypo- 
thetical oscillating ether of the nerves, which is the 
first and most obvious distinction between his system 
and that of Aristotle, I shall say httle. This, with 
all other similar attempts to render thai an object of 
the sight which has no relation to sight, has been 
already sufficiently exposed by the younger Reimarus, 
Maasse, &c. as outraging the very axioms of mechan- 
ics, in a scheme, the merit of which consists in its 
being mechanical. Whether any other philosophy 
be possible, but the mechanical ; and again, whether 
the mechanical system can have any claim to be 
called philosophy; are questions for anotiier place. 
It is, however, certain, that as long as we deny the 
former, and affirm the latter, we must bewilder our- 
selves, whenever we would pierce into the adyta of 
causation ; and all that laborious conjecture can do, 
is to fill up the gaps of fancy. Under that despotism 
of the eye, (the emancipation from which Pythagoras 
by his numeral, and Plato by his innskal, symbols, 
and both by geometric discipline, aimed at, as the 
first 7rpo7rai(5i:uri ov of tlie mind) under this strong 
sensuous influence, we are restless, because invisible 
things are not the objects of vision ; and metaphysical 
systems, for tlie most part, become popular, not for 
their truth, but in proportion as they attribute to 
causes a susceptibility of being seen, if only our visual 
organs were sufficiently jxiwerful. 

From a hundred possible confutations, let one suf- 
fice. According to this system, the idea or vibration 
a from the external object A becomes associable 
with the idea or vibration m from the external object 
M, because the oscillation a propagated itself so as 
to re-produce the oscillation m. But the original 
impression from M was essentially different from the 
impression A : unless, therefore, different causes may 
produce the sanae effect, the vibration a could never 
produce the vibration 7«; and this, therefore, could 
never be the means by which a and m are associated. 
To understand this, the attentive reader need only 
be reminded, that the ideas are themselves, in Hart- 
ley's system, nothing more than their appropriate 
configurative vibrations. It is a mere delusion of 
the fancy to conceive the pre-existence of the ideas, 
ia any chain of association, as so many differently 
colored billiard-balls in contact, so that when an ob- 



ject, the billiard-stick, strikes the first or white ball 
the same motion propagates itself through the red 
green, blue, black, &C. and sets the whole in motion 
No! we must suppose the very same force, which 
conslilutes the white ball, to constitute the red or 
black ; or the idea of a circle to constitute the idea 
of a triangle ; which is impossible. 

But it may be said, that, by the sensations from the 
objects A and M, the nerves have acquired a dLspo- 
silion to the vibrations a and m, and therefore a need 
only be repeated in order to re- produce m. Now 
we will grant, for a moment, the possibility of such 
a disposition in a material nerve ; which yet seems 
scarcely less absurd than to say, that a weather-cock 
had acquired a habit of turning to the east, from the 
wind having been so long in that quarter: for if it 
be replied, that we must take in the circumstance of 
life, what then becomes of the mechanical philoso- 
phy ? And what is the nerve, but the flint which 
the wag placed in the pot as the first ingredient of 
his stone-broth, requiring only salt, turnips, and mut- 
ton, for the remainder ? But if we waive this, and 
pre-suppose the actual exislence of such a disposition, 
two cases are possible. Either, every idea has its 
own nerve and correspondent oscillation, or this is 
not the case. If the latter be the truth, we should 
gain nothing by these dispositions; for then, every 
nerve having several dispositions, when the motion 
of any other nerve is propagated into it, there will 
be no ground or cause present, why exactly the os- 
cillation OT should arise, rather than any other to 
which it was equally pre-disposed. But if we take 
the former, and let every idea have a nerve of its 
own, then every nerve must be capable of propa- 
gating its motion into many other nerves ; and again, 
there is no reason assignable, why the vibration m 
should arise, rather than any other ad libitum. 

It is fashionable to smile at Hartley's vibrations 
and vibratiuncles ; and his work has been re-edited 
by Priestley, witii the omission of the material hypo- 
thesis. But Hartley was too great a man, too cohe- 
rent a thinker, for this to have been done either 
consistently or to any wise purpose. For all other- 
parts of his system, as far as they are peculiar to that 
system, once removed from their mechanical basis, 
not only lose their main support, but the very motive 
which led to their adoption. Thus the principle of 
contemporaneity, which Aristotle had made the com- 
mon condition of all the laws of associnlion, Hartley 
was constrained to represent as being itself the sole 
laxo. For to what law can the action oi material atoms 
be subject, but that of proximity in place ? And to what 
law can their molioii be subjected, but that of time ? 
Again, from this results inevitably, that the will, the 
reason, thejudgment, and the understanding, instead 
of being the determining causes of association, must 
needs be represented as its creatures, and among its 
mechanical effects. Conceive, for instance, a broad 
stream, winding through a mountainous country 
wilh an indefinite number of currents, varying and 
running into each other according as the gusts chance 
to blow from the opening of the mountains. The 
temporary union of several currents in one, so as to 
268 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



259 



form the mam current of the moment, would present 
an acccurate image of" Hartley's theory of the will. 

Had this really been the case, the consequence 
would liave been, that our whole lile would be di- 
vided between the despotism of the outward impres- 
sions, and that of senseless and passive memory. 
Take his law in its highest alstraction and most 
philosophical form, viz: that every partial represen- 
tation recalls the total representation of which it was 
a part; and the law becomes nugatory, were it only 
from its universality. In practice it would, indeed, 
be mere lawlessness. Consider how immense must 
be the sphere of a total impression from the top of 
St. Paul's church ; and how rapid and continuous 
the series of such total impressions. If, therefore, 
we suppose the absence of all interference of the 
will, reason, and judgment, one or other of two con- 
sequences must result. Either the ideas, (or relicts 
of such impressions,) will exactly imitate the order 
of the impression itself, which would be absolute 
delirium ; or any one part of that impression might 
recall any other part, and, (as from the law of con- 
tinuity there must exist, in every total impression, 
some one or more parts, which are components of 
some other following impression, and so on ad infini- 
tum,) any part of any impression might recall any 
part of any other, without a cause present to deter- 
mine whal it should be. For to bring in the will, or 
reason, as causes of their own cause, that is, at once 
causes and effects, can satisfy those only who, in 
their pretended evidence of a God, having, first, 
demanded organization as the sole cause and ground 
of intellect, will, then, coolly demand the pre-exist- 
ence of intellect as the cause and groimd-work of 
organization. There is, in truth, but one state to 
which this theory applies at all, namely, that of com- 
plete lightheadedness ; and even to this it applies but 
partially, because the will and reason are, perhaps, 
never wholly suspended. 

A case of this kind occurred in a Catholic town in 
Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottin- 
gen, and had not then ceased to be a frequent subject 
of conversation. A young woman of four or five and 
twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized 
with a nervous fever; during which, according to the 
asseverations of all the priests and monks of the 
neighborhood, she became posnessed, and, as it ap- 
Deared, by a very learned devil. She continued in- 
cessantly talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very 
pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. 
This possession was rendered more probable, by the 
known fact that she was or had been an heretic. 
Voltaire humorously advises the devil to decline all 
acquaintance with medical men ; and it would have 
been more to his reputation if he had taken this ad- 
vice in the present instance. The case had attracted 
the particular attention of a young physician, and, by 
his statement, many eminent physiologists and psy- 
chologists visited the town, and cross-examined the 
case on ths spot. Sheets full of her ravings were 
taken down from her own mouth, and were (bund to 
consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for 
Itself, but with little or no connection with each 
Y 



other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only could 
be traced to the Hiblc; the remainder seemed to bo 
in the rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy was 
out of the question. Not only had the young woman 
ever been an harmless, simple creature, but she was 
evidently labouring under a nervous fever. In the 
town in which she had been resident for many years, 
as a servant in dilferent families, no solution presented 
il.sclf. The young physician, however, determined to 
trace her past life siepbystep; for the patient herself 
was incapable of returning a rational answer. He, 
at length, succeeded in discovering the place where 
her parents had lived ; travelled thither, found (hem 
dead, but an uncle surviving; and from him learnt, 
that the patient had been charitably taken in by an 
old i)rotestant pastor at nine years old, and had re- 
mained with him some years, even till the old man's 
death. Of this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but 
that he was a very good man. With great difficulty, 
and after much search, our young medical philoso- 
pher discovered a niece of the pastor's, who had lived 
with him as his house-keeper, and had inherited his 
effects. She remembered the girl; related, that her 
venerable uncle had been too indulgent, and could 
not bear to hear the girl scolded ; that she was willing 
to have kept her, but that, after her patron's daeth, 
the girl herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries 
were then, of course, made concerning the pastor's 
habits, and the solution of the phenomenon was soon 
obtained. For it appeared, that it had been the old 
man's custom for years, to walk up and down a pas- 
sage of his house, into which the kitchen door opened, 
and to read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his 
favorite books. A considerable number of these were 
still in the niece's possession. She added, that he was 
a very learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among 
the books were found a collection of rabbinical 
writings, together with several of the Greek and 
Latin fathers ; and the physician succeeded in identi- 
fying so many passages with those taken down at the 
young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain 
in any rational mind, concerning the true origin of 
the impressions made on her nervous system. 

This authenticated case furnishes both proof and 
instance, that relics of sensation may exist, for an 
indefinite time, in a latent state, in the very same 
order in which they were originally impressed ; and, 
as we cannot rationally suppose the feverish state of 
the brain to act in any other way than as a stimulus, 
this fact, (and it would not be difficult to adduce se- 
veral of the same kind,) contributes to make it even 
probable, that all thoughts are, in themselves, impe- 
rishable ; and that, if the intelligent faculty should be 
rendered more comprehensive, it would require only 
a different and apportioned organization, the body ce- 
lestial instead of the body terrestrial, to bring before 
every human soul the collective experience of its 
whole past existence. And this — this, perchance, is 
the dread book of judgment, in whose mysterious 
hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded ! Yea, in 
the very nature of a living spirit, it may be more 
possible that heaven and earth should pa.s3 away, 
than that a single act, a single thought, should bo 
2(59 



260 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



loosened, or lost, from that living chain of causes, to 
all whose links, conscious or unconscious, the free 
will, our only absolute self, is co-extensive and co- 
present. But not now dare 1 longer discourse of this, 
waiting for a loftier mood, and a nobler subject, 
warned from within and from without, that it is pro- 
fenation to speak of these mysteries* to~is jxnii-^oTt 

(pavrasS-t'tstv, oig Ka'Xov to Ttis StKatoiVvii; Kal fwi/iposuvr/s 
xodiOiTTOv, Kal u){ »'t£ tjnEpo? HTE twos Sto) Ka\a. l^bv 
yap bpuivra Trpbg rd bpui^tvov ivyyEvh Kal hfioiov TTotrj- 
gafievov Se~t em PdWuv rrj ia' 6v ydp av ttwitotc eBev 
^OlpSa\^los HXiov lAioeiini fJ^V ycycv^iievos, «ie to Ka\ov 
av i6t] tvyv Pl '^"^s ycvofiivi]. PlOTINUS. 



CHAPTER Vir. 

Of the necessary consequences of the Hartleian theory— Of 
the original mistake or equivocation which procured admis- 
sion for the theory— Memoria Technica. 

We will pass by the utter incompatibility of such 
a law, (if law it may be called, which would itself 
be the slave of chances, with even that appearance 
of rationality forced upon us by the outward pheno- 
mena of human conduct, abstracted from our own 
consciousness. We will agree to ibrget this for the 
moment, in order to fix our attention on that subordi- 
nation of final to efficient causes in the human being, 
which flows of necessity from the assumption, that 
the will, and with the will all acts of thought and 
attention, are parts and products of this blind me- 
chanism, instead of being distinct powers, whose 
function it is to control, determine, and modify the 
phantasma chaos of association. The soul becomes 
a mere ens logicum ; for as a real separable being, it 
would be more worthless and ludicrous, than the 
Grimalkins in the Catharpsichord, described in the 
Spectator. For these did fonn a part of the process ; 
but in Hartley's scheme the soul is present only to be 
pinched or stroked, while the very squeals or purring 
are produced by an agency wholly independent and 
ahen. It involves all the difficulties, all the incom- 
prehensibility (if it be not indeed, wj cf^ioiye Soksi, the 
ai)surdity) of intercommunion between substances 
that have no one property in common, without any of 
the convenient consequences that bribed the judg- 
ment to the admission of the dualistic hypothesis. 
Accordingly, this caput mortuum of the Hartleian 
process has been rejected by his followers, and the 
consciousness considered as a resull, as a tune, the 
common product of the breeze and the harp: though 
this again is the mere remotion of one absurdity, to 
make way for another equally preposterous. For 
what is harmony but a mode of relation, the very 



* " To those to whose imagination it has never been pre- 
sented, how beautiful is the countenance of justice and wis- 
dom; and that neither the morning nor the evening star are 
so fair. For, in order to direct the view aright, it behoves 
tliat the beholder should have made himself congenerous and 
similar to the object beheld. Never could the eye have be- 
held the sun, had not its own essence been soliform," {that 
is, precovfigured to light by a similarity of essence with 
that of light,) " neither can a soul not beautiful attain to an 
intuition of beauty." 



esse of which is percipi? An ens rationale, which 
presupposes the power, that by perceiving creates it ? 
Tne razor's edge becomes a saw to the armed vision 
and the delicious melodies of Purcell or Cimarosa 
might be disjointed stammerings to a hearer, whose 
partition of time should be a thousand times subtler 
than ours. But this obstacle too, let us imagine 
ourselves to have surmounted, and "at one bound 
high overleap all bound !" Yet, according to his 
hypothesis, the disquisition, to which I am at pre- 
sent soliciting the reader's attention, may be as truly 
said to be written by Saint Paul's church, as by 
me ; for it is the mere motion of my muscles and 
nerves : and these again are set in motion from exter- 
nal causes equally passive, which external causes 
stand themselves in interdependent connection with 
every thing that exists or has existed. Thus the 
whole universe co-operates to produce the minutest 
stroke of every letter, save only that I myself, and I 
alone, have nothing to do with it, but merely the 
causeless and effectless beholding of it when it is 
done. Yet scarcely can it be called a beholding ; for 
it is neither an act nor an effect ; but an impos.sible 
creation of a something-nothing out of its very con- 
trary ! It is the mere quick-silver plating behind a 
looking-glass; and in this alone consists the poor 
worthless I ! The sum total of my moral and intel- 
lectual intercourse, dissolved into its elements, are 
reduced to extension, motion, degrees of velocity, and 
those diminished copies of configurative motion, 
which form what we call notions, and notions of no- 
tions. Of such philosophy well might Butler say — 

" The metaphysics but a puppet motion 
That goes wilh screws, the notion of a notion ; 
The copy of a copy, and lame draught 
Unnaturally taken from a thought: 
That counterfeits all pantomimic tricks. 
And turns the eyes like an old crucifix ; 
That counterchanges whatsoe'er it calls 
B' another name, and makes it true or false ; 
Turns trii'h to flilsehood, falsehood into truth, 
By virtue of the Babylonian's tooth." 

Miscellaneous Thoughts. 

The inventor of the watch did not in reality invent 
it; he only looked on, while the blind causes, the 
only true artists, were unfolding themselves. So 
must it have been too with my friend Allston, when 
he sketched his picture of the dead man revived by 
the bones of the prophet Elijah. So must it have 
been with Mr. Southey and Lord Byron, when the 
one fancied himself composing his " Roderick," and 
the other his "Childe Harold." The same must 
hold good of all systems of philosophy; of all arts, 
governments, wars by sea and by land ; in short, of 
all things that ever have been or that ever will be 
produced. For, according to this system, it is not the 
affections and passions that are at work, in as far as 
they are sensations or thoughts. We only fancy that 
we act from rational resolves, or prudent motives, or 
from impulses of anger, love, or generosity. In all 
these cases the real agent is a something-nothing- 
every-thing, which does all of which we know, and 
knows nothing of all that itself does. 

The existence of an infinite spirit, of an intelligent 
and holy will, must, on this system, be mere articu- 
270 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



261 



iaied motions of the air. For as the function of the 
human understanding is no other than merely (lo a\)- 
jiear to itself) to combine and to apply the phenome- 
na of the association ; and as these derive all their 
reality from the primary sensations: and the sensa- 
tions again all llieir reality from the impressions ab 
extra; a CJod not visible, audible, or tangible, can ex- 
ist only in the sounds and letters that form his name 
and attributes. If in ourselves there be no such fiic- 
ulties as those of the will, and the scienlifir reason, 
we must eitlier have an iinmle idea of them, which 
would overthrow the whole system, or we can have 
no idea at all. The process, by which Hume docra- 
ded the notion of cause and elfect into a blind product 
of delusion and habit, into the mere sensation of pro- 
ceedin<r life (nisus vitalis) associated with the images 
of the memory; this same process must be repeated 
to the equal degradation of every fundamental idea 
in ethics or theology. 

Far, very far, am I from b\irihcning with the odi- 
um of these consequences the moral characters of 
those who first formed, or have since adopted the sys- 
tem ! It is most noticeable of the excellent and pious 
Hartley, that in the proofs of the existence and attri- 
butes of God, with which his second volume com- 
mences, he makes no reference to the principles or 
results of the first. Nay, he assumes, as his founda- 
tion, ideas which, if wo embrace the doctrine of his 
first volume, can exist no whore but in the vibrations 
of the ethereal medium common to the nerves and to 
the atmosphere. Indeed, the whole of the second 
volume is, with the fewest possible exceptions, inde- 
pendent of his peculiar system. So true is it, that the 
faith, which saves and sanctifies, is a collective ener- 
gy, a total act of the whole moral being; that its liv- 
ing sensorium is in the heart ; and that no errors of 
the understanding can be morally arraigned, unless 
they have proceeded from the heart. But whether 
they be such, no man can be certain in the case of 
another, scarcely, perhaps, even in his own. Hence 
it follows, by inevitable consequence, that man may 
perchance determine what is an heresy ; but CJod can 
only know who is a heretic. It does not, however, by 
any means follow, that opinions fundamentally false 
are hannless. An hundred causes may co-exist to 
form one complex antidote. Yet the sting of the ad- 
der remains venomous, though there are many who 
have taken up the evil thing; and it hurled them 
not! Some indeed there seem to have been, in an 
unfortunate neighbor-nation at least, who have em- 
braced this system with a full view of all its moral 
and rehgions consequences ; some — 



-who deem themselves most free. 



When (hey within this i^ruBs iind vitiiblo sphere 
Chiiin down the winged thought, scofRn? nascnt. 
Proud in their meanness; and ihemBclves ihey cheat 
With noisy emptiness of learned phrase. 
Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences. 
Self-working tools, uncaused eflfects, and all 
Those hiink omniacients, those almighty slaves. 
Untenanting Creation of its God !" 

Such men need discipline, not argument; they must 
be made bettor men, before they can become wiser. 



The attention will be more profitably employed in 
attempting to discover and exjiose the jiaralogisms, 
by the magic of which such a faith could find admis- 
sion into minds framed for a nobler creed. These, it 
appears to me, may be all reduced to one sophism as 
their common genus ; the mistaking the conditions of 
a thing for its causes and essence ; and the process by 
which we arrive at the knowledge of a faculty, for 
the faculty itself The air I breathe is the condition 
of my life, not its cause. We could never have learnt 
that we had eyes but by the process of seeing ; yet 
having seen, we know that the eyes mtist have pre- 
existed in order to render the process of sight possi- 
ble. Let us cross-examine Hartley's scheme under 
the guidance of this distinction; and we shall disco- 
ver, that contemporaneity (I-eibnitz's I^ex Continui) 
is the limit and condition of the laws of mind, itself 
being rather a law of matter, at least of phenomena 
considered as material. At the utmost, it is to thought 
the same as the law of gravitation is to loco-motion. 
In every voluntary movement we first counteract 
gravitation, in order to avail ourselves of it It must 
exist, that there may be a something to be counter- 
acted, and which by its re-adion, aids the fi)rce that 
is exerted to resist it. Let ns consider what we do 
when we leap. We first resist the gravitating power 
by an act purely volinitary, and then by another act, 
voluntary in part, we yield to it in order to light on 
the s[xn which we had previously proposed to our- 
selves. Now, let a man watch his mind while he is 
composing; or, lo take a still more common case, 
while he is trying to recollect a name ; and he will 
find the process completely analogous. Most of my 
readers will have observed a small water insect on 
the surface of rivulets, which throws a cinque-spot- 
ted shadow, frmged with prismatic colors, on the sun- 
ny bottom of the brook; and will have noticed, how 
the little animal wins its way up against the stream, 
by alternate pulses of active and passive motion, now 
resisting the current, and now yielding to it in order 
to gather strength and a momentary fulcrum for a 
further propulsion. This is no unapt emblem of the 
mind's self-experience in the act of thinking. There 
are evidently two powers at work, which relatively 
to each other are active and passive; and this is not 
possible without an intermediate faculty, which is at 
once both active and passive. (In philosophical lan- 
guage, we must denominate this intermediate faculty 
in all its degrees and determinations, the imagina- 
Tio.v. But in common language, and especially on 
the subject of poetry, we appropriate the name to a 
superior degree of liicully, joined to a superior volun- 
tary conlrol over it.) 

C(iiitem()oraneily then, being the common condition 
of all the laws of association, and a component ele- 
ment in all the materia subjecta, the parts of which 
are to be a.ssocialed, must needs be co-present with 
all. Nothing, therefore, can be more easy than to pass 
off on an incautious mind, this constant companion 
of each, for the essential substance of all. But if we 
appeal to our own consciousness, we shall find that 
even time il-self as the cause of a particular act of as- 
sociation, is distinct from contemjjoraneiiy, as the con- 
271 



262 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



dition of all association. Seeing a mackerel, it may 
happen that I immediately think of gooseberries, be- 
cause I at the same time ate mackerel with goose- 
berries as the sauce. The first syllable of the latter 
word, being that which had co-existed with the im- 
age of the bird so called, I may then think of a goose. 
In the next moment the image of a swan may arise 
Before me, though I had never seen the two birds to- 
gether. In the two former instances, I am conscious 
that their co-existence in time was the circumstance 
that enabled me to recollect them ; and equally con- 
scious am I, that the latter was recalled to me by the 
joint operation of likeness and contrast. So it is with 
cause and effect; so too wi(h order. So am I able to 
distinguish whether it was proxiniily in time, or con- 
tinuity in space, that occasioned me to recall B on 
the mention of A. They cannot be indeed separated 
from contemporaneity ; for that would be to separate 
them from the mind itself The act of consciousness 
is indeed identical with lime, considered in its essence. 
(I mean time per se, as contra-distinguished from our 
notion of time ; for this is always blended with the 
idea of space, which, as the contrarij of time, is there- 
fore its measure.) Nevertheless, the accident of see- 
ing two objects at the same moment, acts as a distin- 
guishable cause from that of having seen them in the 
same place ; and the true practical general law of 
association is this: that whatever makes certain parts 
of a total impression more vivid or distinct than the 
rest, will determine the mind to recall these, in pre- 
ference to others equally linked together by the com- 
mon condition of contemporaneity, or (what I deem a 
more appropriate and philosophical term) of continu- 
ity. But the will itself, by confining and intensify- 
iiig* the attention, may arbitrarily give vividness or 
distinctness to any object whatsoever; and from 
hence we may deduce the uselessness, if not the ab- 
surdity, of certain recent schemes, wliich promise an 
artificial memory, but which in reality can only pro- 
duce a confusion and debasement of the fancy. 
Sound logic, as the habitual subordination of the in- 
dividual to the species, and of the species to the ge- 
nus; philosophical knowledgeof facts under the rela- 
tion of cause and effect; a cheerful and communica- 
tive temper, that disposes us to notice the similarities 
and contrasts of things, that we may be able to illus- 
trate the one by the other; a quiet conscience; a 
condition free from anxieties ; sound health, and, 
above all, (as far as relates to passive remembrance,) 
a healthy digestion ; these are the best — these are the 
only Arts of Memory. 



* I am aware that this word occurs neither in Johnson's 
Dictionary, nor in any classical writer. But the word " to 
intend," which Newton and others before liim employ in this 
sense, is now so completely appropriated to another mcanini;, 
that I could not use it without ambiguity: while to para- 
phrase the sense, as by render intense, would often brenk up 
the sentence, and destroy that harmony of the position of the 
words with the logical position of the Ihoui^hts, which is a 
beauty in all composition, and more especially desirahle in a 
close philosophical investigation. I have therefore hazarded 
the word intensify ; though I confess it sounds uncouth to 
my own ear. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The system of Dualism, introduced by Des Cartes— Refined 
first by Spinoza, and afterwards by Leibnitz, into the doc- 
trine of Harmonia prcBstabilita — Hylozoism— Materialism— 
Neither of these systems, on any possible theory of associa- 
tion, supplies or supersedes a theory of perception, or ex- 
plains the formation of the associable. 

To the best of my knowledge, Des Cartes was the 
first philosopher who introduced the absolute and 
essential heterogeneity of the soul as intelligence, 
and the body as matter. The assumption, and the 
form of speaking, have remained, though the denial 
of all other properties to matter but that of extension, 
on which denial the whole system of dualism is 
grounded, has been long exploded. For since im- 
penetrability is intelligible only as a mode of resist- 
ance, its admission places the essence of matter in an 
act or power, which it possesses in common with 
spirit ; and body and spirit are therefore no longer 
absolutely heterogeneous, but may, without any ab- 
surdity, be supposed to be different modes or degrees 
in perfection, of a common substratum. To this pos- 
sibility, however, it was not the fashion to advert. 
The soul was a thinking substance; and body a 
space-filing substance. Yet the apparent action of 
each on the other pressed heavy on the philosopher, 
on the one hand ; and no less heavily, on the other 
hand, pressed the evident truth, that the law of 
causality holds only between homogeneous things, 
i. e. things having some common property, and cannot 
extend from one world into another, its opposite. A 
close analysis evinced it to be no less absurd, than 
the question, whether a man's affection for his wife 
lay north-east or south-west of the love he bore to- 
wards his child ? Leibnitz's doctrine of a pre-estab- 
lished harmony, which he certainly borrowed from 
Spinoza, who had himself taken the hint from Des 
Cartes' animal machines, was in its common interpre- 
tation too strange to survive the inventor — too repug- 
nant to our common sense (which is not indeed enti- 
tled to a judicial voice in the courts of scientific phi- 
losophy , but whose whispers still exert a strong secret 
influence.) Even Wolf the admirer, and illustrious 
systematizer of the Leibnitzian doctrine, contents 
himself with defending the possibility of the idea, but 
does not adopt it as a part of the edifice. 

The hypothesis of Hylozoism, on the other side, is 
the death of all rational physiology, and, indeed, of 
all physical science; for that requires a limitation of 
terms, and cannot consist with the arbitrary power 
of multiplying attributes by occult qualities. Besides, 
it answers no purpose ; unless, indeed, a difficulty 
can be solved by multiplying it, or that we can ac- 
quire a clearer notion of our soul, by being told that 
we have a million souls, and that every atom of our 
bodies has a soul of its own. Far more prudent is it 
to admit the difTiculty once for all, and then let it lie 
at rest. There is a sediment, indeed, at the bottom 
of the vessel, but all the water above it is clear and 
transparent. The Hylozoist only shakes it up, and 
renders the whole turbid. 

72 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



263 



But it is not either the nature of man, or the duty 
of the philosopher, to despair, concerning any im|X)rt- 
ant problem, until, as in the squaring of the circle, 
the impossibililyof a solution has been demonstrated. 
How the e.iite assumed as originally disitinct from the 
scire, can ever unite itself with it; how being can 
transform itself into a knowing, becomes conceivable 
on one only condition ; namely, if it can be shown 
that the vis representaliva, or the sentient, is itself a 
species of being ; i. e. either as a property or attri- 
bute, or as an hypostasis or self subsistence. The 
former is, indeed, the assumption of materialism ; a 
eystem which could not but be patronized by the phi- 
losopher, if only it actually performed what it pro- 
mises. But how any affection from without can me- 
tamorphose itself into perception or will, the mate- 
rialist has hitherto left, not only as incomprehensible 
as he found it, but has aggravated it into a compre- 
hensible absurtlity. • For, grant that an object from 
without could act upon the conscious silf, as on a 
consubstantial object; yet such an affection could 
only engender something homogeneous with itself 
Motion could only propagate motion. Matter has no 
inward. We remove one surface but to meet with 
another. We can but divide a particle info particles ; 
and each atom comprehends in itself the properties 
of the material universe. Let any reflecting mind 
make the experiment of explaining to itself the evi- 
dence of our sensuous intuitions, from the hypothesis 
that in any given perception there is a something 
which has been communicated to it by an impact or 
an impression ab extra. In the first place, by the 
impact on the percipient or ens represenlans, not the 
object itself but only its action or effect, will pass 
into the same. Not the iron tongue, but its vibra- 
tions, pass into the metal of the bell. Now in our 
immediate perception, it is not the mere povver or 
act of the object, but the object itself which is imme- 
diately present. We might, indeed, attempt to ex- 
plain this result by a chain of deductions and conclu- 
sions ,• but that, first, the very faculty of deducing 
and concluding would equally demand an explana- 
tion ; and, secondly, that there exists, in fact, no such 
intermediation by logical notions, such as those of 
cause and eflfect. It is the object itself, not the pro- 
duct of a syllogism, which is present to our conscious- 
ness. Or would we explain this supervention of the 
object to the sensation, by a productive faculty set in 
motion by an impulse ; still the transition, into the 
percipient, of the object itself, from which the im- 
pulse proceeded, assumes a power that can permeate 
and wholly possess the soul, 

" And like a God, by spiritual nrt. 
Be all in all, and all in every part." 

Cowlc]/. 

And how came the percepient here ? And what is 
become of the wonder-pressing matter, that was to 
perform all these marvels by force of mere figure, 
weight, and motion ? The most consistent proceeding 
of the dogmatic materialist is to fall back into the 
common rank ot soul-and-bodyists ; to affect the mys- 
terious, and declare the whole process a revelation 
given, and not to be understood, which it would be 
V2 



profane to examine too closely, Datur non inlelligi- 
tur. But a revelation unconfirmed by miracles, and 
a faith not commanded by the conscience, a philoso- 
pher may venture to pass by, without suspecting 
himself of any irreligious tendency. 

Thus, as materiali.sm has been generally taught, it 
is utterly unintelligible, and owes all its proselytes 
to the propensity so common among men, to mistake 
distinct images for clear conceptions ; and, vice versa, 
to reject as inconceivable whatever from its own na- 
ture is unimaginable. But as soon as it becomes 
intelligible, it ceases to be materialism. In order to 
explain thiiikinc, as a material phenomenon, it is 
necessary to refine matter into a mere modification 
of intelligence, with the two-fold function of appear- 
ing and perceiving. Even so did Priestley in his con- 
troversy with Price! He stript matter of all its ma- 
terial properties; substituted spiritual powers, and 
when we expected to find a body, behold ! we had 
nothing but its ghost! the apparition of a defunct 
substance ! 

I shall not dilate further on this subject ; because 
it will (if God grant health and permission) be treat- 
ed of at large, and sy.stemalically, in a work, which 
I have many years been preparing, on the Produc- 
tive Logos human and divine; with, and as the 
introduction to, a full commentary on the Gospel of 
St. John. To make myself inlelligible as far as my 
present subject requires, it will be sufficient briefly 
to observe — 1. That all association demands and pre- 
supposes the existence of the thoughts and images 
to be associated. 2. The hypothesis of an external 
world exactly correspondent to those images or modi- 
fications of our own being, which alone (according 
to this system) we actually behold, is as thorough 
idealism as Berkeley's, inasmuch as it equally (per- 
haps, in a more perfect degree) removes all reality 
and immediateness of perception, and places us in a 
dream-world of phantoms and spectres, the inexpli- 
cable swarm and equivocal generation of motions in 
our own brains. 3. That this hypothesis neither in- 
volves the explanation, nor precludes the necessity, 
of a mechanism and co-adequate forces in the per- 
cipient, which at the more than magic touch of the 
impulse from without, is to create anew for itself the 
corres[)ondent object. The formation of a copy is 
not solved by the mere pre-existence of an original ; 
the copyist of Raphael's Transfiguration must repeat 
more or less perfectly the process of Raphael. It 
would be easy to explain a thought from the image 
on the retina, and that from the geometry of light, 
if this very light did not present the very same diffi- 
culty. We might as rationally chant the Brahmin 
creed of the tortoise that supported the bear, that 
supported the elephant, that supported the world, to 
the tune of "This is the house that Jack built." The 
sic Deo placilum est wo all admit as the sufficient 
cause, and the divine goodness as the sufficient 
reason ; but an answer to the whence ? and why ? 
is no answer to the how ; which alone is the physi- 
ologist's concern. It is a mere sophisma pigrum, and 
(as Bacon hath said) the arrogance of pusillanimity, 
which lifts up the idol of a mortal's fancy, and com- 
273 



264 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



mands us to fall down and worship it, as a work of j initio, identical and co-inherent; that intelligence 
divine wisdom, an ancile or palladium fallen from and being are reciprocally each other's Substrate. 1 
heaven. By the very same argument the supporters presumed that this was a possible conception (i. e. that 



of the Ptolemaic system might have rebuffed the 
Newtonian, and pointing to the sky with self-com- 
placent * grin, have appealed to common setise whe- 
ther the sun did not move, and the earth stand still. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Is philosophy possible as a science ? and what are its condi- 
tions ■; — Giordano Bruno— Literary aristocracy, or the ex- 
istence of a tacit compact amting the learned as a piivilesed 
order— The author's obhgalions to the Myotics— Tn Eman- 
uel Kant— Tlie difFerence between the letter ami the spirit 
of Kant's writings, and a vindication of prudence in the 
teaching ol" philosophy— Fichte's attempt to complete the 
critical system— Its partial success and uliimate failure — 
Obligations to Sclielling ; and, among English writers, to 
Sauniarez. 

After I had successively studied in the schools of 
Locke, Berkeley, Leibnitz, and Hartley, and could 
find in neither of them an abiding place for my rea- 
son, I began to ask myself, is a system of philosophy, 
as different from mere history and historic classifica- 
tion, possible? If possible, what are its necessary 
conditions? I was for a while disposed to answer 
the first question in the negative, and to admit that 
the sole practicable employment for the human mind 
was to observe, to collecl, and to classify. But I soon 
felt, that human nature itself fought up against this 
wilful resignation of intellect; and as soon did I find, 
that the scheme, taken with all its consequences, and 
cleared of all inconsistencies, was not less impracti- 
cable, than contra-natural. Assume, in its full extent, 
the position, nihil in inlellecin quod non prius in 
seiisa, without Leibnitz's qtialifying pra/er ipsum in- 
telleclum, and in the same sense in which it was 
understood by Hartley and Condi I lac, and what Hume 
had demonstratively deduced from this concession 
concerning cause and eliect, will apply with equal 
and crushing force to all thet other eleven categori- 
cal forms, and the logical functions corresponding to 
them How can we make bricks without straw? Or 
build without cement '. We learn all things indeed 
by occasion of experience ; but the very facts so learnt 
force us inward on the antecedents, that must be pre- 
supposed in order to render experience itself possible. 
The first book of Locke's Essays (if the supposed 
error, which it labors to subvert, be not a mere 
thing of straw; an absurdity, which no man ever 
did, or, indeed, ever could believe) is formed on a 
5:d0i?/ia KT£poi;,riTnsio)a, and involves the old mistake 
of cum hoc: ergo propter hoc. 

The term Philosophy, defines itself as an affection- 
ate seeking after the truth ; but Truth is the correla- 
tive of Being. This again is no way conceivable; 
but by assuming as a postulate, that both are, ab 



* "And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin." — Pove. 

t Videlicet; quantity, quality, relation, and mode, each 
consisting of three sulidivisions. Vide Kritik der reineu Ver- 
nunft. p. 95, and lOG. See, too, the judicious remarks in 
Locke and Hume. 



it involved no logical inconsonance) from the length 
of time during which the scholastic definition of the 
Supreme Being, as actus purissimus sine uUa poten- 
tialitate, was received in the schools of Theology, 
both by the Pontifical! and the Reformed divines. 
The early study of Plato and Plotinus, with the com- 
mentaries and the Theologica Platonica, of the 
illustrious Florentine; of Proclus, and Gemistius 
Plelho; and, at a later period, of the " De Immense 
et Innumerabili," and the " De la causa, principio et 
unn," of the philosopher of Nola, who could boast of 
a Sir Philip Sydney and Fulke Greville among his 
patrons, and whom the idolaters of Rome burnt as an 
atheist in the year 16G0; had all contributed to pre- 
pare my mind for the reception and welcoming of the 
Cogito quia sum, et sum quia Cogito; a philosophy of 
seeming hardihood, but certainly the most ancient, 
and therefl)re, presumptively, the most natural. 

Why need I be afraid ? Say rather how dare I be 
ashamed of the Teutonic theosophist, Jacob Behmen? 
Many, indeed, and gross were his delusions; and 
such as furnish frequent and ample occasion for the 
triumph of the learned over the poor ignorant shoe- 
maker, who had dared to think for himself But 
while we remember that these delusions were such 
as might be anticipated from his utter want of all in- 
tellectual discipline, and from his ignorance of rational 
psychology, let il not be forgotten that the latter defect 
he had in common with the most learned theologians 
of his age. Neither with books, nor with book- 
learned men, was he conversant. A meek and shy 
quietist, his intellectual powers were never stimu- 
lated into feverous energy by crowds of proselytes, or 
by the ambition of proselyting. Jacob Behmen was 
an enthusiast, in the strictest sense, as not merely dis- 
tinguished, but as contra-distinguished, from a fanatic. 
While I in part translate the following observations 
from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me 
be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed 
the substance from memoranda of my own, which 
were written many years before his pamphlet was 
given to the world ; and that I prefer another's words 
to my own, partly as a tribute due to priority of pub- 
lication, but still more from the ])leasure of sympathy, 
in a case where coincidence only was possible. 

Whoever is acquainted with the history of philoso- 
phy, during the two or three last centuries, cannot 
but admit, that there appears to have existed a sort 
of secret and tacit compact among the learned, not to 
pass beyond a certain limit in speculative science. 
The privilege of fi-ee thought, so highly extolled, has 
at no tiiTic been held valid in actual practice, except 
within this limit ; and not a single stride beyond it 
has ever been ventured without bringing obloquy on 
the transgressor. The few men of genius among the 
learned class, who actually did overstep this bound- 
ary, anxiously avoided the appearance of having so 
done. Therefore, the true depth of science, and the 
penetration to the inmost centre, from which ill the 
lines of knowledge diverge, to their ever distant cir 
274 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



265 



cumference, was abandoaed to llie illiterate, and the 
simple, whom iiiisiilled yearning, and an original 
ebulliency of spirit, had urged to the investigation of 
the indwelling and living ground of all things. 
These, then, because their names had never been 
enrolled in the guilds of the learned, were pei-socuted 
by the registered livery-men as interlopers on their 
rigiits and privileges. All. without disiinelion, were 
branded as fanatics and phantasis; not only those 
whose wild and cxorhiiant imaginations had actually 
engendered only extravagant and grotesque piian- 
tasms, and whose productions were, for the most 
part, poor copies and gross caricatures of genuine in- 
spiration ; but the truly inspired likewise, the origin- 
als themselves! And this for no other reason but 
because they were the unlearned men of humble and 
obscure occupations. When, and from whom among 
the literati by profession, have we ever heard the di- 
vine doxology repeated,"! thank thee, O Father! 
Lord of Heaven and Earth! because thou hast hid 
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast re- 
vealed them unto bai)es I" No ! the haughty priests 
of learning not onlv banished from the schools and 
marts of science all who had dared draw living wa- 
ters from the/OTi7i/a(7i, but drove themoutof the very 
temple, which, mean time, " buyers and sellers, and 
money-changers " W"ere suffered to make " a den of 
Uiieves." 

And yet it would not be easy to discover any sub- 
stantial ground for this contemptuous pride in those 
literati, who have most distinguished themselves by 
their scorn of Behmen, De Thovr.vs, George Fo.x, 
&c.; unless it be, that they could write ortographical- 
ly, make smooth periods, and h.id the fashions of au- 
thorship almost literally at their finger's ends, while 
the latter, in simplicity of soul, made their words 
immediate echoes of their feelings. Hence the fre- 
quency of those phra-ses among them, which have 
been mistaken for pretences to immediate inspiration ; 
as for instance, " it was delivered unto me," " I strove 
not to speak," " I said, I will be silent," " but the word 
was in my heart as a burning fire," "and I could not 
forbear." Hence, too, the unwillingness to give of- 
fence ; hence the foresight, and the dread of the cla- 
mors which would be raised against them, so fre- 
quently avowed in the writings of these men, and 
expressed, as was natural, in the words of the only 
book with which they were familiar. "Woe is me 
that I am become a man of strife, and a man of con- 
tention — I love peace: the souls of men arc dear 
unto me : yet because I seek for light, every one of 
them doth curse me!" O! it requires deeper feeling, 
.ind a stronger imagination, than belong to most of 
those to whom reasoning and fluent expression have 
been as a trade learnt in boyhood, to conceive with 
what might, with what inward strivings and commo- 
tion, the perception of a new and vital truth takes 
possession of an uneducated man of genius. His 
meditations are almost inevitably employed on the 
eternal, or the everlasting ; for " the world is not his 
friend, nor the world's law." Need we then be sur- 
prised, that under an excitement at once so strong 
36 



and so unusual, the man's body should sympathize 
with the struggles of his mind ; or that he should at 
times be so liir deluded as to mistake the tumultuous 
sensations of his nerves, and the co-existing spectres 
of his fancy, as parts or symbols of the truths which 
were opening on him ? It has indeed been plausibly 
observed, that in order to derive any advantage, or to 
collect any intelligible meaning, from the writings of 
these ignorant mystics, the reader must bring with 
him a spirit and judgment superior to that of the 
writers themselves: 

" And what lio brings, what needs he elsewhere peek 7" 
Paradise Jiegained. 

— A sophism, which, I fully agree with Warburton, 
is unworthy of Milton; how much more so of the 
awful person, in whose mouth he has placed it? One 
assertion I will venture to make, as suggested by my 
own experience, tliat there exist folios on the human 
understanding, and nature of man, which would have 
a far juster claim to their high rank and celebrity, if 
in the whole huge volume there could be found as 
much fulness of heart and intellect as burst forth in 
many a simple page of George Fox, Jacob Beiime.n 
and even of Behmen's commentator, the pious and 
fervid Willia.m Law. 

The feeling of gratitude which I cherish towards 
these men has caused me to digress further than I 
had foreseen or pro|X)sed ; but to have passed them 
over in an historical sketch of my literary life and 
opinions, would have seemed to me like the denial 
of a debt, the concealment of a boon. For the writ- 
ings of these mystics acted in no slight degree to pre- 
vent my mind from being imprisoned within the out- 
line of any single dogmatic system. They contributed 
to keep alive the heart in the head ; gave me an in- 
distinct, yet stirring and working presentiment, that 
all the products of the mere reflective faculty partook 
of death, and were as the rattling twigs and sprays 
in winter, into which a sap was yet to be propelled 
from some root to which I had not yet penetrated, if 
they were to afford my soul either food or shelter. If 
they were too often a moving cloud of smoke to me 
by day, yet they were always a pillar of fire through- 
out the night, during my wanderings through the 
wilderness of doubt, and enabled me to skirt, without 
crossing, the sandy deserts of utter unbelief That 
the system is capable of being converted into an irre- 
ligious Pantheism, I well know. The Ethics of 
i?fi.No/,A may, or may not, be an instance. But, at no 
time could I believe, that in itself, and essentially, it 
is incompatible with religion, natural or revealed ; 
and now I am most thoroughly persuaded of the con- 
trary. The writings of the illustrioi'is sage of Kon- 
igsbei'g, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more 
than any other work, at once invigorated and disci- 
plined my understanding. The originality, the depth, 
and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and 
subtlety, yet solidity and importance, of the distinc- 
tions ; the adamantine chain of the logic ; and, I will 
venture to add, (paradox as it will appear to those 
who have taken their notion of Emanuel Kant, from 
Ueviewers and Frenchmen,) the clearness and evi- 



Zi^ 



26G 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



dence of the " Critique of the Pure Reason ;" of 
the " Judgment ;" of the " Metaphysical Elements 
OF Natural Philosophy," and of his " Religion 
within the bounds of Pure Reason," took posses- 
sion of me as with a giant's hand. After fifteen j^ears 
familiarity with them, I still read these and all his 
other productions with undiminished delight and in- 
creasing admiration. The few passages that remain- 
ed obscure to me, after due efforts of thought, (as the 
chapter on original apperception,) and the apparent 
contradictions which occur, I soon found were hints 
and insinuations referring to ideas, which Kant either 
did not think it prudent to avow, or which he con- 
sidered as consistently left behind in a pure anaij-sis, 
not of human nature in toto, but of the speculative in- 
tellect alone. Here, therefore, lie was constrained to 
commence at the point of rejlcciion, or natural con- 
sciousness : while in his moral system he was permit- 
ted to assume a higher ground (the autonomy of the 
will) as a postulate deducible from the uncondi- 
tional command, or (in the technical language of his 
school) the categorical imperative, of the conscience. 
He had been in imminent danger of persecution dur- 
ing the reign of the late king of Prussia, that strange 
compound of lawless debauchery', and priest-ridden 
superstition ; and it is probable that he had little in- 
clination, in his old age, to act over again the fortunes 
and hair-breadth escapes of Wolf The expulsion of 
the first among Kant's disciples, who attempted to 
complete his system, from the university of Jena, with 
the confiscation and prohibition of the obnoxious work, 
by the joint efforts of the courts of Saxony and Hano- 
ver, supplied experimental proof, that the venerable 
old man's caution was not groundless. In spite, there- 
fore, of his own declarations, I could never believe it 
was possible for him to have meant no more by his 
Noumenon, or Thing in Itself, than his mere words 
express ; or, that in his own conception he confined 
the whole plastic power to the forms of the intellect, 
leaving for the external cause, fljr the maleriale of our 
sensations, a matter without form, which is doubtless 
inconceivable. I entertained doubts likewise, whe- 
ther, in his own mind, he even laid all the stress, 
which he appears to do, on the moral postulates. 

An IDEA, in the Iiighef:t sense of that word, cannot 
be conveyed but by a symbol; and, except in geome- 
try, all symbols of necessity involve an apparent con- 
tradiction. <t>wv)3S£ Y.vveToiitv : and for those who 
could not pierce through this symbolical husk, his 
writings were not intended. Questions which can- 
not be fully answered without exposing the respond- 
ent to personal danger, are not entitled to a fair an- 
swer; and yet to say this openly, would in many 
cases furnish the very advantage which the adver- 
sary is insidiously seeking after. Veracity does not 
consist in saying, but in the intention of communicat- 
ing truth ; and the philosopher who cannot utter the 
whole truth without conveying falsehood, and at the 
same time, perhaps, exciting the most malignant pas- 
sions, is constrained to express himself either mythi- 
cally or equivocally. When Kant, therefore, was im- 
portuned to settle the disputes of his commentators 



himself, by declaring what he meant, how could he 
decline the honors of martyrdom with less offence 
than by simply replying, " I meant what I said ; and 
at the age of near four score, I have something else, 
and more important to do, than to write a comment- 
ary on my own woriss." 

Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, or Lore of Ultimate 
Science, was to add the key-stone of the arch; and 
by commencing viith an art, instead of a thing or sub- 
stance, Fichte assuredly gave the first mortal blow to 
Spinozism, as taught by Spinoza himself; and sup- 
plied the idea of a system truly metaphysical, and of 
a 7netaphysique truly s\-stematic : (i. e. having its 
spring and principle within itself) But this funda- 
mental idea he overbuilt with a heavy mass of mere 
7wtions, and psychological acts of arbitrary reflection. 
Thus his theory degenerated into a crude egoismus,* 
a boastful and hyperstoic hostility to Nature, as life- 
less, godless, and altogether unholy: while his reli- 
gion consisted in the assumption of a mere ordo or- 
dinans, which we were permitted exoterice to call 
God ; and his ethics in an ascetic, and almost monk- 
ish mortification of the natural passions and desires. 

In Schelling's " Natur-Philosophie," and the 
" System des traxscexdentalen Idealismus," I 
first found a genial coincidence with much that I had 
toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in 
what I had yet to do. 

* The following biirleeque on the Fichtean Egoismus may, 
perhaps, be amusing to the few who have studied the syslem, 
and to those who are undcquainind with it, may convey as 
tolerable a likeness of Fichle's idealism as can be expected 
from an avowed caricature. 

The categorical imperative, or the annunciation of the new 
Teutonic God, EraENKAIIlAN: a ditliyrambic Ode, by 
Qucrkope Von Klubstick, Grammarian, and Subreclor in 
Gymnasio.**** 

Eu ! Dei vices gerens, ipse Divus, 

(Speak Erglish, Friend !)lbe God Tmperativus, 

Here on this market-cross aloud I cry: 

1,1, I! 1 itself I! 

The form and the substance, the what and the why, 

The when and the where, and the low and the high, 

The inside and outside, the earth and the sky, 

I, you, and he, and he, you and 1, 

All souls and all bodies are ! itself I ! 

All I itself I ! 

(Fools, a truco with this startling !) 
All my ( 1 all my I ! 
He's a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin ! 

Thus cried the God with high imperial tone : 

In robe of Bliffi-'^t state, that scoff'd at beauty, 

A pronoun-verb imperative he shone — 

Then substantive and plural-singular grown. 

He thus spake on : Behold in I alone 

(For ethics boast a synlix of their own) 

Or if in ye, yet as I doth depute ye, 

In O ! I, you, the vocative of duly ! 

I of the world's whole Lexicon the root ! 

Of the wliolo universe of touch, sound, sight. 

The genitive and ablative to boot : 

The accusative of wrong, the nom'native of right. 

And in all cnses the case absolute ! 

Self construed, I all other moods decline : 

Imperative, from nothing we derive us ; 

Yet as a super-postulate of mine, 

Unconstrued antecedence I assign 

To X, Y, Z, the God infiuitivus ! 

276 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



2G7 



I have introduced this statement ns appropriate to 
the narrative nature of tiiis sivolcii ; yet rather in 
reference to the woriv which I liavc announced in a 
preceding page, than to my present subject. It would 
be but a mere act of justice to myself, were I to warn 
my future readers, that an identityof thought, or even 
similarity of [ilirase will not be nt all times a certain 
proof that the passage has been borrowed from Schel- 
ling. or that the conceptions were originally learnt 
from him. In this instance, as in the dramatic lec- 
tures of Schlegel to which I have before alluded, 
from the same motive of self-ilelence against the 
charge of plagiarism, many of the most striking rc- 
Bemblances; indeed, all the main and fundamental 
ideas, were born and matured in my mind before I 
had ever seen a single page of the German Philoso- 
pher; and I might indeed, aflirm with truth, be- 
fore the more important worlds of Schelling had been 
written, or at least made public. Nor is this coin- 
cidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied 
in the same school; been disciplined by the same 
preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant; 
we had both equal obligation to the (wlar logic; 
and dynamic philosophy of Giordano Bruno; and 
Schelling has lately, and, as of recent acquisition, 
avowed that same affectionate reverence for the la- 
bors of Behmen, and other mystics, which I had form- 
ed at a much earlier period. The coincidence of 
Schellixg's system with certain general ideas of 
Behmen, he declares to have been i/iere coincidence ; 
while my obligations have been more direct. He 
needs give to Behmen only feelings of sympathy; 
while I owe him a debt of gratilrde. Cod forbid 
that I should be suspected of a wish to enter into a 
rivalry with Schelling for the honors so iineqiiivo- 
cally his right, not only as a groat and original ge- 
nius, but as ihe foimder of the Philosophy of Na- 
ture, and as the most successful improver of the Dy- 
namic System,* which, begun by Bruno, was re-in- 



* h would be an act of high ani] almost criminal injiis'ice 
to pass over in silence the nnme of Mr. Richard Sanmirz, 
a genlleman equally well known as a medical man anil as a. 
philanthropist, but who demand^ notice on the pre?nnt occa- 
sion as the author of "A new Sys'em of Physiology," in 
two volumes octavo, published 1797; and in 1812, of "An 
Examination of the natural and artificial Systems of Philojo- 
phy which now prevnil," in one volume oclnvo, entitled, 
"The Principles of physiological and physical science." 
The latter work is not quite equal to Ihe former in style or 
arransomcnt ; and there is a ereater nece=H!lv of distincruish- 
ine the principles of the auihnr's philnsophy from his conicc- 
turns conccrninir color, the atmospheric matter, comets, &c., 
which, whether just or erroneous, are by no means necessary 
consequences of that philosophy. Yet even in this depart- 
ment of this volume, which I rcenrd as comparatively the in- 
ferior work, Ihe reasonines by which Mr. Paumarez invali- 
dates the immanence of an infinite power in any finite suh- 
Btanco, are the ofTsprinc of no common mind ; and thn 
experiment on the expansibility of the air is at b^aut plausible 
and highly ingenious. But the merit, which will secure Imth 
to the book and to the writer a hieh and honorable name 
witlt posterity, consists in the masterly force of rea«onine, ami 
the copiousness of induction, with which he has assailed, and 
(in my opinion) subverted Ihe tyranny of Ihe mechnnic sys- 
tem in physiology -, established not only the exis'ence of final 
causes, but their necessity and efTiciency in every system that 
merils Ihe name of philosophical -, and substituting life and 



trcxluced (in a more philosophical form, and freed 
from all its impurities and visionary accompaniments) 
by Kant ; in whom it was the native and necessary 
growth of his own system. Kant's followers, how- 
ever, on whom (l()r the greater part) their master's 
cloak had fallen, without, or with a very scanty por- 
lion of, his spirit, had adopted his dynamic ideas only 
as a more refined species of mechanics. With ex- 
ception of one or two fundairentai ideas, which can- 
not be wiihheld from Ficiite to Schelling we owe 
the completion, and the most imfwrtant victories, of 
this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be hap- 
piness and honor enough, should I succeed in render- 
ing the system itself intelligible to my countrymen, 
and in the application of it to the most awful of sub- 
jects for the most important of purposes. Whether a 
work is the offspring of a man's own spirit, and the 
product of original thinking, will be discovered by 
those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better 
tests than the mere reference to dates. For readers 
in general, let whatever shall be found in this, or 
any future work of mine, that resembles, or coincides 
with, the doctrines of my German predecessor, though 
contemporary, be wholly attributed to him : provided, 
that the absence of distinct references to his books, 
which I could not at all times make with truth as de- 
signating citations or thoughts actually derived from 
him, and which, I trust, would, afier this general ac- 
knowledgment, be superlltious, be not charged on me 
as an ungenerous concealment or intentional plagiar- 
ism. I have not indeed (oheu ! res angusta domi !) 
been hilherto able to procure more than two of his 
books, viz: the first volinne of his collected Tracts, 
and his System of Transcendental Idealism ; to which, 
however, I must add a small pamphlet against Fichte, 
the spirit of which was to m.}/ feelings painfully in- 
congruous with the principles, and which (with the 
usual allowance afforded to an aniilhesis) displayed 
the love of wi.sdom rather than iho wisdom of love. 
I regard truth as a divine ventriloquist: I care not 
from whose mouth the soimds are supposed to proceed, 
if only the words are audible and intelligible. " Albeit, 
I must confess to be half in doubt, whether I should 
bring it forth or no, it being so contrary to the eye of 
the world, and the world so potent in most men's 
hearts, that I shall endanger either not to be regarded 
or not to be understood." — Milton: Reason of 
Church Government. 



progressive power, for the contradictory inert force, has a 
right to be known and remembered as the first instaurator of 
the dynamic pliilosophy in Bngland. The author's views, as 
far as cimcerns himself, are unborrowed and completely his 
own, as be neither possossed, nor do his writings discover, 
the least acquaintance with the works of Kant, in which the 
gernij; of iihilosuphy exist, and his volunica were published 
many years before Iho full development of these germs by 
Scbeliinir. Mr. Sauniare-.s's detection of ihe Brunonian sys- 
tem was no lisht or ordinary service at Iho lime; and I 
scarcely remember in any work on any subject a confutation 
so thoriiuglily siitisfaclory. It is suflicient at this time to have 
staled the fact; as in Ihe preface to the work, which 1 have 
already announced on the Logos, I have exhibited in detail 
Iho mori's of this writer and genuine philosopher who need- 
ed only have taken his foundations somewhat deeper and 
wider to have pupersoded a coneiderablo part of my labors. 
277 



268 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



And to conclude the subject of citation, with a 
cluster of citations, which, as taken from books not 
in common use, may contribute to the reader's amuse- 
ment, as a voluntary before a sermon. 

" Dolet mihi quidem deliciis literarum inescatos 
subito jam homines adeo esse, preesertim dui Christ- 
ianos se profitentur, et legere nisi quod ad delectation- 
em facit, sustineant nihil : unde et disfiplinac severio 
res et philosophia ipsa jam fere prorsus etiam a doctis 
negliguntur. Quod quidem propositum studiorum, 
nisi mature corrigitur, tarn magnum rebus incom- 
modum dabit, quam dedit Barbaries olim. Pertinax 
res Barbaries est, fateor: sed minus potest tamen, 
quam ilia mollities et persuasa prudentia literarum, 
qu8B si ralione caret, sapientiE virtutisqne specie 
mortales misere circumducit. Succedet igitur, ut 
arbitror, baud ita multo post, pro rusticana seculi 
nostri rudilate captatrix ilia commitniloqiieniia robur 
animi virilis omne, omnem virtutem masculam profli- 
gatura, nisi cavetur." 

Simon Gryn^eus, candido lectori, prefixed to the 
Latin translation of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus. 
Lugduni, 1557. A too prophetic remark, which has 
been in fulfdment from the year 1G80 to the present, 
1815. N. B. By " persuasa prudentia," Grynseus 
means self complacent common sense as opposed to 
science and philosophic reason. 

" Est medius ordo et velut eqnestris Ingeniorum 
quidem sagacium et rebus humanis commodorum, 
non tamen in primam magnitudinem patentium. 
Eorum hominum, ut ita dicam, major annona est. 
Sedulum esse, nihil temere loqui, assuescere labori, 
et imagine prudentise et modestias tegere angustiores 
partes captus dum exercitationem et usum, quo isti 
in civilibus rebus pollent, pro natura et magnitudine 

ingenii plerique accipiunt." Barclaii Argenis, 

p. 71. 

" As therefore physicians are many times forced to 
leave such methods of curing as themselves know to 
be fittest, and, being over-ruled by the sick man's 
impatience, are fain to try the best they can ; in like 
sort, considering how the case doth stand with the 
present age, full of tongue and weak of brain, behold 
we would {if our subject ■permitted it) yield to the 
stream thereof. That way we would be contented 
to prove our thesis, which, being the worse in itself, 
notwithstanding, is now, by reason of common im- 
becility, the fitter and likelier to be brooked." 

Hooker. 

If this fear could be rationally entertained in the 
controversial age of Hooker, under the then robust 
discipline of the scholastic logic, pardonably may a 
writer of the present times anticipate a scanty audi- 
ence for abstrusest themes, and truths that can neither 
be communicated nor received without effort of 
thought, as well as patience of attention. 

" Che s'io non erro al calcular de' punti. 
Par ch' Asinini Stella a noi predomini, 
E'l Somaro e'l caslron si sian congiunti 
11 tempo d'Apulcio plu non si noniini : 
Che se alloro un sol Huom sembrava un Asino 
Mille Aeini a miei di rassemlirun Huomini !" 

Di Salcatcr Rosa, Satir. 1. 1. 10. 



CHAPTER X. 

A chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude pre 
ceding that on the nature and genesis of the imagination or 
plastic power — On pedantry and pedantic expressions — Ad- 
vice to young authors respecting publication — Various 
anecdotes of the author's literary life, and the progress of 
his opinions in religion and politics. 

" EsE.MPLASTic. TTie word is not in Johnson, nvi 
have I met with it elsewhere." Neither have I ! I 
constructed it myself from the Greek word tij ev 
TrXarrcrv, i. e. to shape into one ; because, having to 
convey a new sense, I thought that a new term 
would both aid the recollection of my meaning, and 
prevent its being confounded with the usual import 
of the word imagination. " But this is pedantry ! " 
Not necessarily so, J hope. If I am not misinformed, 
pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to 
the time, place, and company. The language of the 
market would be in the schools as pedantic, though 
it might not be reprobated by that name, as the lan- 
guage of the schools in the market. The mere man of 
the world, who insists that no other terms but such as 
occur in common conversation should be employed 
in a scientific disquisition, and, with no greater pre- 
cision, is as truly vl pedant as the man of letters, who, 
either over-rating the acquirements of his auditors, 
or misled by his own familiarity with teclmical or 
scholastic terms, converses at the wine-table with 
his mind fixed on his musaeum or laboratory ; even 
though the latter pedant, instead of desiring his wife 
to make the tea, should bid her add to the quant. sufE 
of tliea sinensis the oxyd of hydrogen saturated with 
caloric. To use the colloquial (and in truth, some- 
what vulgar) metaphor, if the pedant of the cloister, 
and the pedant of the lobby, both synell equally of 
the shop, yet the odour from the Russian binding of 
good old authentic-looking folios and quartos, is less 
annoying than the steams from the tavern or bagnio. 
Nay, though the pedantry of the scholar should be- 
tray a little ostentation, yet a well-conditioned mind 
would more easily, methinks, tolerate the fox brush 
of learned vanity, than the sans culotierie of a con 
temptuous ignorance, that a.ssumes a merit from mu- 
tilation in the selfconsoling sneer at the pompous 
incumbrance of tails. 

The first lesson of philosophic discipline is to wean 
the student's attention from the degrees of things, 
which alone form the vocabulary of common life, 
and to direct it to the kind, abstracted from degree 
Thus the chemical student is taught not to be startled 
at disquisitions on heat in ice, or on latent and fixible 
light. In such discourse, the instructor ha.s no other 
alternative than either to use old words with new 
meanings, (the plan adopted by Darwin in his Zoono- 
mia,) or to introduce new terms, after the example of 
Linnrcus, and the framers of the present chemical 
nomenclature. The latter mode is evidently prefer- 
able, were it only that the former demands a two- 
fold exertion of thought in one and the same act. 
For the reader (or hearer) is required not only to learn 
and bear in mind the new definition, but to unlearn, 
and keep out of his view, the old and habitual mean- 
278 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



269 



ing ; a far more difTicult and perplexing task, and for 
whicli the mere semblance of eschewing pedantry 
seems to me an inadequate compensation. Where, 
indeed, it is in our power to recall an appropriate 
terra that had, without suHlcient reason, become 
obsolete, it is doubtless a less evil to restore than to 
coin anew. Thus, to express in one word all that 
appertains to the perception considered as passive, 
and merely recipient, I have adopted from our elder 
classics the word sensuous; because seiisudi is not at 
present used except in a bad sense, or al least as a 
moral distinction, while seiisilive and setisiUe would 
each-convey a different meaning. Thus, too, I have 
followed llookec Sanderson, Milton, &c. in desig- 
nating the immed lateness of any act or object of 
knowledge by the word intuition, used sometimes 
subjectively, sometimes objectively, even as we use 
the word thought ; now as the thought, or act of 
thinking, and now as a thought, or llie object of our 
reflection : and we do this without confusion or ob- 
scurity. The very wonls objective and subjectltie, 
of such constant recurrence in the schools of yore, 
I have ventured to re-iniroduce, because I could not 
80 briefly, or conveniently, by any more familiar 
terms, distinguish the percipere from the percipi. 
Lastly, I have cautiously discriminated the terms, 
the REASO.v, and the undekstandi.ng, encouraged 
and confirmed by the authority of our genuine divines 
and philosophers, before the revolution : 

" both life, and sense. 



Fancy, and umlerstanding : whence the soul 
Reason receives, and reason is her being. 
Discursive or intuitive. Discourse* 
Is oftesi your's, the lalter most is our's. 
Differing but in degree, in kind the same." 

Paradise Lost, Book V. 

I say, that I was confirmed by authority so venera- 
ble ; for I had previous and higher motives in my 
own conviction of the importance, nay, of the neces- 
sity of the distinction, as Iwth an indispensable con- 
dition and a vital part of all sound speculation in 
metaphysics, ethical or theological. To establish this 
distinction was one main object of The Friend; if 
even in a biography of my own literary life I can 
with propriety refer to a work which was printed 
rather than published, or so published that it had 
been well for the unfortunate author if it had re- 
mained in manuscript! I have even at this time 
bitter cause for remembering that which a number 
of my subscribers have but a trifling motive for for- 
getting. This effusion might have been spared; but I 
would fain flatter myself that the reader will be less 
austere than an oriental professor of the bastinado, 
who, during an attempt to extort per argumentum 
baculinum a full confession from a culprit, interrupt- 
ed his outcry of pain by reminding him that it was 

* But for sundry notes on Shakspearc, &c. which have 
fallen in my way, 1 should have deemed it unnecessary to 
observe, that discourse here, or elsewhere, does not mean 
what we now call discoursing ; but the discursion of the 
mind, the processes of generalization and suhsumption, of 
deduction and conclusion. Thus philosophy has hitherto been 
discursive, while Geometry is always and essenliatli/, in- 
tuitive. 



" a mere digression .'" All this noise, sir, is nothing 
to the point, and no sort of answer to my questions! 
Ah ! but (replied the sufferer) it is the most pertinent 
reply in nature to your blows. 

An imprudent man, of common goodne.«s of heart, 
cannot but wish to turn even his imprudences to the 
benefit of others, as far as this is possible. If, there- 
fore, any one of the readers of this semi-narrative 
should be preiviring or intending a periodical work, I 
warn him, in the first place, against trusting in the 
number of names on his subscription list. For he 
cannot be certain that the names were put down by 
siitlicient authority ; or should that be ascertained, it 
still remains to be known, whether they were not 
extorted by some over-zealous friend's importunity ; 
whether the subscriber had not yielded his name 
merely from want of courage to answer no ! and with 
the intention of dropping the work as soon as possible. 
One gentleman procured me nearly a hundred names 
for The Friend, and not only took frequent opjiortu- 
nity to remind me of his success in his canvass, but 
labored to impress my mind with the sense of 
the obligation I was under to the subscribers ; for (as 
he very pertinently admonished me) "ffly-two shil- 
linirs a year was a large sum to be bestowed on one 
individual, where there were so many objects of 
charity with strong claims to the assistance of the 
benevolent." Of these hundred patrons ninety threw 
up the publication before the fourth number, without 
any notice ; though it was w ell known to them, that 
in consequence of the distance, and slowness and 
irregularity of the conveyance, I was compelled to 
lay in a stock of stamped paper for at least eight 
weeks beforehand ; each sheet of which stood me in 
five pence previous to its arrival at my printer's ; 
though the subscription money w as not to be received 
till the twenty-first week after the commencement 
of the work ; and lastly, though it was in nine cases 
out often impracticable for me to receive the money 
for two or three numbers, without paying an equal 
sum for the postage. 

In confirmation of ray first caveat, I will select one 
fact among many. On my list of subscribers, among 
a considerable number of names equally flattering, 
was that of an Earl of Cork, with his address. He 
might as well have been an L'arl of Bottle, for aught 
/ knew of him, who had been content to reverence 
the peerage in abstracto, rather than in concretis. 
Of course. The Friend was regularly sent as far, if 
I remember right, as the eighteenth number, i. e. till 
a fortnight before the subscription was to be paid 
And lo! just at this time I received a letter from his 
lordship, reproving me in language far more lordly 
than courteous, for my impudence in directing my 
pamphlets to him, who knew nothing of me or my 
work ! Seventeen or eighteen numbers of which, 
however, his lordship was plea.sed to retain, probably 
for the culinary or ]iost-culinary conveniences of his 
servants. 

Sec#idly, I warn all others from the attempt to 

deviate from the ordinary mode of publishing a work 

by the trade. I thought, indeed, that to the purchaser 

it was indifferent, whether thirty per cent, of the 

279 



270 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



purchase-monoy went to the booksellers or to the 
government; and that the convenience of receiv- 
ing the work by the post at his own door would give 
the preference to the latter. It is hard, I own, to 
have been laboring for years, in collecling and ar- 
ranging the materials; to have spent every shilling 
that could be spared after the necessaries of life had 
been furnished, in buying books, or in journeys for the 
purpose of consulting them, or of acquiring facts at 
the fountain head ; then to buy the paper, pay for the 
printing, &c. ail at least fifteen per cent, beyond what 
the trade would have paid ; and then, alter all, to 
give thirty per cent, not of the nett profits, but of the 
gross results of the sale, to a man who has merelj' to 
give the books shelf or warehouse room, and permit 
his apprentice to hand them over the counter to those 
who may ask for them ; and this, too, copy by copy, 
although, if the work be on any philosophical or sci- 
entific subject, it may be years before the edition is 
eold off All this, I confess, must seem a hardship, 
and one to which the products of industry in no other 
mode of exertion are subject. Yet even this is bet- 
ter, far better, than to attempt in any way to unite 
the functions of author and publisher. But the most 
prudent mode is to sell the copy-right, at least of one 
or more editions, for the most that the trade will offer. 
By few, only, can a large remuneration be expected ; 
but fifty pounds and ease of mind are of more real 
advantage to a literary man, than the chance of five 
hundred, with the certainty of insult and degrading 
anxieties. I shall have been grievously misunder- 
stood, if this statement should be interpreted as writ- 
ten with the desire of detracting from the character 
of booksellers or publishers. The individuals did not 
make the laws and customs of their trade ; but, as in 
every other trade, take them as they find them. Till 
the evil can be proved to be removable, and without 
the substitution of an equal or greater inconvenience, 
it were neither wise nor manly even to complain of 
it. But to use it as a pretext for speaking, or even 
for thinking, or feeling, unkindly or opprobriously of 
the tradesmen as individuals, would be something 
worse than unwise or even than unmanly ; it would 
be immoral and calumnious ! My motives point in a 
far different direction, and to far other objects, as 
will be seen in the conclusion of the chapter. 

A learned and exemplary old clergyman, who 
many years ago went to his reward, followed by the 
regrets and blessings of his flock, published, at his 
own expense, two volumes octavo, entitled, a new 
Theory of Redemption. The work was most severely 
handled in the Monthly or Critical Review, I forget 
which; and this unprovoked hostility became the 
good old man's favorite topic of conversation among 
his friends. Well ! (he used to exclaim,) in the se- 
cond edition, I shall have an opportunity of exposing 
both the ignorance and the malignity of the anony- 
mous critic. Two or three years, however, passed 
by without any tidings from the bookseller who had 
undertaken the printing and publication of thPwork, 
and who wa.s perfectly at his ease, as the author was 
known to be a man of large property. At length the 
accounts were written for; and in the course of a few 



weeks they were presented by the rider for the house, 
in person. My old friend put on his spectacles, aiid 
holding the scroll with no very firm hand, began — 
Paper, so muck: O, moderate enough — not at all 
beyond my expectation I Printing, so much : Well ! 
moderate enough ! Stitching, covers, advertisements, 
carriage, <^c. so much : Still nothing amiss. Seller- 
idge, (for orthography is no necessary part of a book- 
seller's literary acquirements ) £3. 'Ss. Bless me ! 
only three guineas for the what d'ye call it ? the sell- 
eridge ? No more, sir, replied the rider. Nay, but 
that is too moderate ! rejoined my old friend. Only 
three guineas for selling a thousand copies of a work 
in two volumes ? O sir! (cries the young traveller,) 
you have mistaken the word. There have been none 
of them sold ; they have been sent back from London 
long ago ; and this .£3. 3,<!. is for the cellaridge, or 
warehouse-room in our book cellar. The work was 
in consequence preferred from the ominous cellar of 
the publisher to the author's garret ; and on present- 
ing a copy to an acquaintance, the old gentleman 
used to tell the anecdote with great humor, and still 
greater good nature. 

With equal lack of w"orldly knowledge, I was a far 
more than equal sufferer for it, at the very outset of 
my authorship. Toward the close of the first year 
from the time that, in an inauspicious hour, I left the 
friendly cloisters, and the happy grove of quiet, ever 
honored Jesus College, Cambridge, I was persuaded 
by sundry Philanthropists and Anti-polemisis, to set 
on foot a periodical work, entitled The Watchman, 
that (according to the general motto of the work) aU 
might know the truth, and that the truth might make us 
free ! In order to exempt it from the stamp tax, and 
likewise to contribute as little as possible to the sup- 
posed guilt of a war against freedom, it was to be 
published on every eighth day, thirty-two pages, 
large octavo, closely printed, and price only four 
PENCE. Accordingly, with a flaming prospectus, 
" Krwivlcdge is Power," <^c. to try the state of the po- 
litical atmosphere, and so forth, I set off on a tour to 
the north, from Bristol to Sheffield, for the purpose 
of procuring customers, preaching by the way in most 
of the great towns, as an hireless volunteer, in a blue 
coat and vi'hite waistcoat, that not a rag of the woman 
of Babylon might be seen on me. For I was at that 
time, and long after, though a Trinitarian (i. e. ad 
normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unita- 
rian in religion ; more accuratelj', I was a psilanthro- 
pist, one of those who believe our Lord to have been 
the real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress 
on the resurrection rather than on the crucifixion. 
O! never can I remember those days with either 
shame or regret. For I was most sincere, most dis- 
interested ! My opinions were, indeed, m many and 
most important points, erroneous; but my heart was 
single. Wealth, rank, life itself, then seemed cheap 
to me, compared with the interests of (what I believed 
to be) the truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot 
even accuse myself of having been actuated by va- 
nity ; for in the expansion of my enthusiasm, I did 
not think of myself at all. 

My campaign commenced at Birmingham ; and my 
280 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



271 



first attaf-k wxs on a rigid Calvinist, a tallow chan- 
dler by trade. He was a tall dinsry man, in whom 
length was so predominant over breadth, that he 
might almost have been borrowed for a foundery 
poker. O that face ! a face KaT'ttiiia^iv ! I have it be- 
fore me at this moment The lank, black, twine-like 
hair, piniim iiiteacent, cut in a strait line along the 
black stubble of his thin j^impowder eyo-brows, that 
looked like a scorched after-mnlh from a last week's 
shaving. His coat collar behind in perfect unison, 
both of colour and lustre, with the coarse yet glib 
cordage, that I suppose he called his hair, and which 
with a bend inward at the nape of the neck, (the only 
approach to flexure in hi.s whole figure,) slunk in be- 
hind his waistcoat ; while the countenance, lank, 
dark, very hard, and with strong perpendicular fur- 
rows, gave me a dim notion of some one looking at 
me through a used gridiron, all stwt, grease and iron! 
But he was one of the thormiirh Ired, a true lover of 
liberty, and (I was informed) had proved to the satis- 
faction of many, that Mr. Pitt was one of the horns 
of the second beast in the Revelations, that spoJie Zi'Ae 
a dragon. A person, to whom one of my letters of 
recommendation had been addressed, was my intro- 
ducer. It was a new event in my life, my first .^troTce 
in the new business I had undertaken of an author, 
yea, and of an author trading on his own account. 
My companion, after some imperfect sentences, and 
a multitude of hums and haas, abandoned the cause 
to his client ; and I commenced an harangue of half 
an hour to Phileleutheros, the tallow chandler, vary- 
ing my notes through the whole gamul of eloquence, 
from the ratiocinative to the declamatory, and in the 
latter from the pathetic to the indignant. I argued, I 
described, I promised, I prophesied ; and beginning 
with the captivity of nations, I ended with the near 
approach of the millennium, finishing the whole with 
some of my own verses describing that glorious state, 
out of the Religious Musings : 

-Such delights, 



As float to earth, permittod visitants ! 
When in some hour of solemn jubilee 
The massive pates of Paradise are thrown 
Wide open : and forth dime in fragments wild 
Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies. 
And odours snatch'd from beds of amaranth. 
And they that from the crystal river of life 
Spring up on freshen'd winps, ambrosial sales ! 

Religious Musings, 1. 35G. 

My taper man of lights listened with perseverant 
and praiseworthy patience, though (as I was after- 
wards told on complaining of certain gales that were 
not altogether ambrosial) it was a melting day with 
him. And what. Sir, (he said, after a short pause) 
mignt the cost be ? Onhj rouR-Pf;NCK, (O I how I felt 
the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos of that four- 
pence!) only four-pence, Sir, each ntimler to be pub- 
lished on every eighth day. That comes to a deal of 
money at the end of a year. And how much did you 
say there was to be for the money ? Thirty-two pages. 
Sir .' large octavo, closely printed. Thirty and two 
pages! Ble.ss me! why, except what I does in a 
family way on the Sabbath, that's more than I ever 
reads, Sir, all the year round I am as great a one, 
19 Z 



as any man in Brummagem, Sir ! for liberty and truth, 
and all them sort of things, but as to this, (no offence, 
1 hope. Sir!) I must beg to be excused. 

So ended my first canvass ; from causes that I shall 
presently mention, I made but one other application 
in person. This took place at Manchester, \o a stately 
and.opulent wholesale dealer in cottons. He took my 
letter of introduction, and having perused it, mea- 
sured me from head to f(K)|, and again from foot to 
head, and then asked if I had any bill or invoice of 
the thing; T presented my prospectus to him; he ra- 
pidly skimmed and hummed over the first side, and 
siill more rapidly the second and concluding page; 
crushed it within his fingers and the palm of his 
hand ; then, most deliberately and significantly 
rubbed and smoothed one part against the other; 
and, lastly, putting it into his pocket, turned his back 
on me with an " over-run with these articles !" and so, 
without another syllable, retired into his counting- 
house; and, I can truly say, to my unspeakable 
amusement. 

This, I have said, was my second and last attempt. 
On returning baffled from the first, in which I had 
vainly essayed to repeat the miracle of Orpheus with 
the Brummagem patriot, I dined with the tradesman 
who had introduced me to him. Afler dinner, he im- 
portuned mo to smoke a pipe with him, and two or 
three other illuminati of the same rank. I objected, 
both because I was engaged to spend the evening 
with a minister and his friends, and because I had 
never smoked except once or twice in my life lime, 
and then it was herb tobacco mixed with Oronooko. 
On the assurance, however, that the tobacco was 
equally mild, and seeing, too, that it was of a yellow 
colour, (not forgetting the lamentable difficulty I have 
always experienced in saying no! and in abstaining 
from what the people alxjut me were doing,) I took 
half a pipe, filling the lower part of the bowl with 
salt. I was soon, however, compelled to resign it in 
consequence of a giddiness and distressful feeling in 
my eyes, which, as I had drimk but a single glass of 
ale, must, I knew, have been the effect of the tobac- 
co. Soon after, deeming myself recovered, I sallied 
forth to my engagement, but the walk and the fresh 
air brought on all the symptoms again, and I had 
scarcely entered the minister's drawing room, and 
opened a small pacquct of letters, which he had re- 
ceived from Bristol for me, ere I sunk back on the 
sofa in a sort of swoon rather than sleep. Fortunate- 
ly, I had found just time enough to inform him of the 
C(mfiised slate of my feelings, and of the occasion. 
For here and thus I lay. my face like a wall that is 
white-washing, deathly pale, and with the cold drope 
of perspiration running down it from my forehead, 
while, one after another, there dropt in the different 
gentlemen who had been invited to meet and spend 
the evening with me, to the number of from fifteen 
to twenty. As the poison of tobacco acts but for a 
short time, I at length awoke from insensibility, and 
looked roinid on the party, my eyes dazzled by the 
candles which had been lighted in the interim. By 
way of relieving my embarrassment, one of the gen- 
tlemen began the conversation, with "Have you seen 

281 



272 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



a paper to-day, Mr. Coleridge?" Sir! (I replied, rub- 
bing my eyes,) " I am far from convinced, that a 
Christian is permitted to read either newspapers or 
any other works of merely political and temporary 
interest." This remark, so ludicrously inapposite to, 
or, rather, incongruous with, the purpose lor which I 
was known to have visited Birmingham, and to assist 
me in which they were all then met, produced an 
involuntary and general burst of laughter ; and sel- 
dom, indeed, have I passed so many delightful hours, 
as I enjoyed in that room from the moment of that 
laugh to an early hour the next morning. Never, 
perhaps, in so mixed and numerous a party, have 1 
since heard conversation sustained wiih such anima- 
tion, enriched with such variety of information, and 
enlivened with such a flow of anecdote. Both then 
and afterwards, they all joined in dissuading me from 
proceeding with my scheme ; assured me, in the most 
friendly, and yet most flattering expressions, that the 
employment was neither fit foi me, nor I fit for the 
employment. Yet if I had determined on persevering 
in it, they promised to exert themselves to the utmost 
to procure subscribers, and insisted that I should make 
no more applications in person, but carry on the can- 
vass by proxy. The same hospitable reception, the 
same dissuasion, and, (that fciiling,) the same kind ex- 
ertions in my behalf, I met with at Manchester, 
Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, indeed, at every place 
in which I took up my sojourn. I often recall with 
aflTectionate pleasure the many respectable men who 
interested themselves for me, a perfect stranger to 
them, not a few of whom 1 can still name among my 
friends. They will bear witness for me, how oppo- 
site even then my principles were to those of jacobin- 
ism, or even of democracy, and can attest the strict 
accuracy of the statement which I have left on 
record in the 10th and 11th numbers of The 
Friend. 

From this rememberable tour I returned with nearly 
athousand names on the subscription listof the Watch- 
man ,• yet more than half convinced, that prudence 
dictated the abandonment of the scheme. But for 
this very reason I persevered in it; for I was at that 
period of my life so completely hag-ridden by the fear 
of being influenced by selfish motives, that to know 
a mode of conduct to be the dictate of prudence, was 
a sort of presumptive proof to my feelings, that the 
contrary was the dictate of duly. Accordingly, I 
coraraenced the work, viliich was announced in Lon- 
don by long bills, in letters larger than had ever been 
seen before, and which (I have been informed, for I 
did not see them myself) eclipsed the glories even of 
the lottery puffs. But, alas ! the publication of the 
very first number was delayed beyond the day an- 
nounced for its appearance. In the second number, 
an essay against fast days, with a most censurable ap- 
plication of a text from Isaiah for its motto, lost me 
near five hundred of my subscribers at one blow. In 
the two following numbers I made enemies of all my 
Jacobin and Democratic patrons ; for, disgusted by 
their infidelity, and their adoption of French morals 
with French philosophy ; and perhaps thinking, that 
charity ought to begin nearest home; instead of 



abusing the Government and the Aristocrats chiefly 
or entirely, as had been expected of me, I levelled 
my attacks at "modern patriotism," and even ven- 
tured to declare my belief, that whatever the motives 
of ministers might have been for the sedition (or as it 
was then the fashion to call them, the gagging) bills, 
yet, the bills themselves viould produce an effect to 
bedesired by all the true friends of freedom, as far as 
they should contribute to deter men from openly de- 
claiming on subjects, the principles of which they had 
never bottomed, and from " pleading to the poor and 
ignorant, instead of pleading/or them." At the same 
time I avowed my conviction, that national educa- 
tion, and a concurring spread of the gospel, were the 
indispensable condition of any true political amelio- 
ration. Thus, by the lime the seventh number was 
published, I had the mortification (but why should I 
say this, when, in truth, I cared too little for anything 
that concerned my worldly interests to be at all mor- 
tified about it ?) of seeing the preceding numbers ex- 
posed in sundry old iron-shops for a penny apiece. 
At the ninth number I dropt the work. But from 
the London publisher I could not obtain a shilling; 

he was a and set me at defiance. From other 

places I procured but little, and after such delays as 
rendered that little worth nothing ; and I should have 
been inevitably thrown into jail by my Bristol print- 
er, who refused to wait even for a month for a sum 
between eighty and ninety pounds, if the money had 
not been paid for me by a man by no means affluent, 
a dear friend who attached himself to me from my 
first arrival at Bristol, who has continued my friend 
with a fidelity unconquered by time or even by my 
own apparent neglect ; a friend from whom I never 
received an advice that was not wise, or a remon- 
strance that was not gentle and affectionate. 

Conscientiously an opponent of the first revolu- 
tionary war, yet with my eyes thoroughly opened to 
the true character and impotence of the favorers of 
revolutionary principles in England, principles which 
I held in abhorrence (for it was part of my political 
creed, that whoever ceased to act as an individual 
by making himself a member of any society not sanc- 
tioned by his government, forfeited the rights of a 
citizen) — a vehement anti-ministerialist, but after the 
invasion of Switzerland, a more vehement anti-galli- 
can, and still more intensely an anti-jacobin, I retired 
to a cottage at Stowey, and provided for my scanty 
maintenance by writing verses for a London Morning 
Paper. I saw plainly, that literature was not a pro- 
fession by which I could expect to live ; for 1 could 
not disguise from myself, that whatever my talents 
might or might not be in other respects, yet Ihey were 
not of the sort that could enable me to become a pop- 
ular writer ; and that whatever my opinions might 
be in themselves, they W'ere almost equi-distant from 
all the three prominent parlies, the Pittites, the Fox- 
ites, and the Democrats. Of the unsaleable nature 
of my writings I had an amusing memento one 
morning from my own servant girl. For happening 
to rise at an earlier hour than usual, I observed her 
putting an extravagant quantity of paper into the 
grate in order to light the fire, and mildly checked 
282 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



273 



her for her wastefulness; la, Sir! (replied poor Nan- 
ny,) why, it is only " Watciimkx." 

I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study 
of ethics and ^^sychology ; aiul sn profound was my 
admiration at tliis time of Hun ley's l^ssays on Man, 
that I gave his name to my first torn. In addition 
to the gentleman, my neightour, whose garden joined 
on to my little orchard, ami tlie cultivation of whose 
friendship had been my sole motive in choosing 
Stowey ibr my re.=idence, I was so fortunate as to 
acquire, shortly after my settlement there, an inval- 
uable blessing in the society and neighborhood of 
Diie, to whom I could look up with equal reverence, 
whether 1 regarded him as a poet, a philosojiher, or 
a man. His conversation e.xtended to almost all sub- 
jects, except physics and politics ; with the latter he 
never troubled himself Yet neither my retirement 
nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the 
day could secure me in those jealous limes from sus- 
picion and obloquy, which did not stop at me, but 
extended to my excellent friend, whose peifect inno- 
cence was even adduced as a proof of hi;- guilt. One 
of the many busy sijcopkan/s* of that day (I here use 
tlie word sycophant in its original sense, as a wretch 
who Jlallcrs the prevailing party by hiforrning against 
his neighbors, under pretence that ihey are exjjorters 
of prohibited^/TS or fancies! for the moral application 
of the term it matters not which) — one of these syco- 
phantic law-mongrels, discoursing on the politics of 
the neighbourhood, uttered the following dcpp re- 
mark : " As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm 
in liim, for he is a whirlbrain that talks whatever 

comes uppermost; but that ! he is the dark 

traitor. You never heard him say a syllable on the 
subject." 

Now that the hand of Providence has disciplined 
all Europe into sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, 
by alternate blows and caresses ; now that English- 
men of all classes are restored to their old English 
notions and feelings, it will with difficulty be credit- 
ed, how great an influence was at that time possessed 
and exerted by the spirit of secret defamation, (the 
too constant attendant on party zeal !) during the rest- 
less interim from 1793 to the commencement of the 
Addinglon administration, or the year before the 
truce of Amiens. For by the latter period the minds 
of the partisans, exhausted by excess of stimulation, 
and humbled by mutual disappointment, had become 
languid. The same causes that inclined the nation 
to peace, disposed the individuals to reconciliation. 
Both parties had found themselves in the wrong. 
The one had confessedly mistaken the moral charac- 
ter of the revolution, and the other had miscalculated 
both its moral and its physical resources. The ex- 
periment was made at the price of great, almost we 
may say, of humiliating sacrifices ; and wise men 
foresaw that it would fail, at least in its direct and 
ostensible object. Yet it was purchased cheaply, 
and realized an object of equal value, and, if pos- 
sible, of still more vital imporiance. For it brought 

* SuKKf ipaivav, to show ordeteei fiee, llic pxportatinn of 
which, trora Attica, was forliidilen by the laws. 

37 



about a national unanimity, unexampled in our hia 
lory since the reign of Elizabeth ; and Providence, 
never wanting to n good work when men have done 
their parts, soon provided a common focus in the 
cause of Spain, which made us all once more Eng- 
lishmen, by at once gratifying and correcting the 
predilections of lx>th parlies. The sincere reverers 
of the throne (elt the cause of loyally ennobled by 
its alliance with that of freedom ; while the honest 
zealots of the people could not but admit that freedom 
itself assumed a more winning form, humanized by 
loyalty, and consecrated by religious principle. The 
youthful enthusiasts, who, flattered by the morning 
rainbow of the French revolution, had made a boast 
of expatriating their hopes and fears, now disciplined 
by the succeeding storms, and sobered by increase 
of years, had been taught to prize and honor the 
spirit of nationality as the best safeguard of national 
independence, and this again as the absolute prere- 
quisite and necessary basis of popular rights. 

Ff in Spain, too, disappf)intmeiit has nipt our too 
forward expeclations, yet all is not destroyed that Is 
checked. The crop was perhaps springing up too 
rank in the stalk to kern well ; and there were, 
doubtless, symptoms of the Galilean blight on it If 
superstition and despotism have been suffered to let 
in their wolvish sheep to trample and eat it down 
even to the surface, yet the roots remain alive, and 
the second growth may prove all the stronger and 
healthier for the temporary interruption. At all 
events, to us heaven has been just and gracious. 
The people of England did their best, and have re- 
ceived their rewards. Long may we continue to 
deserve it ! Causes, which it had been too generally 
the habit of former statesmen to regard as belonging 
to another world, are now admitted, by all ranks, to 
have been the main agents of our success. " We f might 
from heaven ; the stars in their courses fought against 
Sisera." If, then, unanimity, grounded on moral 
feelings, has been among the least equivocal sources 
of our national glory, that man deserves the esteem 
of his countrymen, even as patriots, who devotes his 
life and the utmost eflforts of his intellect to the pre- 
servation and continuance of that unanimity by the 
disclosure and establishment of principle. For by 
these all opinions must be ultimately tried ; and (as 
the feelings of men are worthy of regai-d only as far 
as they are the representatives of their fixed opinions) 
on the knowledge of these, all unanimity, not acci- 
dental and fleeting, must be grounded. Let the 
scholar who doubts this assertion, refer only to the 
speeches and writings of Ed.mund Burke, at the 
conmiencemeni of the American war, and compare 
them with his speeches and writings at the com- 
mencement of the French revolution. lie will find 
the principles exactly the same, and th-e deductions 
the same; but the practical inferences almost of^ 
posite, in the one case, from those drawn in the 
other; yet in both eijually legitimate, and in both 
equally confirmed by the results. Whence gained 
he this superiority of foresight ? Whence arose the 
striking difference, and, in most instances, even the 
discrepancy between the grounds assigned by A/m, 
283 



274 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



and by those who voted with him, on the same 
questions ? How are we to explain the notorious 
fact, that the speeches and writings of Edmund 
Burke are more interesting at the present day than 
they were (bimd at the time of their first publication ; 
while those of his illustrious confederates are either 
forgotten, or exist only to furnish proofs that the same 
conclusion which one man had deduced scientifically, 
7nayhe brought out by another, in consequence of 
errors that luckily chanced to neutralize each other? 
It would be unhandsome as a conjecture, even were 
it not, as it actually is, false in point of fact, to at- 
tribute this difference to deficiency of talent on the 
part of Burke's friends, or of experience, or of his- 
torical knowledge. The satisfactory solution is, that 
Edmund Burke possessed, and had sedulously sharp- 
ened, that eye which sees all things, actions, and 
events, in relation to the laws that determine their 
existence, and circumscribe their possibility. He 
referred habitually to principles. He was a scien- 
tifc statesman; and, thereibre, a seer. For every 
principle contains, in itself, the germs of a prophecy ; 
and as the prophetic power is the essential privilege 
of science, so the fulfilment of its oracles supplies 
the outward, and (to men in general) the onli/ test of 
its claim to the title. Wearisome as Burke's refine- 
ments appeared to his parliamentary auditors, yet the 
cultivated classes throughout Europe have reason to 
be thankful that 

he went <in refining. 



And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining. 

Our very sign-boards (said an illustrious friend to 
me) give evidence that there has been a Titian in 
the world. In like manner, not only the debates in 
parliament, not only our proclamations and state pa- 
pers, but the essays and leading paragraphs of our 
journals are so many remembrancers of Edmund 
Burke. Of this the reader may easily convince him- 
self, if either by recollection or reference he will 
compare the opposition newspapers at the commence- 
ment and during the five or six following years of 
the French revolution, with the sentiments, and 
grounds of argument assumed in the same class of 
journals at present, and fbr some years past. 

Whether the spirit of jacobinism, which the writ- 
ings of Burke exorcised from the higher and from the 
literary classes, may not, like the ghost in Hamlet, 
be heard moving and mining in the underground 
chambers with an activity the more dangerous be- 
cause less noisy, may admit of a question. I have 
given my opinions on this point, and the grounds of 
them, in my letters to Judge Fletcher, occasioned by 
his CHARGE to the Wexford grand jury, and published 
in the Courier. Be this as it may, the evil spirit of 
jealousy, and with it the cerberean whelps of feud 
and slander, no longer walk their rounds in cultivated 
society. 

Far diflferent were the days to which these anec- 
dotes have carried me back. The dark guesses of 
some zealous quidnunc met with so congenial a soil 
in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neigh- 
borhood, that a SPY was actually sent down from the 



government pour surveillance of myself and fnend. 
There must have been not only abundance, but vari- 
ety of these " honorable men," at the disposal of Min- 
isters; for this proved a very honest fellow. After 
three weeks' truly Indian perseverance in tracking 
us, (for we were commonly together,) during all which 
time seldom were we out of doors, but he contrived 
to be within hearing, (and all the time utterly unsus- 
pected ; how, indeed, could such a suspicion enter 
our fancies ?) he not only rejected Sir Dogberry's re- 
quest that he would try yet a little longer, but de- 
clared to him his belief that both my friend and my- 
self were as good subjects, for aught he could disco- 
ver to the contrary, as any in His Majesty's domin- 
ions. He had repeatedly hid himself, he said, fbr 
hours together, behind a bank at the sea-side, (our 
favorite seat,) and overheard our conversation. At 
first he fancied that we were aware of our danger; 
for he often heard me talk of one Spy Nozy, which 
he was inclined to interpret of himself, and of a re- 
markable feature belonging to him ; but he was speed- 
ily convinced that it was a man who had made a 
book, and lived long ago. Our talk ran most upon 
books, and we were perpetually desiring each other 
to look at this, and to listen to that ; but he could not 
catch a word about politics. Once he had joined me 
on the road ; (this occurred as I was returning home 
alone from my friend's house, which was about three 
miles from my own cottage,) and passing himself off 
as a traveller, he had entered into conversation with 
me, and talked, of purpose, in a democrat way, in or- 
der to draw me out. The result, it appears, not only 
convinced him that I was no friend to jacobinism, but 
(he added) I had " plainly made it out to be such a 
silly as well as wicked thing, that he felt ashamed, 
though he had only put it on." I distinctly remem- 
bered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immedi- 
ately on my return, repeating what the traveller with 
his Bardolph nose had said, with my own answer; 
and so little did I suspect the true object of my 
" tempter ere accuser," that I expressed, with no small 
pleasure, my hope and belief that the conversation 
had been ofsome service to the poor misled malcontent. 
This incident, therefore, prevented all doubt as to the 
truth of the report, which, through a friendly medi- 
um, came to me from the master of the village inn, 
who had been ordered to entertain the government 
gentleman in his best manner, but, above all, to be 
silent concerning such a person being in his house. 
At length he received Sir Dogberrj^'s commands to 
accompany his guest at the final interview; and after 
the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honored with 
the confidence of ministers, answered, as follows, to 
the following queries: D. Well, landlord ! and what 
do you know of the person in question? L. I see 

him often pass by with maister , my landlord, 

(i. e. the owner of the house,) and sometimes with the 
new-comers at Holford ; but I never said a word to 
him, or he to me. D. But do you not know that he 
has distributed papers and hand-bills of a seditious 
nature among the common people ? L. No, your ho- 
nor ! I never heard of such a thing. D. Have you 
not seen this Mr. Coleridge, or heard of his haranguing 
284 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



275 



and talking to knots, and clusters of the inhabitants? 
— What are you grinning at, Sir ? L. Reg your ho- 
nor's pardon! but I was only thinking how they'd 
have stared at him. If what I have heard be true, 
your honor! they would not have understood a word 
he said. When our vicar was here. Dr. L., the mas- 
ter of the great school, and canon of Windsor, there 

was a great dinner party at maistor 's ; and 

one of the farmers, that was there, told us that he and 
the doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other 
liir an hour together after dinner. D. Answer the 
(|uesiion, Sir! Does he ever harangue the people? 
L. I hope your honor a'nt angry with me. I can say 
no more than I know. I never saw him talking with 
any one but my landlord, and our curate and the 
strange gentleman. D. Has he not been seen wan- 
dering on the hills towards the channel, and along 
the shore, with books and papers in his hand, taking 
charts and maps of the country ? L. Why, as to thai, 
your honor ! I own, I have heard ; I am sure I would 
not wish to say ill of any body ; but it is certain that 
J have heard — D. Speak out man ! don't be afraid, 
you are doing your duty to your king and govern- 
ment. What have you heard ? L. Why, folks do 
say, your honor! as how that he is a poet, and that 
he is going to put Quantock and all about here in 
print ; and as they be so much together, I suppose 
that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the 
business. So ended this formidable inquisition, the 
latter part of which alone requires explanation, and, 
at the same time, entitles the anecdote to a place 
in my literary life. I had considered it as a defect in 
the admirable poem of the Task, that the subject, 
which gives the title to the work, was not, and in- 
deed could not be, carried on beyond the three or 
four first pages, and that throughout the poem the 
connexions are frequently awkward, and the transi- 
tions abrupt and arbitrary. I sought for a subject that 
should give equal room and freedom lor description, 
incident, and impassioned reflections on men, nature, 
and society, yet supply, in itself, a natural connexion 
to the parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject 
I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced 
from its source in the hills among the yellow-red 
moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of Bent, to the 
first break or fall, where its drops became audible, 
and it begins to form a channel ; thence to the peat 
and turf barn, itself built of the same dark squares as 
it sheltered ; to the sheep-fold, to the first cultivated 
plot of ground, to the lonely cottage and its bleak gar- 
den won from the heath; to the hamlet, the villages, 
the market-town, the manufactories, and the sea-port. 
My walks, therefore, were almost daily on the top of 
Quantock, and among its sloping coombs. With my 
pencil and memorandum book in my hand, I was 
maJiinfr studies, as the artists call them, and often 
moulding my thoughts into verse, with the objects 
and imagery immediately before my senses. Many 
circumstances, evil and good, intervened to prevent 
iHe completion of the poem, which was to have been 
entitled "The Brook." Had I finished the work, it 
was my purpose, in the heat of the moment, to have 
dedicated it to our then committee (jf pul)lic cafely, 
Z2 



as containing the charts and maps, with which I was 
to have supplied the French government in aid of 
their plans of invasion. And these, too, for a tract 
of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely 
permits the approach of a fishing-boat! 

All my experience, from my first entrance into life 
to the present hour, is in favor of the warning maxim, 
that the man who opposes in toio the political or re- 
ligious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy, 
than he who diflTers from them in one or two points, 
or, perhaps, only in degree. By that transfer of the 
feelings of private life into the discussion of public 
questions, which is the tjucen bee in the hive of party 
fanaticism, the partisan has more sympathy with an 
inlcmperale opposite than with a moderate friend. 
We now enjoy an intermission, and long may it con- 
tinue! In addition to far higher and more important 
merits, our present bible societies, and other numer- 
ous associations for national or charitable objects, 
may serve perhaps to carry off the superfluous activ 
ily.and fervor of stirring minds in innocent hyperboles 
and the bustle of management. But the poison-tree 
is not dead, though the sap may, for a season, have 
subsided to its roots. At least, let us not be lulled 
into such a notion of our entire security, as not to 
keep watch and ward, even on our best feelings. I 
have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tol- 
eration; sectarian antipathy most obtrusively dis- 
played in the promotion of an undistinguishing com- 
prehension of sects ; and acts of cruelty, (I had almost 
said of treachery,) committed in furtherance of an 
object vitally important to the cause of humanity ; 
and all this by men, too, of naturally kind disposi- 
tions and exemplary conduct. 

The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the 
very adyta of human nature; and needs only the re- 
exciting warmth of a master hand to bud forth afresh, 
and produce the old fruits. The horror of the pea- 
sant's war in Germany, and the direful efTccts of the 
Anabaptist's tenets, (which differed only from those 
of jacobinism by the substitution of theological for 
philo.sopliical jargon,) struck all Europe for a time 
with affright. Yet little more than a century was 
sufllciont to obliterate all eflectivc memory of these 
evenis. The same principles, with similar, though 
less dreadful consequences, were again at work, from 
the imprisonment of the first Ciuirles to the restora- 
tion of his son. The fanatic maxim of extirpating 
fanaticism by persecution, produced a civil war. 
'J'he war ended in the victory of the insurgents; but 
the temper survived, and Milton had abundant 
grounds for asserting that " Presbyter was but Old 
Priest writ large!" One good result, thank hea- 
ven ! of this zealotry was the re-establishment of the 
church. And now it might have been hoped, that 
the mischievous spirit would have been bound for a 
season, "and a seal set upon him that he might de- 
ceive the nation no more." But no ! The ball of 
persecution was taken up with undiminished vigor 
by the persecuted. The same fanatic principle, that 
under the solemn oath and covenant had turned 
cathedrals into sinbles, destroyed llie rarest trophies 
of art and anccsiral piely, and huiiiod the brightest 
285 



276 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ornaments of learning and religion into holes and 
comers, now marched under episcopal banners ; and 
having first crowded the prisons of England, emptied 
its whole vial of wrath on the miserable covenanters 
of Scotland. (Laing's History of Scotland. — Waller 
Scott's Bard's Ballads, &c.) A merciful Providence 
at length constrained both parties to join against a 
common enemy. A wise government followed ; and 
the established church became, and now is, not only 
the brightest example, but our best and only sure 
bulwark, of toleration! The true and indispensable 
bank against a new inundation of persecuting zeal — 

ESTO PERPETUA ! 

A long interval of quiet succeeded; or, rather, the 
exhaustion had produced a cold fit of the ague, which 
was svraptoraatized by indifference among the many, 
and a tendency to infidelity or scepticism in the edu- 
cated classes. At length those feelmgs of disgust 
and hatred which, for a brief while, the mullitude 
had attached to the crimes and absurdities of secta- 
rian and democratic fanaticism, were transferred to 
the oppressive privileges of the noblesse, and the lux- 
ury, intrigues, and favoritism of the continental 
courts. The same principles, dressed in the ostenta- 
tious garb of a fashionable philosophy, once more 
rose triumphant, and effected the French revolution. 
And have we not, within the last three or four years, 
had reason to apprehend, that the detestable maxims 
and correspondent measures of the late French des- 
potism had already bedimmed the public recollec- 
tions of democratic frenzy ; had drawn off, to other 
objects, the electric force of the feelings which had 
massed and upheld those recollections ; and that a 
favorable concurrence of occasions was alone want- 
ing to awaken the thunder, and precipitate the light- 
ning, from the opposite quarter of the political hea- 
ven ? (See The Friend, p. 110.) 

In part from constitutional indolence, which, in 
the very hey-dey of hope, had kept my enthusiasm 
in check, but still more from the habits and in- 
fluences of a classical education and academic pur- 
suits, scarcely had a year elapsed from the com- 
mencement of my literary and political adventures, 
before my mind sunk into a state of thorough disgust 
and despondency, both with regard to the disputes 
and the parties disputant. With more than poetic 
feeling I exclaimed: 

"The sensuaJ and the dark rebel in vain. 
Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game 
They break their manacles, to wear the 7tame 
Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain. 
O liberty '. with profitless endeavor. 
Have I pursued thee many a weary hour ; 
But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever 
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power ! 
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee 
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee) 
From superstition's harpy minions 
And factious blasphemy's obscener slaves. 
Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions. 
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves !" 
France, a Palinodia. 

I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot 
of Quantock, and devoted my thoughts and studies 
to the foundations of religion and morals. Here 1 i 



found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in ; broke 
upon me "from the fountains of the great deep," and 
fell "from the windows of heaven." The fontal 
truths of natural religion, and the books of Revela- 
tion, alike contributed to the flood ; and it was long 
ere my ark touched on an Ararat., and rested. The 
idea of the Supreme Being appeared to me to be as 
necessarily implied in all particular modes of being, 
as the idea of infinite space in all the geometrical 
figures by which space is limited. I was pleased 
with the Cartesian opinion, that the idea of God is 
distinguished from all other ideas by involving its 
reality ; but 1 was not wholly satisfied. I began 
then to ask myself, what proof 1 had of the outward 
existence of any thing ! Of this sheet of paper, for 
instance, as a thing, in itself, separate from the phe- 
nomena or image in my perception. 1 saw, that in 
the nature of things, such proof is impossible ; and 
that of all modes of being, that are not objects of the 
senses, the existence is assumed by a logical necessity 
arising from the constitution of the mind itself, by 
the absence of all motive to doubt it, not from any 
absolute contradiction in the supposition of the con- 
trary. Still, the existence of a being, the ground of 
all existence, was not yet the existence of a moral 
creator and governor. "In the position, that all 
reality is either contained in the necessary being as 
an attribute, or exists through him, as its ground, it 
remains undecided whether the properties of intelli- 
gence and will are to be referred to the Supreme 
Being in the former, or only in the latter sense ; as 
inherent attributes, or only as consequences that have 
existence in other things through him. Thus, organ- 
ization and motion are regarded as from God, not in 
God. Were the latter the truth, then, notwithstanding 
all the pre-eminence which must be assigned to the 
Eternal First from the sufficiency, unity, and in- 
dependence of his being, as the dread ground of the 
universe, his nature would yet fall far short of that 
which we are bound to comprehend in the idea of 
God. For without any knowledge or determining 
resolve of its own, it would only be a blind necessary 
ground of other things and other spirits ; and thus 
would be distinguished from the fate of certain an- 
cient philosophers in no respect, but that of being 
more definitely and intelligibly described." Kant's 
einzig moglicher Beweisgrund : vermischte Schriften, 
Zweiler Band, $ 102 and 103. 

For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile 
personality with infinity ; and my head was with 
Sf'inoza, though my whole heart remained with Paul 
and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even 
before I had met with the Critique of the Pure 
Reason, a certain guiding light. If the mere intel- 
lect could make no certain discovery of a holy and 
intelligent first cause, it might yet supply a demon- 
stration, that no legitimate argument could be drawn 
from the intellect against its truth. And what is 
this more than St. Paul's assertion, that by wisdom 
(more properly translated, by the powers of reason- 
ing) no man ever arrived at the knowledge of God ? 
What more than the sublimest, and, probably, the 
oldest book on earth, has taught us ? 

286 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



277 



must bo regarded as strange anomalies from strange 
and unfortunate circumstances. 

From these premises I proceed to draw the follow- 
ing conclusions: First, that having once fully ad- 
mitted the existence of nn infinite yet self conscious 
Creator, we are not allowed to ground the irration- 
ality of any other article of faith on arguments which 
would equally prove that to be the irrational which 
we had allowed to be rial. Secondly, that whatever 
is deducible from the admission of a self -comprehend- 
ing and creative spirit, may be legitimately used in 
proof of the possibilil;/ of any further mystery con 
corning the divine nature. Possiliilitalcm, mysteri 
orum, (Trinitatis, <^c.,) contra insulins Infidelium el 
Hereticorum a contradictionibus vindico ; baud qui- 
dem veritatem, quaj revclatione solo stabiliri possit , 
says Leibnitz, in a letter to his Duke. He then adds 
the following just and imjiortant remark: "In vain 
will tradition or texts of scripture be adduced in 
support of a doctrine, donee clava impossibilitatis et 
contradictionis e matiibus horum Ilerculum extorta 
fuerit. For the heretic will still reply, that texts, the 
literal sense of which is not so much above as directly 
against all reason, must be understood figuratively, 
as Herod is a fox, &c." 

These principles I held, philosophically, while, in 
respect of revealed religion, I remained a zealous 
Unitarian. I considered the idea of the Trinity a 
fair scholastic inference from the being of God, as a 
creative intelligence ; and that it was, therefore, en- 
titled to the rank of an esoteric doctrine of natural 
religion. But seeing in the same no practical or 
moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of philoso- 
phy. The admission of the logos, as hypostasized, 
(i. e. neither a mere attribute or a personification,) in 
no respect removed my doubts concerning the incar- 
nation and the redemption by the cross; which I 
could neither reconcile in reason with the impassive- 
ness of the Divine Being, nor, in my moral feelings, 
with the sacred distinction between things and per 
sons, the vicarious payment of a debt, and the vicari 
ous expiation of guilt. A more thorough revolution 
in my philosophic principles, and a deeper insight 



Silver end gold man searchoth out : 

Bringeth the ore out of the eanli, and darknen into light. 

Bui where findeth he wisdom ? 
Where is the place of understanding 1 

The abyss crielh : it is not in me : 
Ocean echooth back : not in me ! 

Whence then comcth wisdom 1 
Where dwellotli understanding? 

Hidilun from the eyes of ihe living 
Kept secret from the fowls of heaven ! 

Hell and death answer: 

We have heard the rumour thereof from afar: 

Ood marketh out the road to it; 
God knoweth ila abiding place ! 

Ho bcholdeth the ends of the earth ; 

He surveyeth what is beneath Ihe heavens ! 

And as he weighed out the winds, and measured the sea. 

And appointed laws to the rain, 

And a path to the thunder, 

A path to the flashes of the lightning ! 

Then did he see it. 

And he counted it ; 

He searched into the depth thereof. 

And with a line did he compass it round ! 

But to man he said. 

The fear of the Lord is wisdom for tkee ! 

And to avoid evil. 

That is thii understanding. Job, Chap. Wth. 

I became convinced, that religion, as both the cor- 
ner-stone and the key-stone of morality, must have a 
moral origin ; so far at least, that the evidence of its 
doctrines could not, like the truths of abstract science, 
be wholly independent of the will. It were there- 
fore to be expected, that its fundamental truth would 
he such as might be denied ; though only by ihe fool, 
and even by the fool from the madness of the heart 
alone ! 

The question then concerning our faith in the ex- 
istence of a God, not only as the ground of the uni- 
verse by his essence, but as its maker and judge by 
his wisdom and holy will, appeared to stand thus : 
The sciential reason, whose objects are purely theo- 
retical, remains neutral, as long as its name and sem- 
blance are not usurped by the opponents of the j into my own heart, were yet wanting. Nevertheless, 
doctrine. But it then becomes an effective ally by I cannot doubt, that the difference of my metaphysical 
exposing the false show of demonstration, or by | notions from those of Unitarians in general, contrib- 
evincing the equal demonstrabiiity of the contrary 1 uted to my final re-conversion to the whole truth in 
from premises equally logical. The understanding Christ; even as, according to his own confession, the 
mean time suggests, the analogy of experience facili- books of certain Platonic philosophers, {lihri quorun- 
tales, the beUef. Nature excites and recalls it, as by | dam I'latimicorum,) commenced the rescue of Su 

a perpetual revelation. Our feelings almost necessi- 
tate it; and the law of conscience peremptorily 

commands it. The arguments, that at all apply to it, 

are in its favor; and there is nothing against it, but 

its own sublimity It could not be intellectually 

more evident without becoming morally less effective; 

without counteracting its own end, by sacrificing the 

life of faith to the cold mechanism of a worthless, 

because compulsory assent. The belief of a God 

and a future state (if passive acquiescence may be 

flattered with the name of belief) does not indeed 

always beget a good heart ; but a good heart so na- 
turally begets the belief, that the very few exceptions 



Augustine's faith from the same error, aggravated by 
the far darker accompaniment of the Manichaean 
heresy. 

While my mind was thus perplexed, by a gracious 
Providence, for which I can never be sufficiently 
grateful, the generous and munificent patronage of 
Mr. JosiAH, and Mr. Thomas Wedgewood, enabled 
me to finish my education in Germany. Instead of 
troubling others with my own crude notions and ju- 
venile compositions, I was thenceforward better em- 
ployed in attempting to store my own head with the 
wisdom of others. I made the best use of my time 
and means ; and there is, therefore, no period of my 
28" 



278 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



life on which I can look back with such unmingled 
satisfaction. After acquiring a tolerable sufficiency 
in the German language* at Ratzeburg, which, with 
my voyage and journey thither, I have described in 
The Friend, I proceeded through Hanover to Got- 
tingen. 

Here I regularly attended the lectures on physio- 
logy in the morning, and on natural history in the 
evening, under Blumexbach, a name as dear to 
every Englishman who has studied at that university, 
as it is venerable to men of science throughout Eu- 
rope! Eichhorn's lectures on tlie New Testament 
were repeated to me from notes, by a student from 
Ratzeburg, a young man of sound learning and inde- 
fatigable industry ; who is now, I Ijelieve, a professor 
of the oriental languages at Heidelberg. But my 
chief efforts were directed towards a grounded know- 
ledge of the German language and literature. From 
professor Tychsen, I received as many lessons in the 
Gothic of Ulphilas as sufficed to make me acquainted 
with its grammar, and the radical words of most fre- 
quent occurrence ; and with the occasional assistance 
of the same philosophical linguist, I read through 
OrTFRiEo'st metrical paraphrase of the gospel, and 



* To those who design to acquire the language of a coun- 
try in the country itself, it m ly be useful if I mention the in- 
calculable advantage which I derived from learning all the 
words that could possibly be so learnt, with the objects before 
me, and without the intermediation of the English. It was a 
regular part of my morning studies, for the first six weeks of 
my residence at Ratzeburs, to accompany the good and kind 
old pastor with whom 1 lived, from the cellar to the roof, 
through gardens, farm yards, &c., and to call every, the mi- 
nutest thing, by its German name. .'Vdvertisements, farces, 
jest books, and the conversation of children while I was at 
play with them, contributed their share to more home-like 
acquaintance with the language than I could have acquired 
from works of polite literature alone, or even from polite so- 
ciety. There is a passage of hearty sound sense in Luther's 
German letter on interpretation, to the transkition of which 
1 shall pretix, for the sake of those who read the German, 
yet are not likely to have dipt often in the massive folios of 
this heroic reformer, the simple, sinewy, idiomatic words of 
the original : " Denn man muss nicht die Buchstaben in der 
Lateinischen Sprache fragen wie man soil Deutsch reden ; 
Bondern man muss die mutter in Hause, die Kinder auf den 
Gassen, den gemeinen Mann aufdem Markte, darum fragen; 
und denselbigen auf das Maul sehen wie sie reden, und dar- 
nach dollmetschen. So verstehen sie ea denn, und inerken 
dass man Deutsch mit ihnen redet.' ' 

TRANSLATION. 

For one must not ask the letters in the Latin tongue, how 
one ought to speak German ; but one must ask the mother in 
the house, the children in the lanes and alleys, the common 
man in the market, concerning this ; yea, and look at the 
moves of Iheir mouths while they are talking, and thereafter 
interpret. They understand you then, and mark that one talks 
German with them. 

t This paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, 
is by no means deficient in occasional passages of considera- 
ble poetic merit. There is a flow, and a lender enthusiasm in 
the following lines, (at the conclusion of Chapter V.) which 
even in the translation will not, I flatter myself, fail to inte- 
rest the reader. Ottfried is describing the circumstances im- 
mediately following the birth of our Lord : 

She gave with joy her virgin breast; 
She hid it not, she bared the breast, 
Which suckled that divinest babe I 
Blessed, blessed were the breasts 



the most important remains of the Theotiscan, or 
the transitional state of the Teutonic language from 
the Gothic to the old German of the Swabian period. 
Of this period (the polished dialect of which is analo- 
gous to that of our Chaucer, and which leaves the 
philosophic student in doubt, whether the language 
has not since then lost more in sweetness and flexibi- 
lity, than it has gained in condensation and copious- 
ness) I read with sedulous accuracy the Minnesinger, 
(or singers of love, the provencal poets of the Swa- 
bian court,) and the metrical romances ; and then la- 
bored through sufficient specimens of the master 
singers, their degenerate successors ; not, however, 
without occasional pleasure from the rude yet inte^ 
resting strains of Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nurem- 
berg. Of this man's genius, five folio volumes, with 
double columns, are extant in print, and nearly an 
equal number in manuscript; yet, the indefatigable 
bard takes care to inform his readers, that he neve» 
made a shoe the less, but had virtuously reared a large 
family by the labor of his hands. 

In Pindar, Chaucer, Dante, Milton, &c. &c. we 
have instances of the close connection of poetic ge- 
nius with the love of liberty and of genuine reforma- 
tion. The moral sense at least will not be outraged, 
if I add to the list the name of this honest shoemaker ; 
(a trade, by the bye, remarkable for the production of 
philosophers and poets.) His poem entitled the Morn- 
ing Star, was the very first publication that appeared 
in praise and support of Luther ; and an excellent 
hymn of Hans Sachs', which has been deservedly 
translated into almost all the European languages, 
was commonly sung in the Protestant churches, when- 
ever the heroic reformer visited them. 

In Luther's own German writings, and eminently 
in his translation of the bible, the German language 
commenced. 1 mean the language, as it is at present 
written ; that which is called the High German, as 
contra-distinguished from the Platt-Teutsch, the 
dialect of the flat or northern countries, and from the 
Ober-Teutsch, the language of the middle and 



Which the Saviour infant kiss'd ; 

And blessed, blessed was the mother 

Who wrapped his limbs in swaddling clothes. 

Singing placed him on her lap. 

Hung o'er him with her looks of love. 

And southed him with a lulling motion. 

Blessed! for she sheltered him 

From the damp and chilling air; 

Blessed, blessed ! for she lay 

With such a babe in one blest bed. 

Close as babes and mothers lie '. 

Blessed, blessed evermore ; 

With her virgin lips she kiss'd. 

With her arms, and to her breast 

She embraced ihe babe divine. 

Her babe divine the virgin mother I 

There lives not on this ring of earth 

A mortal, that can sing her praise. 

Michty mother, virgin pure, 

In the darkness and Ihe night. 

For us she bore the heavenly Lord I 

Most interesting is it to consider the effect, when the feel 
iugs are wrought above the natural pitch by the belief ot 
something mysterious, while all the images are purely natural 
Then it is that religion and poetry strike deepest. 
288 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



279 



southern Cormany- The High Germnn is indeed a 
lingua communis not actually the native language of 
any province, but the choice and fragmncy of" all the 
dialects. From this cause it is at once the most co- 
pious and the most grammatical of all the European 
tongues. 

Within less than a centurj' after Luther's death, 
the German was inundated with pedantic barbar- 
isms. A few volumes of ttiis [leriod I read through 
from motives of curiosity ; for it is not easy to imagine 
any thing more fantastic than the very appearance of 
their pages. Almost every third word is a Latin 
word, with a Germanized ending; the Latin portion 
being always printed in Roman letters, while in the 
last syllable the German character is retained. 

At length, about the year 1620, OriTZ arose, whose 
genius more nearly resembled that of Dryden than 
any other poet, who at present occurs to my recollec- 
tion. In the opinion of Lessing, the most acute of 
critics, and of Adelung, the first of lexicographers, 
Opitz, and the Silesian poets, his followers, not only 
restored the language, but still remain the models of 
pure diction. A stranger has no vote on such a ques- 
tion ; but after repealed perusals of the work, my feel- 
ings justified the verdict, and I seemed to have ac- 
quired from them a sort of tact for what is genuine 
in the style of later writers. 

Of the splendid era which commenced with Gel- 
lert, Klopstock, Ramler, Lessing, and their compeers, 
I need not speak. With the opportunities which I 
enjoyed, it would have been disgraceful not to have 
been familiar with their writings ; and I have already 
said as much as the present biographical sltetch re- 
quires concerning the German philosophers, whose 
works, for the greater part, I became acquainted with 
at a far later period. 

Soon after my return from Germany, I was solicited 
to undertake the literary and political department in 
tlie Morning Post; and I acceded to the proposal, on 
the condition that the paper should, thenceforward, 
be conducted on certain fixed and announced princi- 
ples, and that I should be neither obliged or request- 
ed to deviate from them, in favor of any party or 
any event. In consequence, that Journal became, 
and for many years continued, anli-ininisteTinl in- 
deed ; yet, with a very qualified approbation of the op- 
position, and with far greater earnestness and zeal, both 
anti-jacobin and anti-gallican. To this hour, 1 cannot 
find reason to approve of the first war, either in its 
commencement or its conduct. Nor can I understimd 
with what reason, either Mr. Percival, (whom I am 
singular enough to regard as the best and wisest min- 
ister of this reign,) or the present administration, can 
be said to have pursued the plans of Mr. Pitt. The 
love of their country, and perseverant hostility to 
French principles and French ambition are, indeed, 
honorable qualities, common to them and to their 
predecessors. But it appears to me as clear as the 
evidence of facts can render any question of history, 
that the successes of the Percival and of the existing 
ministry, have been owing to their having pursued 
measures the direct contrary to Mr. Pitt's. Such, for 
instance, are the concentration of the national force to 



one object; the abandonment of the subsidizing poli- 
cy, so far, at least, as neither to goad or bribe the con 
tinental courts into war, till the convictions of their 
subjects had rendered it a war of their own seeking ; 
and above all, in their manly and generous reliance 
on the good sense of the F.nglish people, and on that 
loyalty which is linked to the very heart* of the na- 

* Lord Grcnville has lately re-a«serled, (in the House of 
Lords,) tlie imminent danger of a revolution in the earlier 
part of the war against Franco. I doubt mil lliat his Lord- 
ship is sinci'rc ; and it must be flalicring to his feclinRs to be- 
lieve it. But where are the evidences of the danger, to which 
a future historian can appeal 1 Or must he rest on an asser- 
tion 7 Let me be permitted to extract a passage nn the sub- 
ject from The Friend. "1 have said that to withstand the 
argumenis of the lawless, the ami jacobins proposed to sus- 
pend the law, and by the interposition of a particular statute, 
to eclipse the blessed light of the universal sun, that spies 
and inforinera might tyrannize and escape in the ominous 
darkness. Oh ! if these mistaken men, inlo.vicated and be- 
wildered with the panic of properly, which they themselves 
were the chief agents in excitiny, had ever lived in a country 
where there really existed a general disposition to change and 
rebellion 1 Had they ever travelled through Sicily ; or through 
France at the first coming on of the Revolution ; or even, alas ! 
through too many of the provinces of a sister island, they 
could not but have shrunk from their own declarations con- 
cerning the slate of feeling, an opinion at that time predomi- 
nant throughout Great Britain. There was a lime, (heaven 
grant that that lime mtiy have passed by !) when, by crossing 
a narrow strait, they might have learnt the true symptoms of 
approaching danger, and have secured themselves from mis- 
taking the meetings and idle rant of such sedition, as shrunk 
appalled from the sight of a constable, for the dire murmur- 
ing and strange consternation which precedes the storm or 
earthquake of national discord. Not only in coffee-houses 
anrl public theatres, but even at the tables of the wealthy, 
they would have heard the advocates of existing government 
defend Iheir cause in the language, and with the tone of men, 
who are conscious that they are in a minority. But in Eng- 
land, when the alarm was at its highest, there was not a city 
no, no! a town or village, in which a man suspected of hold- 
ing democrulic principles could move abroad without receiv 
ing some unpleasant proof of the hatred in which his sup 
posed opinions were held by the great inajority of the peoples 
and the only instances of popular excess and indignation, 
were in favor of the government and the established church. 
But why need I appeal to these invidious facts ? Turn over 
the pages of history, and seek for a single instance of a revo- 
lution having been effected without the concurrence of either 
the nobles, or the ecclesiastics, or the moneyed classes, in any 
country in which the influences of properly had ever been 
predominant, and where the interests of the proprietors were 
inlerliiiked ! F.xamine the rev(dution of the Belgic provinces 
under Philip '.'d ; the civil wars of France in the preceding 
generation ; the history of the American revolution, or the 
yet more recent events in SwBilen and in Spain; and it will 
be scarcely possible not to perceive, that in England, from 
nni to the peace of Amiens, there were neither tendencies 
to confederacy, nor actual confederacies, against which the 
existing laws litid not provided siinicicnt safeguards and an 
ample punishment. But alas I tlie panic of property had 
been sirnck. in the first instance, for parly purposes; and 
when it became zeneral, its pripagaloi-scaucht it themselves, 
nnd ended in believing Iheir ov\'n lie; even as our bulls in 
Borriiwdalo snnielimes run mad with the echo of their own 
bellowing. 'l"he ronsenuences were most injurious. Our at- 
tention was concentrated to a monster, which could not sur- 
vive the convnisiona in which it hiiil been bronghtforth : even 
ihe enlightened Burke himself, tno often talking nnd reason- 
ing, OS if a perpetual and organized anarchy had been a pos- 
sible thing 1 Thus, while we were warring against French 
doctrines, we look little heed whether the means, by which 
we attempted to o\'erihrow them, were not likely to aid and 
auBineni Ihe far more formidable evil of French ambition. 
Like children, we ran away from Ihe yelping of a cur, and 
took thellor at the heels of a vicious war-horse." 
889 



280 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tion, by the system of credit, and the interdependence 
of property. 

Be this as it may, I am persuaded that the Morning 
Post proved a far more useful ally to the government 
in its most important objects, in consequence of its 
being generally considered as moderately anti-minis- 
terial, Ilian if it had been the avowed eulogist of JN'Ir. 
Pitt. (The few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead 
them to turn over the Journals of that date, may find 
a small proof of this in the frequent charges made by 
the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or 
leading paragraphs had been sent from the treasury.) 
The rapid and unusual increase in the sale of the 
Morning Post, is a sufficient pledge that genuine im- 
partiality, with a respectable portion of Ulerary talent, 
will secure the success of a newspaper, without the 
aid of party or ministerial patronage. But by impar- 
tiality I mean an honest and enlightened adherence 
to a code of intelligible principles, previously an- 
nounced, and faithfully referred to, in support of every 
judgment on men and events; not indiscriminate 
abuse, not the indulgence of an editor's own malig- 
nant passions; and still less, if that be possible, a de- 
termination to make money by flattering the envy 
and cupidity, the vindictive restlessness and self-con- 
ceit of the half-witted vulgar; a determination almost 
fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has been 
boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of 
these moh-sijcophants ! From the commencetnent of 
the Addington adminisiralion to the present day, 
whatever I have written in the Morning Post, or, 
(after that paper was transferred to other proprietors,) 
in the Couiuer, has been in defence or furtherance 
of the measures of government. 

Things of lliii; nature scarce survive the nisrht 
That gives them birlh ; they perish in the sight, 
Cast by so far from after-life, that there 
Can scarcely ausht be siid, but that tk''ji wre ! 

CartwrishCs Prol. to the Roval Slave. 

Yet in these labors I employed, and, in the belief 
of partial friends, wasted, the prime and manhood of 
my intellect. Most assuredly, they added nothing to 
my fortune or my reputation. The industry oi' the 
week supplied the necessities of the week. From 
Government or the friends of Government I not only 
never received remuneration, or even e.\pected it; 
but I was never honored with a single acknowledg- 
ment, or expres.sion of satisfiiction. Yet the retrospect 
is far from painful or matter of regret. I am not in- 
deed silly enough to take, as any thing more than a 
violent hyperbole of parly debate, Mr. Fox's assertion, 
that the Me war (I trust that tho epithet is not pre- 
maturely applied) was a war produced hy the Morn- 
ing Post ; or I should be proud to have the words 
inscribed on my tomb. As little do I regard the cir- 
cumstance, that I was a specified object of Bonaparte's 
resentment during my residence in Italy, in con- 
sequence of those essays in the Morning Post, during 
the peace of Amiens. (Of this I w as warned, direclli/. 
by Baron Von Humboldt, the Prussian Plenipoten- 
tiary, who at that time was the minister of the Prus- 
8ian court at Rotne ; and indirectly, through his secre- 
tary, Cardinal Fesch himself.) ]N'or do I lay any 



greater weight on the confirming fact, that an order 
lor my arrest was sent from Paris, from which dan- 
ger I was rescued by the kindness of a noble Bene- 
dictine, and the gracious connivance of that good old 
man, the present Pope. For the late tyrant's vindic- 
tive appetite was omnivorous, and preyed equally on 
a Due D'Enghien,* and the writer of a newspaper 
paragraph. Like a true vulture,t Napoleon, with an 
eye not less telescopic, and with a taste equally coarse 
in his ravin, could descend from the most dazzling 
heights to pounce on the leveret in the brake, or even 
on the field mouse amid the grass. But I do derive 
a gratification from the knowledge, that my essays 
contributed to introduce the practice of placing the 
questions and events of the day in a moral point of 
view ; in giving a dignity to particular measures, by 
tracing their policy or impolicy to permanent princi- 
ples ; and an interest to principles by the application 
of them to individual measures. In Mr. Burke's writ- 
ings, indeed, the germs of almost all political truths 
may be found. But I dare assume to myself the 
merit of having first explicitly defined and analyzed 
the nature of Jacobinism; and that in distinguishing 
the jacobin from the republican, the democrat and 
the mere demagogue, I both rescued the word from 
remaining a mere term of abuse, and put on their 
guard many honest minds, who even in their heat of 
zeal against jacobinism, admitted or supported princi- 
ples from which the worst parts of that system may 
be legitimately deduced. That these are not neces- 
sary practical results of such principles, we owe to 
that fortunate inconsequence of our nature, which 
permits Jj^e heart to rectify the errors of the under- 
standing. The detailed examination c^^he consular 
government and its pretended constitution, and the 
proof given by ine, that it was a consummate despot- 
ism in masquerade, extorted a recantation even from 
the Morning Chronicle, which had previously extol- 
led this constitution as the perfection of a wise and 
regulated liberty. On every great occurrence, I 
endeavoured to discover in past history the event that 
most nearly resembled it. I procured, wherever it 
was possible, the contemporary historians, memorial- 
ists, and pamphleteers. Then fairly subtracting the 
points of difference from those of likeness, as the bal- 
ance favored the former or the latter, I conjectured 
that the result would be the same or different. In 
the series of essays.J entitled, " a comparison of France 
under Napoleon with Rome under the first Cajsars," 
and in those which followed " on the probable final 

* I .seldom think of the murder of this illustrious Prince 
wiihoui rocolleciins the lines of Valerius Flaccua (Argonaut. 
Lib. I. :iO.) 

Super ipsius ingens 

Instat fama viri, virtusque baud Iceta Tyranno ; 
Ergo ante ire raetus, juvenemque extinguere pergit. 

+ Qripa ii Kai Tov %»;va Kai ri)v AopKciia, 
Koi rbv Aayuii', Kai' rb tZv Taiipuiv yivo^. 

Philc de animal, propriet. 

t A small selection from the numerous articles furnished by 
me to the Morning Post and Courier, chiefly as they regarded 
the sources and etTects of jacobinism, and the connection of 
certain systems of political economy with Jacobinical des- 
potism, will form part of " 7'Ae Friend," which 1 am now 
290 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



2b I 



restoration of the Bourbons," I feel myself authorized 
to atPirin, by tlie effect produced on miiiiy intelligent 
men, that were the dates wanlinp, it might have been 
siispecteil that the essays had been written within 
the last twelve months. The same plan I pursued at 
tlie commcniemcnt of the Spanish revolution, and 
with the same success, taking the war ol" the United 
Provinces with I'hilip "Jil. as the groundwork, of the 
comparison. I have mentioned this from no motives 
of vanity, nor even from motives of scll-delence, 
uhich woidd justify a certam degree of cgotixm, espe- 
cially if it be considered hortolion and gros.-^ly I have 
been attacked for sentimeuls which i had exerted my 
best powers to confute and e.tpose, and how griev- 
ously these charges acted to my disadvantage w'hile 
I was in Malta. Or, rather, they would have done 
so, if my own feelings had not precluded tlie wish of 
a settled establishment in that island. But I have 
mentioned it fmm the full pei-suasion that, armed 
with the two-fold knowledge of history and the hu- 
man mind, a man will scarcely err in his judgment 
concerning the sum total of any future national event, 
if he have been able to procure the original docu- 
ments of the past, together with autheiiiic accounts 
of the present, and if ho have a philosophic tact for 
what is truly important in facts, and in most instances, 
therefore, for such facts as the dignity of history 
has excluded from the volumes of our modern com- 
pilers, by the courtesy of the age, entitled historians. 

To have lived in vain must be a painful thought to 
any man, and especially so to him who has made 
literature his profession. I should therel!)re rather 
condole than be angry, with the mind which could 
attribute to no worthier feelings than those of vanity 
or self-love, the satisfaction which I acknowledge 
to have enjoyed from the re-publication of my politi- 
cal essays (either whole or as extracts) not only in 
many of our own provincial papers, but in the fede- 
ral journals throu^out America. I regarded it as 
some proof of my not having labored altogether in 
vain, that from tlie articles written by me shortly 
before, and at the commencement of the late unhap- 
py war with America, not only the sentiments were 
adopted, but, in some instances, the very language, 
in several of the Massachusetts stale-papers. 

But no one of these motives, nor all conjointly, 
would have impelled mo to a statement so uncom- 
fortable to my own feelings, had not my character 
been repeatedly attacked, by an nnjusiifiable intru- 
sion on private life, as of a man incorrigibly idle, and 
who, intrusted not only with ample talents, but favor- 
ed with unusual opportunities of improving tlietn, 
had nevertheless suffered them to rust away without 
any efficient exertion either for his own good or that 
of his fellow-creatures. Even if the compositions 
which I have made public, and that too in a f(>rm the 
most certain of an extensive circulation, though the 
least flattering to an author's sell-love, had been pub- 
completing, and which will be thortly pulilisoed, for I can 
ECurcely say re-published, with tho numbers arrunsed in 
Chapters according tu their subjects. 

Accipo principium rursus, corpusque coactam 
Dcserc ; mulata melior procedo figura. 

38 



lished in Looks, they would have tilled a respectable 
number of volumes, though every passage of merely 
temjiorary interest were omitted. My prose writings 
have been charged with a disproportionate demand 
on the attention ; with an excess of refinement in 
the mode of arriving at truths ; with beating the 
ground for that which might have been run down by 
the eye; with the length and laborious construction 
of my periods ; in short, with obscurity and the love 
of paradox. But my severest critics have not pre- 
tended to have found in my compositions triviality, 
or traces of a mind that shrunk from the toil of think- 
ing. iVo one has charged me with tricking out in 
other words the thoughts of others, or with hashing 
up anew the crambo jam decies coctam of linglish 
literature or philosophy. Seldom have I written that 
in a day, the acquisition or investigation of which 
had not cost me the previous labor of a month. 

But are books the only channel through which the 
stream of intellectual usefulness can flow ? Is the 
diffusion of truth to bo estimated by publications ; or 
publications by the truth which they diffuse, or at 
least contain ? I speak it in the excusable warmth 
of a mind stung by an accusation which has not only 
been advanced in reviews of the widest circulation, 
not only registered in the bulkiest works of periodi- 
cal literature, but, by frequency of repetition, has 
become an admitted fact in private literary circ les, 
and thoughtlessly repeated by too many who call 
themselves my friends, and whose own recollections 
ought to have suggested a contrary testimony. Would 
that the criterion of a scholar's utility were the num- 
ber and moral value of the truths which he has been 
the means of throwing into the general circulation ; 
or the number and value of the minds, whom, by his 
conversation or letters, he has excited into activity, 
and supplied with the germs of their aftergrowth ! 
A distinguished rank might not indeed, even then, 
be awarded to my exertions, but I should dare look 
forward with confidence to an honorable acquittal. 
I should dare appeal to the numerous and respectable 
audiences which, at different times, and in different 
places, honored my lecture-rooms w'ith their attend- 
ance, whether the points of view from which the 
subjects treated of were surveyed, whether tho 
grounds of my reasoning were such as they had 
heard or read elsewhere, or have since found in pre- 
vious publications. I can conscientiously declare, 
that the complete success of the Remorse on the 
first night of its representation, did not give mo as 
great or as hearl-felt a pleasure, as the observation 
that the pit and boxes were crowded with faces 
fiimiliar to me, though of individuals whose names I 
did not know, and of whom I knew nothing, but 
that they had attended one or other of my courses of 
lectures. It is an excellent, though somewhat vulgar 
proverb, that there are cases where a man may be 
as well " hi for a pound as for a penny." To those, 
who from ignorance of the .serious injury I have re- 
ceived from this rumor of having dreamt away my 
life to no purpose, injuries which I unwillingly re- 
member at all, much less am disposed to record in a 
sketch of my literary life ; or to those, who from 
S'Jl 



282 



COLERIDGE'S PRCSE WORKS. 



their own feelings, or the gratification they derive 
from thinking contemptuously of others, would, like 
Job's comforters, attribute these complaints, extorted 
from me by the sense of wrong, to self conceit or 
presumptuous vanity, I have alreadj^ furnished such 
ample materials, that I shall gain nothing by with- 
holding the remainder. I will not, therefore, hesi- 
tate to ask the consciences of those, vvho from their 
long acquaintance with me and with the circum- 
stances, are best qualified to decide, or be my judges, 
whether the restitution of the suum cuique would 
increase or detract from my literary reputation. In 
this exculpation, I hope to be understood as speaking 
of myself comparatively, and in projiortion to the 
claims which others are entitled to make on my time 
or my talents. By what I have eifected, am I to be 
judged by my fellow-men; what I could have done, 
is a question for my own conscience. On my own 
account I may perhaps have had suflicient reason to 
lament my deficiency in self control, and the neglect 
of concentrating my powers to the realization of 
some permanent work. But to verse rather than 
to prose, if to either, belongs the voice of mourning ; 
for 

Keen pangs of love awakening as a babe. 

Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart. 

And fears self-will'd that shunn'd ihe eye of hope. 

And hope that scarce would know itself from fear ; 

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain. 

And genius given and knowledge won in vain, 

And all which I had cuU'd in wood-walks wild. 

And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all 

Commune with thee had open'd out— but flowers 

Strew'd on my corpse, and borne upon my bier 

In the same cofBn, for the selfsame grave ! S. T. C. 

These will exist, for the future, I trust, only in the 
poetic strains which the feelings at the time called 
forth. In those only, gentle reader, 

Affectus animi varies, bellumque sequacis 
Perlegis invidias; curasque revolvis man(!3; 
Quas humilis tenero stylus olim elVudil in a'vo. 
Perlegi.<i et lacrymas, et quod phareiratus acuta 
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus. 
Omnia paulatim consumit longior a:t,is 
Vivcndoquc Simul morimur rapimurQue manendo 
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor; 
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago. 
Vox aliudque sonat. Jamque observatio vita; 
Multa dedit;— lugere nihil, ferre omnia ; jamquo 
Paulatim lacrymas rerum expcrientia tersil. 



CHAPTER XI. 

An afTectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel 
themselves disposed to become authors. 

It was a favorite remark of the late Mr. Whit- 
bread, that no man does anything from a single mo- 
tive. The separate motives, or, rather, moods of 
mind, which produced the preceding reflections and 
anecdotes have been laid open to the reader in each 
separate instance. But, an interest in the welfare 
of those who, at the present time, may be in circum- 
stances not dissimilar to ray own at my first entrance 



into life, has been the constant accompaniment, and 
(as it were,) the under-song of all my feelings 
Whitehead, exerting the prerogative of his laureat- 
ship, addressed to youthful jxiets a poetic charge, 
which is perhaps the best, and certainly the most in- 
teresting of his works. With no other privilege than 
that of sympathy and sincere good wishes, I would 
address an affectionate exhortation to the youthful lite- 
rati, grounded on my own experience. It will be but 
short; for the beginning, middle, and end, converge 
to one charge : nevek pursue literature as a 
TRADE. With the exception of one extraordinary 
man, I have never known an individual, least of all 
an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a 
profession, i. e. some regular employment which does 
not depend on the will of the moment, and which 
can be carried on so fiir mechanically, that an average 
quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual ex- 
ertion, are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three 
hours of leisure, unannoyed bj- any alien anxiety, and 
looked forward to with delight as a change and re- 
creation, will suffice to realize in literature a larger 
product of what is truly genial, than weeks of com- 
pulsion. Money and immediate reputation, lorm only 
an arbitrary and ac<-idenlal end of literary labor. 
The hope of increasing them by any given exertion, 
will often prove a stimulant to industry ; but the 
necessity of acquiring them will, in all works of ge- 
nius, convert the stimulant into a narcotic. Motives 
by excess reverse their very nature, and, instead of 
exciting, stun and stupify the mind. For it is one 
contradistinction of genius from talent, that its pre- 
dominant end IS always compromised in the means; 
and this is one of the many points which establish 
an analogy between genius a.id virtue. ]Now, though 
talents may exist without genius, yet as genius cannot 
exist, certainly not manifest itself, without talents, I 
would advise every scholar who feels the genial 
power working within him, so far to make a division 
between the two, that he should devote his talents 
to the acquirement of competence in some known 
trade or profession, and his genius to objects of his 
tranquil and unbiassed choice; while the conscious- 
ness of being actuated in both alike by the sincere 
desire to perform his duty, will alike ennoble both. 
My dear young friend, (1 would say,) " suppose your- 
self established in any honorable occupation. From 
the maniiliictory, or counting-house, from the law 
court, or from having visited your last patient, you 
return at evening, 

' Pear tranquil lime, when the sweet sense of home 
Is sweetest ' 

to. your family, prepared for its social enjoyments, 
with the very countenances of your wife and children 
brightened, and their voice of welcome made doubly 
welcome by the kufiwledge that, as far as they are 
concerned, yon have satisfied the demands of the 
day by the labor of ihe day. Then, when yon retire 
into your study, in the bonks on your shelves, you re- 
visit so many venerable friends with whom you can 
converse. Your own spirit, scarcely less free from 
personal anxieties than the great minds that, in those 
292 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



283 



books, are still living for you I Even your writing 
desk, with its blank paper, and nil its other imple- 
ments, will appear as a chain of flowers, capable of 
linking your feelings, as well as thoughts, to events 
and characters past or to come ; not a chain of iron, 
which hinds you down to think of the future, and 
the remote, by recalling the claims and feelings of 
the peremptory present. But why should I sny re- 
iire ? The habits of active life and daily intercourse 
with the stir of the world, will tend to give you such 
selfconimand, that the presence of your family will 
be no iiiterriiplion. Nay, the social silence or undis- 
turbing voices of a wife or sister, will be like a resto- 
rative atmospliere, or sod music, whicli moulds a 
dream without becoming its object. If fads are re- 
quired, to prove the jwssibility of combining weighty 
performances in literature with full and independent 
employment, the works of Cicero ami Xenophon 
among the ancients, of Sir Thomas Moore, Bacon, 
Baxter, or, to refer, at once, to later and contemporary 
instances, Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive 
of the question. 

But all men may not dare promise themselves a 
sufficiency of self-control for the imitation of those 
examples; though strict scrutiny should always bo 
made, whether indolence, restlessness, or a vanity 
impatient for immediate gratification, have not tam- 
pered with the judgment, and assumed the vizard of 
humility, for the purposes of self-delusion. Still the 
church presents to every man of learning and genius 
a profession, in which he may cherish a rational hope 
of being able to unite the widest schemes of liierary 
utility with the strictest performance of professional 
duties. Among the numerous blessings of Christian- 
ity, the introduction of an established church makes 
an especial claim on the gratilude of scholars and 
philosophers; in England, at least, where the princi- 
ples of Protestantism have conspired with the free- 
dom of the government, to double all its salutary 
powers by the removal of its abuser. 

That not only the maxims, but the groimds of a 
pure morality the fragments of which, 

" the Infly grave trtigeilians taught 

In chorus or iambic, teachers best 

Of moral prudence, with delight received 

In brief sententious precepti);" 

Paradise Regained. 

and that the sublime truths of the divine unity and 
attributes, which a Plato fiiund most hard to les^rn, 
and deemed it still morediflicult to reveal ; that these 
should have become the almost hereditary property 
of childhood and poverty, of the hovel and the work- 
shop; that, even to the unlettered, they sound as 
commonplace, is a phenomenon, which must with- 
hold all but minds of the most vulgar cast from un- 
dervaluing the services even of the pulpit and the 
reading desk. Yet those who confine the efficiency 
of an established church to its public offices, can 
hardly be placed in a much higher rank of intellect. 
That to every parish throughout the kingdom there 
is transplanted a germ of civilization ; that in the re- 
motest villages there is a nucleus, round which the 
Aa 



capabilities of the place may crystallize and brigluen 
a model, sufficiently superior to excite, yet, sufficiently 
near to encourage and facilitate imitation ; this, the 
inobtrusive, continuous agency of a Protestant church 
estahli.shment, this it is, which the patriot and the 
philanthropist, who vvoidd fain unite the love of 
peace with the faith in the progressive amelioration 
of mankind, cannot estimate at too high a price. " It 
cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the 
precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention shall be 
made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is 
above rubies." The clergyman is with his parishion- 
ers, and among them ; he is neither in the cloistered 
cell, or in the wilderness, but a neighbor and a fami- 
ly-man, whose education and rank admit him to the 
mansion of the rich land-holder, while his duties 
make him the frequent visiter of the farm-house and 
the cottage. He is, or he may become, connected 
with the families of his parish, or its vicinity, by mar- 
riage. And among the instances of the blindness, or 
at best, of the short-sightedness, which it is the na- 
ture of cupidity to inflict, I know few more striking 
than the clamors of the farmers against church pro- 
perty. Whatever was not paid to the clergymen, 
would inevitably at the next lease be paid to the 
land-holder; while, as the case at present stands, the 
revenues of the church are, in some sort, the rever- 
sionary property of every family, that may have 
a member educated for the church, or a daughter 
that may marry a clergyman. Instead of being/ore- 
clo.ted and immoveable, it is in fact the only species 
of landed property that is essentially moving and cir- 
culaiive. That there exist no inconveniences, who 
will pretend to assert? But I have yet to e.xpect the 
proof, that the inconveniences are greater in this than 
in any other species ; or, that either the farmers or the 
clergy would be benefited by forcing the latter to 
become either TrulUhers or salaried placemen. Nay, 
I do not hesitate to declare my fii'm persuasion, that 
whatever renfov of discontent the fiirmers may assign, 
the true cause is this ; that they may cheat the parson, 
but cannot cheat the steward ; and they are disappoint- 
ed, if they should have been able to withhold only two 
pounds less than the legal claim, having expected to 
withhold five. At all events, considered relatively to 
the encouragement of learning and genius, the estab- 
lishment presents a patronage, at once so effective and 
unburthensome, that it would be impossible to afTbrd 
the like, or equal, in any but a Christian and Protest- 
ant country. There is scarce a department of human 
knowledge, without some bearing on the various cri- 
tical, historical, philosophical, and moral truths, in 
which, the scholar must be interested as a clergy- 
man ; no one pursuit worthy of a man of genius, 
which may not be followed without incongruity. To 

I give the history of the bible as a honk, would be little 
less than to relate the origin, or first excitement, of all 
the literature and science that we now possess. The 
very decorum which the profession imjxises, is favor- 

I able to the best purposes of genius, and tends to 

[ counteract its most frequent defects. Finally, that 
man must be deficient in sensibility, who would not 

' find ail incentive to emulation in the great and burn- 

2'J3 



284 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ing lights, which, in a long series, have illustrated the 
church of England ; who would not hear from with- 
in an echo to the voice from the sacred shnnes, 

" Et Pater ^neas et avunculus excitat Hector." 

But, whatever be the profession or trade chosen, 
the advantages are many and important, compared 
with the state of a mere literary man, who, in any 
degree, depends on the sale of his works for the 
necessaries and comforts of life. In the former, a 
man lives in sympathy with the world in which he 
lives. At least, he acquires a better and quicker tact 
for the knowledge of that with which men in general 
can sympathize. He learns to manage his genius 
more prudently and efficaciously. His povvere and 
acquirements gain him likewise more real admiration, 
for they surpass the legitimate expectation of others. 
He is sometimes beside an author, and is not there- 
fore considered merely as an author. The hearts of 
men are open to him, as to one of their own class ; 
and whether he exerts himself or not in the con- 
versational circles of his acquaintance, his silence is 
not attributed to pride, nor his communicativeness to 
vanity. To these advantages I will venture to add 
a superior chance of happiness in domestic life, were 
it only that it is as natural for the man to be out of 
the circle of his household during the day, as it is 
meritorious for the woman to remain for the most 
part within it. But this subject involves points of 
consideration so numerous and so delicate, and would 
not only permit, but require such ample documents 
from the biography of literary men, that I now mere- 
ly allude to it in transitu. When the same circum- 
stance has occurred at very different times to very 
different persons, all of whom have some one thing 
m common, there is reason to suppose that such cir- 
cumstance is not merely attributable to the persons 
concerned, but is, in some measure, occasioned by 
the one point in common to them all. Instead of the 
vehement and almost slanderous dehortation from 
marriage, which the Misogyne Boccaccio (Vila e 
Coslumi di Dante, p. 12. 16.) addresses to literary 
men, I would substitute the simple advice; be not 
merely a man of letters ! Let literature be an honor- 
able augmentation to your arms, but not constitute 
the coat, or fill the escutcheon ! 

To objections from conscience I can of course 
answer in no other way, than by requesting the 
youthful objector (as 1 have already done on a former 
occasion) to ascertain with strict self-examination, 
whether other influences may not be at work ; whe- 
ther spirits, " not of health" and with whispers "not 
from heaven," may not be walking in the twilight of 
his consciousness. Let him catalogue his scruples, 
and reduce them to a distinct intelligible form; let 
him be certain that he has read with a docile mind 
and favorable dispositions, the best and most funda- 
mental works on the subject ; that he has both mind 
and heart opened to the great and illustrious qualities 
of the many renowned characters, who had doubted 
like himself, and whose researches had ended in the 
clear conviction, that their doubts had been ground- 



less, or at least in no proportion to the counter-weight 
Happy will it be for such a man, if, among his con- 
temporaries elder than himselfj he should meet with 
one, who with similar powers and feelings as acute 
as his own, had entertained the same scruples ; had 
acted upon them ; and who, by after-research (when 
the step was, alas ! irretrievable, but for that very 
reason his research undeniably disinterested) had 
discovered himself to have quarrelled with received 
opinions only to embrace errors, to have left the di- 
rections tracked out ft)r him on the high road of 
honorable exertion, only to deviate into a labyrinth, 
where, when he had wandered till his head was 
giddy, his best good fortune was finally to have found 
his way out again, too late for prudence, though not 
too late for conscience or for truth I Time spent in 
such delay is time won ; for manhood in the mean 
time is advancing, and with it increase of knowledge, 
strength of judgment, and, above all, temperance of 
feelings. And even if these should effect no change, 
yet the delay will at least prevent the final approval 
of the decision from being alloyed by the inward 
censure of the rashness and vanity by which it had 
been precipitated. It would be a sort of irreligion, 
and scarcely less than a libel on human nature, to 
believe that there is any established and reputable 
profession or employment, in which a man may not 
continue to act with honesty and honor; and, doubt- 
less, there is likewise none which may not at times 
present temptations to the contrary. But wofully 
will that man find himself mistaken, who imagines 
that the profession of literature, or (to speak more 
plainly) the trade of authorship, besets its members 
with fewer or with less insidious temptations, than 
the church, the law, or the different branches of 
commerce. But I have treated sufficiently on this 
unpleasant subject in an early chapter of this volume. 
I will conclude the present, therefore, with a short 
extract from Herder, whose name I might have 
4idded to the illustrious list of those who have com- 
bined the successful pursuit of the muses, not only 
with the faithful discharge, but with the highest 
honors and honorable emoluments of an established 
profession. The translation the reader will find in a 
note below.* " Am sorgf altigsten, meiden, sei die 
Autorschaft. Zu fruh oder unmassig gebraucht, 
macht sie den Kopf wuste und das Ilerz leer ; wenn 
sie auch sonst keine uble Folgen gabe. Ein Mensch, 
der nur lieset um zu druceken, lieset wahrscheinlich 

* Translation. — " With the greatest possible solicitude 
avoid nulhorship. Too early, or immoderately employed, it 
malics the head zcaste and the heart eaiply ; even were there 
no other worse consequences. A person who reads only to 
print, in all probability reads amiss; and he who sends away 
throu!>h the pen and the press, every thought, the moment it 
occurs to him, will in a short lime have sent all away, and 
will become a mere journeyman of the printing-office, a com- 
positor."' 

To which T may add from myselT, that what medical phy 
sioloeists affirm of certain secretions, applies equally to ou. 
thoughts; they too must be taken up again into the circula- 
tion, and he again and again re-socreted, in order to ensure r 
healthful vigor, both to the mind and to its intellectual oflf 
ipring. 

294 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



285 



ubel ; mul wer jeden tlodanken, dor ihm nufstosst, 
diirch Feder un Presso vorscndet, hat sio in kurzer 
Zeit nlle versnndt, und wird bald ein blosser Diener 

der Druckcrey, ein Buchstal)ensetzer werden. 

Herder. 



CHAPTER XII. 

A Chapter of requests and premonitions concernin? the peru- 
sal or omission of the chapter thul fullows. 

In the perusal of philnsopliical works. I have been 
greatly benefited by a resolve, which, in the antithet- 
ic form, and with the allowed quaininess of an adage 
or maxim, I have been accustomed to word thus: 
" until you understand a writer's ipnoranre, presume 
yourself ignorant of his understanding." This gtjden 
rule of mine does, I oAvn, resemble those of Pytha- 
goras, in its obscurity rather than in its depth. If, 
however, the reader will permit me to be my own 
Hierocles, I trust that he will find its meaning fully 
explained by the following instances. I have now 
before me a treatise of a religious fanatic, full of 
dreams and supernatural experiences. I see clearly 
the writer's grounds, and their hollowness. I have 
a complete insight into the causes, which, through 
the medium of his body, had acted on his mind ; and 
by application of received and ascertained laws, I 
can satisfactorily explain to my own reason, all the 
strange incidents which the writer records of himself 
And this I can do without suspecting him of any in- 
tentional falsehood. As when in broad day-light a 
man tracks the steps of a traveller, who had lost his 
way in a fog, or by treacherous moonshine ; even so, 
and with the same tranquil sense of certainty, can I 
follow the traces of this bewildered visionary. I 

UNDERSTAND HIS IGNORANCE. 

On the other hand, I have been re-perusing, with 
the best energies of my mind, the Timaeus of Plato. 
Whatever I comprehend, impresses me with a reve- 
rential sense of the author's genius ^ but there is a 
considerable portion of the work to which I can at- 
tach no consistent meaning. In other treatises of the 
same philosopher, intended for the average compro- 
liensions of men, I have been delighted with the 
masterly good sense, with the perspicuity of the lan- 
guage, and the aptness of the inductions. I recol- 
lect, likewise, that numerous pxssasies in this author, 
which I thorotighly comprehend, were formerly no 
less unintelligible to me, than the ])a.ssages now in 
question. It would, J am aware, be quite fashiona- 
ble to dismiss them at once as Platonic jargon. But 
this I cannot do, with satisfaction to my own mind, 
because I have sought in vain for causes adequate to 
the solution of the assumed inconsistency. I have 
no insight into the possibility of a man so eminently 
wise, using words with such half-meanings to him- 
self, as must perforce pass into no-meanings to his 
readers. When, in addition to the motives thus sug- 
gested by my own reason. I bring into distinct re- 
membrance the number and the series of great men, 
who, after long and zealous study of these works, 



had joined in honoring the name of Plato with epi- 
thets that almost transcend humanity, 1 feel that a 
contemptuous verdict on my part might argue want 
of modesty, but would hardly he received by the ju 
dicimis, ns evidence of superior penetration. There- 
fore, utterly baflled in all my attempts to understand 
the ignorance of Plato, I conclude .myself ignorant 
OK HIS understanding. 

In lieu of the various requests, which the anxiety of 
authorship addresses to the unknown reader, 1 advance 
hut this one; that he will either pass over the fol- 
lowing chapter altogether, or read the whole connect- 
edly. The fairest part of the mast beautiful body 
will appear deformed and monstrous, if dissevered 
from its place in the organic whole. .\ay, on deli- 
cate subjects, where a seemingly trifling difference 
of more or less may constitute a difference in kind, 
even a faithful display of the main and supporting 
ideas, if yet they are separated from the forms by 
which they are at once clothed and modified, may 
perchance present a skeleton indeed ; but a skeleton 
to alarm and deler. Though I might find numerous 
precedents, I shall not desire the reader to strip his 
mind of all prejudices, or to keep all prior systems 
out of view during his examination of the present. 
For, in truth, such requests appear to me not much 
unlike the advice given to hypochondriacal patients in 
Dr. Buchan's domestic medicine; videlicit, to pre- 
serve themselves uniformly tranquil and in g'-od 
spirits. Till I had discovered the art of destroying 
the memory a parte post, without injury to its future 
operations, and without detriment to the judgment, I 
should suppress the request as premature ; and, there- 
fore, however much I may icish to be read with an 
unprejudiced mind, I do not presume to state it as a 
necessary condition. 

The extent of my daring is to suggest one criteri- 
on, by which it may be rationally conjectured before- 
hand, whether or no a reader would lose his time, 
and perhaps his temper, in the penisal of this, or any 
other treatise constructed on similar principles. But 
it would be cruelly mi-sinterpreted, as implying the 
least disrespect either for the moral or intellectual 
qualities of the individuals thereby precluded. The 
criterion is this: if a man receives as fundamental 
fiicts, and therefore of course indemonstrable, and in- 
capable of further analysis, the general notions of mat- 
ter, soul, body, action, passiveness, time, space, cause 
and eflect, consciousness, perception, memory, and 
habit; if he feels his mind completely at rest con- 
cerning all these, and is satisfied if only he can ana- 
lyze all other notions into .some one or more of these 
supjxised elements, with plausible subordination and 
apt arrangement: to such a mind I would as courte- 
ously as possible convey the hint, that for him the 
chapter was not written. 

Vir bonus es, doctus, prudcns ; ast hauJ libi spiro. 

For these terms do, in truth, include all the diffi- 
culties which the human mind can propose for solu- 
tion. Taking them, therefore, in ma.ss, and unexam- 
ined, it requires only a decent apprenticeship in logic, 
to draw forth their contents in all forms and colors, 
295 



28ft 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



as the professors of legerdemain at our village fairs 
pull out ribbon after ribbon from their mouths. And 
not more difficult is it to reduce them back again to 
their different genera. But though this analysis is 
Aighly useful in rendering our knowledge more dis- 
tinct, it does not really add to it. It does not increase, 
though it gives us a greater mastery over, the wealth 
which we before possessed. For forensic purposes, 
for all the established professions of society, this is 
sufficient. But for philosophy in its highest sense, as 
the science of ultimate truths, and therefore scientia 
scientiarum, this mere analysis of terms is preparative 
only, though, as a preparative discipline, indispensa- 
Dle. 

Siill less dare a favorable perusal be anticipated 
from the proselytes of that compendious philosophy, 
■which talking of mind but thinking of brick and mor- 
tar, or other images equally abstracted from body, 
contrives a theory of spirit by nicknaming matter, and 
in a few hours can qualify its dullest disciples to ex- 
plain the omne scibile by reducing all things to im- 
pressions, ideas, and sensations. 

But it is time to tell the truth; though it requires 
some courage to avow it in an age and country, in 
which disquisitions on all subjects, not privileged to 
•adopt technical terms or scientific symbols, must be 
addressed to the public. I say then, that it is nei- 
ther possible or necessary for all men, or for many, 
to be PHILOSOPHERS. There is a philosophic (and in- 
asmuch as it is actualized by an effort of freedom, an 
artificial) consciousness, which lies beneath, or, (as it 
were,) behind the spontaneous consciousness natural 
to all reflecting beings. As the elder Romans distin- 
guished their northern provinces into Cis-Alpine and 
Trans-Alpine, so may we divide all the objects of 
human knowledge into those on this side, and those 
on the otlier side of the spontaneous consciousness; 
citra et trans conscientiam communem. The latter 
is exclusively the domain of pure philosophy, which 
is, therefore, properly entitled transcendenlal, in order 
to discriminate it at once, both from mere reflection 
and rc-presentation on the one hand, and on the other 
from those flights of lawless speculation, which, aban- 
doned by all distinct consciousness, because trans- 
gressing the bounds and purposes of our intellectual 
faculties, are justly condemned, as transcendent* 

* This distinction between transcendental and transcendent, 
is observed by our elder divines and philosophers, whenever 
they express themselves scholastically. Dr. Johnson, indeed, 
has confounded the two words ; but his own authorities do 
not bear him out. Of this celebrated dictionary, I will ven- 
ture to remark, once for all, that I should suspect the man of 
a morose disposition, who shouM speak of it without respect 
and ijratitude, as a most instructive and entertaining 4ooA-, and 
hitherto, uiil'ortunatcly, an indispensable book ; but I con- 
fess, that 1 should be surprised at hearin? from a philosophic 
and ihorougli scholar, any but very qualified praises of it, as 
a dictionary. I am not now alhidin? to the number of genu- 
ine words omitted ; for this is (and, perhaps, to a great ex- 
tent) true, as Mr. Wakefield has noticed, of our best Greek 
Lexicons ; and this, too, after the successive labors of so 
many giants in learning. 1 refer, at present, both to omissions 
and commissions of a more important nature. What these 
are, me saltern judice, will be stated at full in The Friend, 
re-published and completed. 

I had never heard of the correspondence between Wake- 
field and Fox, till 1 saw the account of it this morning. (IClh 



The first range of hills that encircle the scanty vale 
of human life, is the horizon for the majority of its in- 
habitants. On its ridges the common sun is bom and 
departs. From them the stars rise, and touching them 
they vanish. By the many, even this range, the na- 
tural limit and bulwark of the vale, is but imperfectly 
known. Its higher ascents are too often hidden by 
mists and clouds from uncultivated swamps, which 
few have courage or curiosity to penetrate. To the 
multitude below these vapors appear, now, as the 
dark haunts of terrific agents, on which none may in- 
trude with impunity; and now all o-^Zou', with co- 
lors not their own, they are gazed at as the splendid 
palaces of happiness and power. But in all ages there 
have been a few who, measuring and sounding the 
rivers of the vale at the feet of their furthest inac- 
cessible falls, have learnt that the sources must he far 
higher and far inward ; a few, who even in the level 
streams have detected elements, which neither the 
vale itself or the surrounding mountains contained or 
could supply. How and whence to these thoughts, 
these strong probabilities, the ascertaining vision, the 
intuitive knowledge, may finally supervene, can be 
learnt only by the fact. I might oppose to the ques- 
tion the words with which Plotinust supposes na- 



September, 1815.) in the Monthly Review. I was not a lit'.e 
gratified at finding, that Mr. Wakefield had proposed to him- 
self nearly the same plan for a Greek and English Dictionary, 
which I had formed, and began to execute, now ten years 
ago. But far, far more grieved am 1, that he did not live to 
complete it. I cannot but think it a subject of most seriotis 
regret, that the same heavy expenditure which is now em- 
ploying in the rs- publication of Stcphanus augmented, had 
not been applied to a new Lexicon, on a more philosophical 
plan, with the English, German, and French synonymeB, as 
well as the Latin. In almost every instance, the precise indi- 
vidual meaning might be given in an English or German 
word ; whereas, in Latin, we must too often bo contented 
with a mere general and inclusive term. How, indeed, can 
it be otherwise, when we attempt to render the most copious 
language of the world, the most admirable for the fineness of 
its distinctions, into one of the poorest and most vague lan- 
guages 7 Especially, when we reflect on the comparative 
number of the works still extant, written while the Greek and 
Latin were living languages. Were I asked, what I deemed 
the greatest and most unmixt benefit which a wealthy indi- 
vidual, or an association of wealthy individuals, could bestow 
on their country and on mankind, I should not hesitate to 
answer, "a philosophical English dictionary, with the 
Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, and Italian syno- 
nymes, and with corresponding indexes." That the learned 
languages might thereby be acquired better, in half the time, 
is but a part, and not the most important part, of the advan- 
tages which would accrue from such a work. O I if it should 
be permitted by Providence, that, without detriment to free- 
dom and independence, our government might be enabled to 
become more than a committee for war and revenue I There 
was a time when every thing was to be done by government. 
Have we not flown oflF to the contrary extreme 1 

tEnnead iii. I. 8. c. 3. The force of the Greek ^vvifvni 
is imperfectly expressed by "understand;" our own idiomatic 
phrase, " to go along with mc," comes nearest to it. The 
passage that follows, full of profound sense, appears to me 
evidently corrupt; and, in fact, no writer more wants, better 
deserves, or is less likely to obtain, a new and more correct 
edition: — rt Sv ^vttival , '6ti to ycvoiiefov In ^eafia 
i/ibv, gioinrisis {mallem, S-ea^ta, f/j5 s'imttujik,) Kd 
tpigci ysvdiicvov ^eaprjiia, Kal jxoi ycvojiivri CK Sciopiai 
Ti/i a)ii rriv (pvgiv e^^civ iliiXoScdixova fiTrapKci {mallem, 
Kcii 1101 'r] yzvonivr] ik ^tfxpia; avrrjg uSig.) " What 
then are we to understand f That whatever is produced is an 
295 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



287 



TURK to answer a similar difficuliy. "Should any 
one interrogate her liow she works, if graciously she 
vouchsafe to listen and speak, she will rejJy, it be- 
hooves thee not to disquiet me with interrogatories, 
hut to understand in silence, even as I ara silent, and 
work without words." 

Likewise, in the fifth hook of the fifth Fnnead, 
Bpeaking of the highest and iiitiiiiive knowledge as 
distinguished from the discursive, or, in the language 
of Wordsworth, 

" The vision and the faculty divine ;" 

he says: "it is not lawful to inquire from whence it 
sprang, as if it were a thing subject to place and mo- 
tion, for it neither approached hither, nor again de- 
parts from hence to some other place; but it either 
appears to us, or it does not appear. So that we ought 
not to pursue it with a view of detecting its secret 
source, but to watch in quiet till it suddenly shines 
upon us; preparing ourselves for the blessed specta- 
cle, as the eye waits patiently for the rising sun." 
They, and they only, can acquire the philosophic im- 
agination, the sacred (Kuver of self intuition, who, 
within themselves, can interpret and understand the 
symlx)l, that the wings of the air-sylph are forming 
within the skin of the caterpillar; those only, who 
feel in their own spirits the same instinct which im- 
pels the crysalis of the horned fly to leave room in 
its involucrum for anteimas yet to come. They know 
and feel, that the polential works in them, even as the 
actual works on them ! In short, all the organs of 
■sense are framed for a corresponding world of sense ; 
and we have it. All the organs of spirit are framed 
for a correspondent world of spirit: though the latter 
organs are not developed in all alike. liut they ex- 
ist in all, and their first appearance discloses itself in 
the moral being. How else could it bo, that even 
worldlings, not wholly debased, will contemplate the 
man of simple and disinterested goodness with con- 
tradictory feelings of pity and respect ? " Poor man! 
he is not made for this world." Oh! herein they ut- 
ter a prophecy of universal fulfilment; for man innst 
either rise or sink. 

It is the essential mark of the true philosopher to 
rest satisfied with no imperfect light, as long as the 
impossibility of attaining a fuller knowledge has not 
been demonstrated. That the common consciousness 
itself will furnish proofs by its own direction, that it 
is connected with master-currents below the surface, 
I shall merely assume as a postulate pro tempore. 
This having been granted, though but in expectation 
of the argument, I can safely deduce from it the 
equal truth of my former assertion, that philosophy 
cannot be intelligible to all, even of the most learned 
and cultivated classes. A system, the first principle 
of which it is to render the mind intuitive of the spi- 



inluition, I eilent; and that, which is thus generated, is by its 
nature a theorem, or form of contemplation ; and the birlh, 
which reaults to me from this conlemplalion, attains to have a 
'.ontemplative nature." So Synesius ; 'Jl^/; ipa, Aj/^TjTa 
TovTi. The after comparison of the process of (he natura 
naturans with that of the geometrician is drawn from the 
very heart of philosophy. 

20 Aa2 



ritual in man, (i. e. of that which lies on the other fide 
of our natural consciousness,) must needs have a 
great obscurity for those who have never disciplined 
and strengthened this ulterior consciousness. It 
must, in truth, be a land of darkness, a perfect Ante. 
Goshen, for men to whom the noblest treasures of 
their being are re|X)rted only through the imperfect 
translation of lifbicss and sightless notions: perliap?, 
in great pari, through words which are but the sha- 
dows of notions; even as the notional understanding 
itself is but the shadowy abstraction of living and 
actual truth. On the i.m.mediate, which dwells in 
every man, and on the original intuition, or absolute 
affirmation of it, (which is likewise in every man, but 
does not in every man rise into consciousness,) all the 
certainlif of our knowledge depends; and this be- 
comes intelligible to no man by the ministerj' of mere 
words from without. The medium by which spirits 
understand each other, is not the surrounding air; 
hut the freedom which they possess in common, as 
the common ethereal element of their being, the 
tremulous reciprocations of which propagate them- 
selves even to the inmost of the soul. Where the 
spirit of a man is not jiUvd with the consciousness of 
freedom, (were it only from its restlessness, as of one 
still struggling in bondage,) all spiritual intercourse 
is interrupted, not only with others, but even with 
himself No wonder, then, that he remains incom- 
prehensible to himself as well as to others. No 
wonder, that in the fearful desert of his conscious- 
ness, he wearies himself out with empty words, to 
which no friendly echo answers, either from his own 
heart or the heart of a fellow-being ; or bewilders 
himself in the pursuit of notional phantoms, the 
mere refractions from unseen and distant truths, 
through the distorting medium of his own unenliven- 
ed and stagnant understanding! To remain unintel- 
ligible to such a mind, exclaims Schelling, on a like 
occasion, is honor and a good name before God and 
man. 

The history of philosophy, (the same writer ob- 
serves,) contains instances of systems which for suc- 
cessive generations, have remained enigmatic. Such 
he deems the system of Leibnitz, whom another 
writer, (rashly 1 think, and invidiously,) extols as the 
onJif philosopiicr who was himself deeply convinced 
of his own doctrines. As hitherto interpreted, how- 
ever, they have not produced the effect which Leib- 
nitz himself in a most instructive passage, describea 
as the criterion of a true philosophy: namely, that it 
wouUI at once explain and collect the fragments of 
truth scattered through systems apparently the most 
incongruous. The truth, says he, is diffused more 
widely than is commonly believed ; but it is often 
painted, yet oftener masked, and is sometimes muti- 
lated, and sometimes, alas ! in close alliance with 
mischievous errors. The deeper, however, we pene 
trate into the ground of things, the more truth we 
discover in the doctrines of the greater number of the 
philosophical seels. The want of suhslantinl reality 
in the objects of the senses, according to the scej>- 
tics; the harmonies or numbers, the prototypes and 
ideas, to which the Pythagoreans and Platonists re- 
297 



288 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



duced all things ; the one and all of Parmenides and 
Plotinus, without Spinozism ;* the necessary connec- 
tion of things according to the Stoics, reconcilable with 
the spontaneity of the other schools ; the vital philo- 
sophy of the Cabalists and Hermetists, who assumed 
the universality of sensation ; the substantial forms 
and entelechies of Aristotle and the schoolmen, to- 
gether with the mechanical solution of all particular 
phenomena according to Democritus and the recent 
philosophers ; all these we shall find united in one 
perspective central point, which shows regularity 
and a coincidence of all the parts in the very object 
which, from every point of view, must appear con- 
fused and distorted. The spirit of sectarianism has 
been hitherto our fiiult, and the cause of our failures. 
We have imprisoned our own conceptions by the 
lines which we have drawn in order to exclude the 
conceptions of others. J'ai trouve que la plupartdes 
sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce qu'elles 
avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient. 

A system which aims to deduce the memory with 
all the other functions of intelligence, must, of course 
place its first position from beyond the memory, and 
anterior to it, otherwise the principle of solution 
would be itself a part of the problem to be solved. 
Such a position, therefore, must, in the first instance, 
be demanded, and the first question will be, by W'hat 
right is it demanded ? On this account I think it ex- 
pedient to make some preliminary remarks on the 

* This is happily ciTecied in three lines by Synesius, in his 
Fourth Hymn : 
■*Kv Kal JldvTa — (taken by itself) is Spinozism. 
* Ev &' 'A.iTdvTu)v — a mere anima Mundi. 
' Ev r£ Trgo Travrui/ — is mechanical Theism. 

But unite all three, and the result is the Theism of St. Paul 
and Christianity. 

Synesius was censured for his doctrine of the prc-existence 
of the Soul; but never, that I can find, arraigned or deemed 
heretical for his Pantheism, tliough neither Giordano Bruno, 
or Jacob Behmen, ever avowed it more broadly. 

Mtijaj &e Noos, 

Ta Tt Koi Tci Xiytt, 

'Bv^ov apj)t}Tov 

h.jK^i'X^opivwv. 

20 TO TiKTOv e<pvs, 

20 TO TlKTdjlCVOV 
Xi TO (pMTt^tOV, 

Si tS Xainroficvov 
Ti TO (patvontvov, 

2t) TO KpVTTTOI-lCVOV 

'Ev Kai Travra, 
Ev Ka^" eavTo, 
Kai Sia vdvTUiv- 

Pantheism is, therefore, not necessarily irreligious or here- 
tical ; though it may be taught atheistically. Thus, Spinoza 
would agree with Synesius in calling God ^vm cv Nofpoif, 
the J\ral.ure in Intelligences ; but he could not subscribe to 
the preceding Nbvs Kai Noepos, i. e. Himself Intelligence 
and intelligent. 

In this biographical sketch of my literary life, I may be ex- 
cused, if I mention here, that I had translated the eight 
Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into English Anacreontics 
before my 15lh year. 



introduction of Postulates in philosophy. The 
word postulate, is borrowed from the science of ma- 
thematics. (See Schell. abhandl zur Erlatiter, des id 
dor Wissenschaftslehre.) In geometry the primary 
construction is not demonstrated, but "postulated. 
This first and most simple construction in space, is 
the point in motion, or the line. Whether the point 
is moved in one and the same direction, or whether ila 
direction is continually changed, remains as yet un- 
determined. But if the direction of the point have 
been determined, it is either by a point without it, 
and then there arises the straight line which incloses 
no space ; or the direction of the point is not deter- 
mined by a point without it, and then it must flow 
back again on itself; that is, there arises a cyclical 
line, which does inclose a space. If the straight line 
be assumed as the positive, the cyclical is then the 
negation of the straight. It is a line which at no 
point strikes out into the straight, but changes its di- 
rection continuously. But if the primary line be con- 
ceived as undetermined, and the straight line as 
determined throughout, then the cyclical is the third, 
compounded of both. It is at once undetermined and 
determined ; imdetermined through any point without, 
and determined through itself Geometry, therefore, 
supplies philosophy with the exnmple of a primary 
intuition, from which every science that lays claim 
to evidence must make its commencement. The ma- 
thematician does not begin with a demonstrable pro- 
position, but with an intuition, a practical idea. 

But here an important distinction presents itself 
Philosophy is employed on objects of the inner 
SENSE, and cannot, like geometry, appropriate to 
every construction a correspondent outward intuition. 
Nevertheless, philosophy, if it is to arrive at evi- 
dence, must proceed from the most original construc- 
tion, and the question then is, what is the most 
original construction or first productive act for the 
INNER sensf;? The answer to this question depends 
on the direction which is given to the inner sense. 
But in philosophy, the inner sense cannot have its 
direction determined by any outward object. To 
the original construction of the line, I can be com- 
pelled, by a line drawn before me, on the slate or on 
sand. The stroke thus drawn is, indeed, not the line 
itself but only the image or picture of the line. It is 
not from it that we first learn to know the line ; but, 
on the contrary, we bring this stroke to the original 
line, generated by the act of the imagination ; other- 
wise we could not define it as without breadth or 
thickness. Still, however, this stroke is the sensuous 
image of the original or ideal line, and an efficient 
mean to excite every imagination to the intuition 
of it. 

It is demanded, then, whether there be found any 
means in philosophy to determine the direction of 
the INNER SENSE, as in mathematics it is deter- 
minable by its specific image, or outward picture. 
Now, the inner sense has its direction determined for 
the greater part only by an act of freedom. One 
man's consciousness extends only to the pleasant or 
unpleasant sensations caused in him by external im- 
pressions; another enlarges his inner sense lo a con 
298 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



289 



sciousnpss of forms and quantity ; a third, in addition 
to the image, is conscious of the conception or notion 
of the thing; a fmirlh attains to a notion of notions — 
lie reflects on his own reflections ; and thus we may 
say, without im|)ropriety, that the one possesses more 
or less inner sense than the other. This more or less 
betrays already that philosophy, in its principles, 
must have a practical or moral, as well as a theoreti- 
cal or s|)cculative ^ide. 'I'liis dirterence in deirree 
does not exist in the mathematics. Socrates in I'lalo 
shows, that an ignorant slave may be hn)ii<;hi to un- 
derstand, and, of himself to solve the most geometri- 
cal problem. Socrates drew the figures (or the slave 
in the sand. The disciples ol' the critical philosophy 
could likewise (as was indeed actually done by l,a 
Forge and some other followers of Dos Cartes) repre- 
sent the origin of our repre.seniaiions in copperplates ; 
but no one has yet attempted it, and it would ho ut- 
terly useless. To an Esquimaux or .\ew Zealander, 
our most popular philosophy would be wholly unin- 
telligible; for the sense, the inward organ, is not 
j-et born in him. So is there many a one among us, 
yes, and some who think themselves philosophers, 
too, to whom the philosophic organ is entirely want- 
ing. To such a man, philosophy is a mere play of 
■words and notions, like a theory of music to the deaf, 
or like the geometry of light to the blind. The con- 
nection of the parts and their logical dependencies 
may be seen and remembered; but the whole is 
groundless and hollow; unsustained by living con- 
tact, unaccompanied with any realizing intuition 
which exists by, and in the act that affirms its exist- 
ence, which is known, because it is, and is, because 
it is known. The words of Plotinus, in the assumed 
person of nature, holds true of the philosophic ener- 
gy, lo S-CdipSv fin &ciiprjl'a iruui, wsTtp ol VtWjxtliai 
S-CiopnTc; Ypd(py;ii', aXX' ifxS /ir; ypaipiiri^, ^cuipigo^ (5f, 
i(/)ifai'7aj al tZv ib)fia]u)V ySafi^ai. With me the act 
of contemplation makes the thing contemplated, as 
the geometricians contemplating describe lines cor- 
respondent ; but I not describing lines, but simply 
contemplating, the representative forms of things rise 
up into existence. 

The postulate of philosophy, and, at the same time, 
the test of philosophic capacity, is no other than the 
heaven-descended know thyself I E ccnlo descen- 
dit, {Vvusdi. stavlov,) and this at once practically and 
speculatively. For, as philosophy is neither a science 
of the reason or understanding only, nor merely a 
science of morals, but the science of bkino altogether, 
its primary ground can be neither merely speculative 
or merely practical, but both in one. All knowledge 
rests on the coincidence of an object with a subject. 
(My readers have been warned in a former chapter, 
that for their convenience as well as the writer's, the 
term subject, is used by me in its scholastic sense, as 
equivalent to mind or sentient being, and as the 
necessary correlative of object or quicqiiid ohjicitur 
mcnti.) For we can know that only which is true ; 
and the truth is universally placed in the coincidence 
of the thought with the thing, of the representation 
with the object represented. 
Now the sum of all that is merely objective, we 
39 



will henceforth call nature, confining the term to its 
passive and material sense, as comprising all the phe- 
nomena by which its existence is made known to us 
On the other hand, the sum of all that is subjective, 
we may comprehend in the name of .self or intelli 
GENCE. ]{olh conceptions are in necessary antithe- 
sis. Intelligence is concei\ed Of as exclusively re- 
presentative, nature as exclusively represented; the 
one as conscious, the other as without consciousness. 
Now, in all acts of positive knowledge, there is re- 
quired a reciprocal concurrence of both, namely, of 
the conscious being, and of that which is, in itselfi 
unconscious. Our problem is to explain this concur- 
rence, its po.s.«ibility, and its necessity. 

During the act of knowledge itself, the objective 
and subjective are so instantly united, that we can- 
not determine to which of the two the priority be- 
longs. There is here no first, and no second ; both 
are coinstanlancons and one. While I am attempt- 
ing to explain this intimate coalition, I must suppose 
it dissolved. I must necessarily set out from the one 
lo which, liiereliire, I give hy[)()lhelical aniecedenco. 
in order to arrive at the other. But, a.s 'h?rv.i are but 
two factors or elements in the p'-cl:".<-;/ii, subject and 
object, and as it is left indotcrm'.nate from which of 
them I should cc"yr.o.^ce, there are two cases equally 
possible. 

1. EiTi'jT, » (IF. Objective is taken as the first, 
AND '^:^IL^f we have to account for the superven- 
tion OF the Subjective, which coalesces with it. 

The notion of the subjective is not contained in the 
notion of the objective. On the contrary, they mutu- 
ally exclude each other. The subjective, therefore, 
must supervene to the objective. The conception of 
nature does not involve the co-presence of an intelli- 
gence making an ideal duplicate of it, i. e. represent- 
ing it. This desk, lor instance, would (according to 
our natural notions) be, though there should exist no 
sentient being lo look at it. This then is the problem 
of natural philosophy. It assumes the objective or 
unconscious nature as the first, and has, therefore, to 
explain how intelligence can supervene to it, or how 
itself can grow into intelligence. If it should appear 
that all enlightened naturalists, without having dis- 
tinctly proposed the problem to themselves, have yet 
constantly moved in the line of its solution, it must 
afford a strong presumption that the problem itself is 
founded in nature. For if all knowledge has, as it 
were, two poles reciprocally required and presup- 
posed, all sciences must proceed from the one or the 
other, and must tend toward the opposite as far as the 
equatorial [loint in which both are reconciled, and 
become identical. The necessary lendence, there- 
fore, of all natural philosophy, is from nature to intel- 
ligence ; and this, and no other, is the true ground 
and occasion of the instinctive striving to introduce 
theory into our views of natural phenomena. The 
highest perfection of natural philosophy would con- 
sist in the perfect spirilualization of all the laws of 
nature into laws of intuition and intellect. The phe- 
nomena O'/ie material) must wholly disappear, and the 
laws alone {llie formal) must remain. Thence it 
comes, that in nature itself, the more the principle of 
29'J 



290 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



law breaks forth, the more does the husk drop offi the 
phenomena themselves become more spiritual, and at 
length cease altogether in our consciousness. The 
optical phenomena, are but a geometry, the lines of 
which are drawn by light, and the materiality of this 
light itself has already become matter of doubt. In 
the appearances of magnetism, all trnce of matter is 
lost, and, of the phenomena of gravitation, which, not 
a few among the most illustrious Newtonians, have 
declared no otherwise comprehensible than as an im- 
mediate spiritual influence, there remains nothing but 
its law, the.execution of which on a vast scale, is the 
mechanism of the heavenly motions. The theory of 
natural philosophy would then be completed ; when 
all nature was demonstrated to be identical in es- 
sence with that which, in its highest known power, 
exists in man as an intelligence, and selfconscious- 
ness ; when the heavens and the earth shall declare, 
not only the power of their Maker, but the glory and 
the presence of their God, even as he appeared to the 
great prophet during the vision of the mount in the 
skirts of his divinity. 

This may suffice to show, that even natural sci- 
ence, which commences with the material phenome- 
non as the reality and substance of things existing, 
does yet, by the necessity of theorizing, unconsciously, 
and, as it were, instinctively, end in nature as an in- 
telligence ; and by this tendency, the science of na- 
ture becomes finally natural philosophy, the one of 
the two poles of fundamental science. 

2. Or the subjective is taken as the first, and 
the problem then is, how there supervenes to 
it a coincident objective. 

In the pursuit of these sciences, our success in 
each depends on an austere and faithful adherence to 
its own principles, with a careful separation and ex- 
clusion of those which appertain to the opposite sci- 
ence. As the natural philosopher, who directs his 
views to the objective, avoids, above all things, the 
intermixture of the subjective in his knowledge, as 
for instance, arbitrary suppositions or rather suffic- 
tions, occult qualities, spiritual agents, and the substi- 
tution of final or efficient causes; so on the other 
hand, the transcendental or intelligential philosopher, 
is equally anxious to preclude all interpolation of the 
objective into the subjective principles of his science; 
as, for instance, the assumption of impresses or con- 
figurations in the brain, correspondent to miniature 
pictures on the retina painted by rays of light from 
supposed originals, which are not the immediate and 
real objects of vision, but deductions from it, for the 
purposes of explanation. This purification of the 
mind is effected by an absolute and scientific scepti- 
cism to which the mind voluntarily determines itself 
for the specific purpose of future certainty. Des 
Cartes, who (in his meditations) himself first, at least 
of the moderns, gave a beautiful example of this vo- 
luntary doubt, this self-determined indetermination, 
happily expresses its utter difllerence from the scepti- 
cism of vanity or irreligion : Nee tamen in eo scepticos 
imitabar, qui dubitant tantum ut dubitent, et preter in- 
certitudinem ipsam nihil qutcrant. Nam conira totus 
in eo eram ut aliquid certi reperirem. — Des Cartes, 



de Methodo. Nor, is it less distinct in its motives and 
final aim, than in its proper objects, which are not, as 
in ordinary scepticism, the prejudices of education 
and circumstance, but those original and innate pre- 
judices, which nature herself has planted in all men, 
and which, to all but the philosopher, are the first 
principles of knowledge, and the final test of truth. 

Now these essential prejudices are all reducible to 
the one fundamental presumption, that there exist 
THINGS WITHOUT U.S. As this on the one hand ori- 
ginates, neither in grounds or arguments, and yet on 
the other hand remains proof against all attempts to 
remove it by grounds or arguments, {tiaturain furca 
expellas tamen usque redibit ;) on the one hand lays 
claim to immediate certainty as a position at once 
indemonstrable and irresistible, and yet on the other 
hand, inasmuch as it refers to something essentially 
difl^erent from ourselves, nay, even in opposition to 
ourselves, leaves it inconceivable how it could possi- 
bly become a part of our immediate consciousness; 
(in other words, how that, which ex hypothesi is and 
continues to be intrinsic and alien to our being,) the 
philosopher, therefore, compels himself to treat this 
faith as nothing more than a prejudice, innate, in- 
deed, and connatural, but still a prejudice. 

The other position, which not only claims, but ne- 
cessitates the admission of its immediate certainty, 
equally for the scientific reason of the philosopher as 
for the common sense of mankind at large, namely, I 
AM, cannot so properly be entitled a prejudice. It is 
groundless, indeed, but then in the very idea it pre- 
cludes all ground, and separated from the immediate 
consciousness, loses its whole sense and import. It is 
groundless ; but only because it is itself the ground of 
all other certainty. Now the apparent contradiction, 
that the former position, namely, the existence of 
things without us, which from its nature cannot be 
immediately certain, should be received as blindly 
and as independently of all grounds as the existence 
of our own being, the transcendental philosopher can 
solve only by the supposition, that the former is un- 
consciously involved in the latter; that it is not only 
coherent, but identical, and one and the same thing 
with our own immediate self-consciousness. To de- 
monstrate this identity, is the office and object of his 
philosophy. 

If it be said, that this is Idealism, let it be remem- 
bered that it is only so far idealism as it is at the same 
time, and on that very account, the truest and most 
binding realism. For wherein does the realism of 
mankind properly consist? In the assertion, that there 
exists a something without them, what, or how, or 
where, they know not, which occasions the objects of 
their perception ? Oh no! This is neither connatu- 
ral or universal. It is what a few have taught and 
learnt in the schools, and which the many repeat 
without asking themselves concerning their own 
meaning. The realism common to all mankind is 
far elder, and lies infinitely deeper than this hypo- 
thetical explanation of the origin of our perceptions, 
an explanation skimmed from the mere surface of 
mechanical philosophy It is the table itself, which 
the man of common sense believes himself to see, 
300 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



291 



not the phantom of a table, from which he may argu- 
meiitatively reduce the reahty of a table, whicli he 
does not see. If to destroy the reahly of lliat we ac- 
tually behold, be idealism, what can be more egre- 
griously so than the system of modern metaphysics, 
which banishes us to a land of shadows, surrounds us 
with apparitions, and distinguishes truth from illusion 
only by the majority of those who dream tlie same 
dream? " / asserted that the world was mad," ex- 
claimed poor Lee, " and the world said that I was 
mad, and, confound them, they outvoted me." 

It is to the true and original realism, that I would 
direct the attention. This believes and requires nei- 
ther more nor less, than that the object which it be- 
holds or presents to itself, is the real and very object. 
In this sense, however much we may strive against 
it, we are all collectively born idealists, and there- 
fore, and only therefore, are we at the same time 
realists. But of this the philosophers of the schools 
know nothing, or despise the faith as the prejudice 
of the ignorant vulgar, because they live and move 
in a crowd of phrases and notions from which human 
nature has long ago vanished. Oli, ye that reverence 
yourselv'es, and walk humbly with the divinity in 
your own hearts, ye are worthy of a better philoso- 
phy! Let the dead bury the dead, but do you pre- 
serve your human nature, the depth of which was 
never yet fathomed by a philosophy made up of 
notions and mere logical entities. 

In the third treatise of my Logosophia, announced 
as soon to be published, I shall give (deo volenie) 
the demonstrations and constructions of the Dynamic 
Philosophy scientifically arranged. It is, according 
to my conviction, no other than the system of Pytha- 
goras and of Plato revived and purified from impure 
mixtures. Doctrina per tot manus tradita tandem in 
Vappam desiit. The science of arithmetic furnishes 
instances, that a rule may be useful in practical ap- 
plication, and for the particular purpose may be suf- 
ficiently authenticated by the result, before it has 
itself been fully demonstrated. It is enough, if only 
it be rendered intelligible. This will, I trust, have 
been effected in the following Theses, for those of 
my readers who are willing to accompany me through 
the following Chapter, in which the results will be 
applied to the deduction of the imagination, and with 
it the principles of production and of genial criticism 
in the fine arts. 

Thesis I. — Truth is correlative to being. Know- 
ledge, without a correspondent reality, is no know- 
ledge ; if we know, there must be somewhat known 
by us. To know is in its very essence a verb active. 

Thesis II. — All truth is either mediate, that is, 
derived from some other truth or truths, or immediate 
and original. The latter is absolute, and its formula 
A. A.; the former is of independent or conditional 
certainty, and represented in the formula B. A. The 
certainty, which inheres in A, is attributable to B. 

Scholium. A chain without a staple, from which 
all the links derived their stability, or a series with- 
out a first, has been not inaptly allegorized, as a 
string of blind men, each holding the skirt of the 
man before him, reaching far out of sight, but all 



moving without the least deviation in one straight 
line. It would be naturally taken for granted that 
there was a guide at the head of the file : what if 
it were answered— No ! sir, the men are without 
number, and infiuile blindness supplies the place ot 
sight I 

Equally inconccivuhh is a cycle of equal truths, 
without a common and central principle, which pre- 
scribes 10 each its proper sphere in the system of 
science. That the absurdity does not so immediately 
strike us, that it does not seem equally unimaginable, 
is owing to a surreptitious act of the imagination, 
which instinctively, and without our noticing the 
same, not only fills at the intervening spaces, and 
contemplates the cycle, (of B. C. D. E. F. &c.) as a 
continuous circle, (A.) giving to all, collectively, the 
unity of their common orbit ; but likewise supplies, 
by a sort of suhintclllgitur, the one central power, 
which renders the movement harmonious and cycli- 
cal. 

Thesis III. — We are to seek, therefore, for some 
absolute truth, capable of communicating to other 
positions a certainty, which it has not itself borrow- 
ed ; a truth self-grounded, unconditional, and known 
by its own light. In short, we have Jo find a some- 
what, which (.'!, simply, because it is. In order to be 
such, it must be one which is its own predicate, so 
far, at least, that all other nominal predicates must 
be modes and repetitions of itself. Its existence, too, 
must be such as to preclude the possibility of requir- 
ing a cause, or antecedent, without an absurdity. 

Thesis IV. — That there can be but one such 
principle, may be proved a priori ; for were there 
two or more, each must refer to some other, by which 
its equality is affirmed ; consequently, neither would 
be self-established, as the hypothesis demands. And 
a posteriori, it will be proved by the principle itself, 
when it is discovered, as involving universal ante- 
cedents in its very conception. 

Scholium. If we afTirm of a board that it is blue, 
the predicate (blue) is accidental, and not implied in 
the subject, board. If we affirm of a circle, that it 
is equi-radical, the predicate, indeed, is implied in 
the definition of the subject; but the existence of the 
subject itself is contingent, and supposes both a cause 
and a percipient. The same reasoning will apply to 
the indefinite number of suiipnsed indemonstrable 
truths, exempted from the profane approach of phw 
losophic investigation by the amiable Beattie, and 
other less eloquent and not more profound inaugu- 
rators of common sense, on the throne of philosophy ; 
a fruitless attempt, were it only that it is the two-fold 
function of philosophy to reconcile reason with com- 
mon sense, and to elevate common sense into reason. 

Thesis \'.— Such a principle cannot be any thing 
or OBJECT. Each thing is what it is in consequence 
of some other thing. An infinite, independent thing,* 
is no less a contradiction, than an infmite circle, or a 



• The imposeibililF of an absolute thing, (substantia unica,) 
as ncilhcr cenus, species, nor individuum, as well as its utter 
unfitness for the fundnmcntal position of a philosophic syslem, 
will bo dunonsiralod in ibe critiiiue on Spinozism in Ihe fifth 
treatise of my Logosophia. 



292 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



sideless triangle. Besides, a thing is that which is 
capable of being an object, of which itself is not the 
sole percipient. But an object is inconceivable with- 
out a subject as its antithesis. Orane perceptual 
percipientem supponit. 

But neither can the principle be found in a subject, 
as a subject, contra-distinguished from an object ; for 
unicuique percipienti aUquid objicitur perceptum. 
It is to be found, therefore, in neither object or sub- 
ject, taken separately ; and, consequently, as no other 
third is conceivable, it must be found in that which 
IS neither subject nor object exclusively, but which 
is the identity of both. 

Thesis VI. — This principle, and so characterised, 
manifests itself in the Sum or I a.m; which I shall 
hereafter indiscriminately express by the words spirit, 
self, and self-consciousness. In this, and in this alone, 
object and subject, being and knowing, are identical, 
each involving and supposing the other. In other 
words, it is a subject which becomes a subject by 
the act of constructing itself objectively to itself; 
but which never is an object except fur itself, and 
only so far as by the very same act it becomes a 
subject. It may be described, therefore, as a per- 
petual self-duplication of one and the same power, 
into object and subject, which pre-supposes each 
other, and can exist only as antithesis. 

Scholium. If a man be asked how he k7wws 
that he is ? he can only answer, sum quia sum. But 
if (the absoluteness of this certainty having been ad- 
mitted) he be again asked, how he, the individual 
person, came to be, then, in relation to the ground of 
his existence, not to the ground of his knowledge of 
that existence? he might reply, sum quia deus est, 
or still more philosophically, sum quia in deo sum. 

But if we elevate our conception to the absolute 
self, to the great eternal I am, then the principle of 
being, and of knowledge, of idea, and of reality ; the 
ground of existence, and the ground of the knowledge 
of existence, are absolutely identical. Sum quia 
sum ; I am, because I affirm myself to be ; I affirm 
myself to be, because I am.* 

* It is most worthy of notice, that in the first revelation of 
himself, not confined to individuals; indeed, in the very first 
revelation of his absolute being, Jehovah at the same time 
revealed the fundamental truth of all philosophy, which must 
either commence with the absolute, or have no fixed com- 
mencement ; i. fc. cease to be philosophy. I cannot but ex- 
press my regret, that in the equivocal use of the word that. 
for in that, or because, our admirable vprsinn has rendered 
the passage susceptible of a degraded interpretation in the 
mind of common readers or hearers, as if it were a mere re- 
proof to an impertinent question, I am what I am, which 
might be equally atBrmed of himself by any existent being. 

The Cartesian Copito, ergo sum, is objectionable, because 
either the Cogito is used extra Gradum, and then it is involved 
in the sum and is tautological, or it is taken as a particular 
mode or dignity, and then it is subiirdinatcd to the sum as the 
species to the genus ; or, rather, as a particular modification 
to the subject modified ; and not pre-ordinated, as the argu- 
ments seem to require. For Cogito is Sum Cogitans. This 
is clear by the inevidence of the converse. Cogitat ergo est, 
is true, because it is a mere application of the logical rule : 
Quicquid in genere est, est et in specie. Est (cogitans) ergo 
est. It is a cherry tree ; therefore it is a tree. But, est ergo 
cogitat, is illogical: for quod est in specie, non iieccssario in 
genere est It may be true. I hold it to be true, that quic- 



Thesis VII. — If then I know myself only through 
myself, it is contradictory to require any other predicate 
of self, but that of self-consciousness. Only in the self- 
consciousness of a spirit is there the required identity of 
object and of representation ; for herein consists the es- 
sence of a spirit, that it is self-representative. If, there- 
fore, this be the one only immediate truth, in the cer- 
tainty of which the reality of our collective knowledge 
is grounded, it must follow that the spirit, in all the ob- 
jects which it views, views only itself. If this could 
be proved, the immediate reality of all intuitive know- 
ledge would be assured. It has been shown, that a 
spirit is that which is its own object, yet not origin- 
ally an object, but an absolute subject for which all, 
itself included, may become an object. It must, there- 
fore, be an act ; for every object is, as an object, dead, 
fixed, incapable in itself of an action, and necessarily 
finite. Again : the spirit, (originally the identity of 
object and subject,) must, in some sense, dissolve this 
identity, in order to be conscious of it: fit alter et 
idem. But this implies an act, and it follows, there- 
fore, that intelligence or self-consciousness is impos- 
sible, except by and in a will. The self-conscious 
spirit, therefore, is a will; and freedom must be as- 
sumed as a ground of philosophy, and can never be 
deduced from it. 

Thesis VIII. — Whatever in its origin is objective, 
is likewise, as such, necessarily infinite. Therefore, 
since the spirit is not originally an object, and as the 
subject exists in antithesis to an object, the spirit can- 
not originally be finite. But neither can it be a sub- 
ject without becoming an object, and as it is origin- 
ally the identity of both, it can be conceived neither 
as infinite or finite, exclusively, but as the most ori- 
ginal union of both. In the existence, in the recon- 
ciling, and the recurrence of this contradiction, con- 
sists the process and mystery of production and life. 

Thesis IX. — Thisprincipium commune essendi et 
cognoscendi, as subsisting in a will, or primary act 
of self-duplication, is the mediate or indirect principle 
of every science ; but it is the immediate and direct 
principle of the ultimate science alone, i. e. of trans- 
cendental philosophy alone. For it must be remem- 
bered, that all these Theses refer solely to one of the 
two Polar Sciences, namely, to that which commences 
with, and rigidly confines itself within the subjective, 
leaving the objective, (as far as it is exclusively ob- 
jective,) to nattiral philosophy, which is its opposite 
pole. In its very idea, therefore, as a systematic 
knowledge of our collective knowing, (scientia sci- 
entae,) it involves the necessity of some one highest 
principle of knowing, as at once the source and the 



quid vere est, est per veram sui affirmationem ; but it is a 
derivative, not an immediate truth. Here, then, we have, by 
anticipation, the distinction between the conditional finite I, 
(which, as known in distinct consciousness by occasion of 
experience, is called, by Kant's followers, the empirical I,) 
and the absolute I am, and likewise the dependence, or rather 
the inherence of the former in the latter ; in whom " we 
live, and move, and have our being," as St. Paul divinely 
asserts, diff'ermg widely from the Theists of the mechanic 
school, (as Sir J. Newton, Locke, &c.) who must say from 
whom we had our being, and with it, life and the powers o. 
Ufe. 

302 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



293 



accompanying form in all particnlur acts of intellect 
and perception. Tliis, it has been shown, can be 
found only in the act and evolution of self-conscious- 
ness. We are not investigating an absolute principi- 
ura cssendi; for then, I admit, many valid objections 
might be started against our theory ; but an absolute 
principium cognosceiidi. The result of lK>th the sci- 
ences, or their equatorial point, woidd be the princi- 
ple oi' a total and undivided philosophy, a^, for ])ru- 
dential rc;isons, 1 have chosen to anticipate in the 
Scholium to Thesis \' I. and the note subjoined. In 
other words, philosophy would pass into religion, and 
religion become inclusive of phdosophy. We begin 
with the I K.NOw .myself, in order to end with the 
absolute I am. We proceed from the sei>f, in order 
to lose and fmd all self in God. 

Thesis X. — The transcendental philosopher does 
not inquire, what ultimate ground of our knowledge 
there may lie out of our knowing, but what is the 
last in our knowing itself, beyond which v-e cannot 
pass. The principle of our knowing is sought within 
the sphere of our knowing. It must be something, 
therefore, which can itself be known. It is asserted, 
only, that the act of self consciousness is for ris the 
source and principle of all our possible knowledge. 
Whether, abstracted from us, there exists any thing 
higher and beyond this primary self-knowing, which 
is for us the form of all our knowing, must be decided 
by the result. 

That the self-consciousness is the fixt point, to 
which for us all is morticed and annexed, needs no 
further proof But that the self-consciousness may 
be the modification of a higher form of being, per- 
haps of a higher consciousness, and this again of a 
yet higher, and so on in an infinite regressus; in 
short, that self-consciousness may be itself something 
explicable into something, which must lie beyond the 
possibility of our knowledge, because the whole syn- 
thesis of our intelligence is first formed in and through 
the self-consciousness, does not at all concern us as 
transcendental philosophers. For to us the self-con- 
sciousness is not a kind of being, but a kind of Jmow- 
ing, and that, too, the highest and fijrihest that exists 
for us. It may however be shown, and has in part 
already been shown, in a preceding page, that even 
when the objective is assumed as the first, we yet can 
never pass beyond the principle of self-consciousness. 
Should we attempt it, we must be driven back from 
ground to ground, each of which would cease to be 
ground the moment we pressed on it. We must ho 
whirled down the gulf of an infinite series. But this 
would make our reason baffle the end and purpose of 
all reason, namely, unity and system. Or we must 
break off the system arbitrarily, and affirm an abso- 
lute something that is in and of itself at once cause 
and effect, {causa eui,) subject and object, or, rather, 
the absolute identity of both. But as this is incon- 
ceivable, except in a self-consciousness, it follows, 
that even as natural philosophers we must arrive at 
the same principle from which, as transcendental phi- 
losophers, we set out; that is, in a self consciousness 
in which the principium essendi docs not stand to the 
printrn«jm cognoscendi in the relation of cause to ef- 



fect, but both the one and the other are co-inherent 
and identical. Thus the true system of natural phi- 
losophy places the sole reality of things in an abso- 
lute, which is at once causa sui et effcctus, iralrip 
(ni7s-<i7ai/i, Xwi tnvlu — in the absolute identity of sul)- 
ject and object, which it calls nature, and which in 
its highest power is nothing else but selfconscious 
will or intelligence. In this sense the position of 
iMalbraiiche, that we see all things in Cod, is a strict 
philosophienl tniili; and ecpinlly true is the assertion 
of llobbs, of Hartley, and of their masters in an- 
cient Greece, that all real knowledge supposes a 
prior sensation. For sensation itself is but vision 
nascent, not the cause of intelligence, but intelligence 
itself revealed as an earlier ix)wer in the process of 
sell-construction. 

Ma/cnp, WaQi not! 
Tldlcp, "iXadi fioi 
E( Ttapd Kdsfiov, 
E( irapii fioipav 
Tdv jQJv cdiyov ! 

Bearing then this in mind, that intelligence is a 
self-development, not a quality supervening to a sub- 
stance, we may abstract from all degree, and for the 
purfKise of philosophic construction, reduce it to kind, 
under the idea of an indestructible power, with two 
opposite and counteracting forces, which by a meta- 
phor borrowed from astronomy, we may call the cen- 
trifugal and centripedal forces. The intelligence in 
the one tends to ohjeciixe itself, and in the other to 
know itself in the object. It will be hereafter my 
business to construct, by a series of intuitions, the 
progressive schemes that must follow from such a 
power with such forces, till I arrive at the fulness of 
the human intelligence. For my present purpose, I 
assume such a power as my principle, in order to de- 
duce from it a faculty, the generation, agency, and 
application of which form the contents of the ensuing 
chapter. 

In a preceding page I have justified the use of 
technical terms in philosophy, whenever they tend 
to preclude confusion of thought, and when they as- 
sist the memory by the exclusive singleness of their 
meaning rr.ore than they may, fiir a short time, be- 
wilder the attention by their strangeness. I trust, 
that I have not extended this privilege beyond the 
grounds on which I have claimed it; namely, the 
conveniency of the scholastic phrase to distinguish 
tlic kind from all degrees, or rather to express the 
kind with the alistraciion of degree, as, for instance, 
multeity instead of multitude; or, secondly, for the 
sake of correspondence in sound and interdependent 
or aniithelical terms, as subject and object ; or, last- 
ly, to avoid the wearying recurrence of circumlocu 
tions and definitions. Thus I shall venture to us«! 
jwtence, in order to express a specific degree of 
power, in imitation of the algebraists. I have even 
hazarded the new verb [lotenziate, with its deriva- 
tives, in order to express the combination or transfer 
of powers. It is with new or unusual terms, as with 
privileges in courts of justice or legislature; there 
can be no legitimate privilege, where there already 
303 



294 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



exists a positive law adequate to the purpose ; and 
when there is no law in existence, the privilege is to 
be justified by its accordance with the end, or final 
cause of all law. Unusual and new-coined words 
are doubtless an evil ; but vagueness, confusion, and 
imperfect conveyance of our thoughts, are a far 
greater. Every system, which is under the necessity 
of using terms not familiarized by the metaphysics in 
fashion, will be described as written in an unintelli- 
gible style, and the author must expect the charge of 
having substituted learned jargon f()r clear concep- 
tion; while, according to the creed of our modern 
philosophers, nothing is deemed a clear conception, 
but what is representahle by a distinct image. Thus 
the conceivable is reduced wiliiin the bounds of the 
picturahle. Hinc patet, qui (iat ut, cum irrepr(Fsent- 
ahle et impossibile \u\go ejusdemsignificatns habean- 
tur, conceptus tam Confiniii, quam infinifi, a plurimis 
rejeciantur, quippe quorum, secimdi.m legts rcgni- 
tionis intuitivcp, repra;sentatio est impossihilis. Quan- 
quam autem harum e non paucis scholis explosarum 
notionem, praesertim prioris, causam hie non gero, 
maximi tamen momenti erit monuisse : gravissimo 
illos errore labi, qui tam perversa argumentandi ra- 
tione utuntur. Quicquid enim repvenat lesibus in- 
tellectus et rationis, utique est impossibiie; quod 
autem, cum rationis pura^ sit objectum, legibus cog- 
nitionis intuitivse tantummodo von snbcsf, non item. 
Nam hinc dissensus inter facultatem sensilivam et 
intellect iialem, (quarem indolem mox exponam) nihil 
indigitat, nisi, qtiafi mens ab intellectu accerplas fert 
ideas abstraclas, illas in concrete exequi, el in Inluitus 
commutare sapenumero non posse. Ha;c autem reluc- 
tantia subjectiva mentitur, ut plurimum, repugnantiam 
aliquam objectivam, et incautos facile fallit, limitibus, 
quibus mens Jiumana circuseribitur, pro iis habitis, 
quibus ipsa rerum essentia continetur.* — Kmit de 



* Translation. — " Hence it is clear, from what cause many 
reject the notion of the continuous ant) the infinite. They 
take, namely, the words irrepresentable and impossible, in 
one and the same mounina ; and, according to the forms of 
sensuous evidence, the notion of the continuous ,ind the 
infinite is doubtless impossible. I am not now pleading the 
cause of these laws, which not a few schools have thought 
proper to explode, especially the former (the law of con- 
tinuity.) But it is of the highest importance to admonish the 
reader, that those who adopt so perverted a mode of reas'Mi- 
ing, are under a grievous error. Whatever opposes the for- 
mal principles of the understanding and the reason, is con- 
fessedly impossible ; but not, therefore, that which is tlierefore 
not amenable to the forms of sensuous evidence, because it 
is exclusively an object of pure intellect. For this non-coinci- 
dence of the sensuous and the intellectual, (I he nature of 
which I shall presently lay open,) proves nothing more but 
that the mind cannot always adequately represent in the con- 
crete, and transform into distinct images, abstract notions 
derived from the pure intellect. But this contradiction, which 
is in itself merely subjective, (i. e. an incapacity in the nature 
of man,) too often passes for an incomrruity or impossil)iliiy 
in the object, (i. e. the notions themselves,) and seduce the 
incautious to mistake the limitations of the human faculties 
for the limits of things, as they really e.\ist." 

I take this occasion to observe, that here and e'sewhere, 
Kant uses the terms intuition, and the verb active inlueri, 
(Germanice anschauen) for which we have unfortunately no 
correspondent word, exclusively for that which can be repre- 
eented in space and time. He therefore consistently, and 
rightly, deniea the possibility of intellectual intuitions. But 



Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis forma et pnnci- 
piis, 1770. 

Critics, who are most ready to bring this charge of 
pedantry and unintelligibility, are the most apt to 
overlook the important fact, that beside the language 
of words, there is a language of spirits, (sermo inte- 
rior,) and that the former is only the vehicle of the 
latter. Consequently, their assurance, that they do 
not understand the philosophic writer, instead of 
proving any thing against the philosophy, may fur- 
nish an equal and (ceteris paribus) even a stronger 
presumption against their own philosophic talent. 

Great indeed are the obstacles which an English 
metaphysician has to encounter. Amongst his most 
respectable and intelligent judges, there will be many 
who have devoted their attention exclusively to the 
concerns and interests of human life, and who bring 
with them to the perusal of a philosophic system an 
habitual aversion to ail speculations, the utility and 
application of which are not evident and immediate. 
To these I would, in the first instance, merely oppose 
an authority which they themselves hold venerable, 
that of Lord Bacon : non inutile scientice existimande 
sunt, quarum in se nuUus est usus, si ingenia acuant 
et ordinent. 

There are others, whose prejudices are still more 
formidable, inasmuch as they are grounded in their 
moral feelings and religious principles, which had 
been alarmed and shocked by the impious and per- 
nicious tenets defended by Hume, Priestley, and the 
French fatalists or necessitarians ; some of whom had 
perverted metaphysical reasonings to the denial of 
the mysteries, and, indeed, of all the peculiar doc- 
trines of Christianity ; and others even to the subver- 
sion of all distinction between right and wrong. I 
would request such men to consider what an eminent 
and successful defender of the Christian faith Tias 
observed, that true metaphysics are nothing else Dut 
true divinity, and that in fact the writers who have 
given thetTi such just ofTence, were sophists, who had 
taken advantage of the general neglect into which 
the science of logic has unhappily fallen, rather than 
metaphysicians, a name, indeed, which those writers 
were the first to explode as unmeaning. Secondly, I 
would remind them, that as long as there are men 
in the world to whom the Ti'toSi siavrov is an instinct 
and a command from their own nature, so long will 
there be metaphysicians and metaphysical specula- 
tions; that false metaphysics ran be effectually coun- 
teracted by true metaphysics alone; and that if the 
reasoning be clear, solid, and pertinent, the truth de- 
duced can never be the less valuable on account of 
the depth from which it may have been drawn. 

A third class profess themselves friendly to meta- 
physics, and believe that tliey are themselves meta- 
physicians. They have no objection to system or 
terminology, provided it be the method and the no- 
menclature to which they have been familiarized in 



as I see no aiieqiiale reason for this exclusive sense of the 
term, [ have reverted to its wider signification authorized by 
our elder theologians and metaphysicians, according to whom 
the term comprehends all truths known to us without 
medium. 

304 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



295 



the writings of Ix)cke, Hume, Hartley, Condilinc, or 
perha|)a Ur Ivoid and I'rofossor Stewart. To objec- 
tions from this cause, it is a sufl'u'ient answer, that 
one main object of my attempt was to demonstrate 
the vagueness or insufllciency of tlie terms used in 
the metapiiysical schools of France andtireat Britain 
since the revolution, and that the ern)rs which I pro- 
pose to attack camiot subsist, exce|)t as Ihey are con- 
cealed behind the mask of a plausible and indclimtc 
nomenclature. 

But the worst and widest impediment still remains. 
It is the predominance of a popular pliilosojihy, at 
once the counterfeit and the mortal enemy of all true 
and manly metaphysical research. It is that cor- 
ruption, introduced by certain iminethodical aphor- 
isming Eclectics, who, dismissing, not only all system, 
but all logical connexion, pick and choose whatever 
is most plausible and showy ; who select whatever 
words can have some semblance of sense attached 
to them without the least expenditure of thought; in 
short, whatever may enable them to talk of what 
they do not understand, with a careful avoidance of 
every thing that might awaken them to a moment's 
suspicion of their ignorance. This, alas! is an ir- 
remediable disease, for it brings with it, not so much 
an indisposition to any particular system, but an utter 
loss of taste and faculty for all system and for ail 
philosophy. Like echoes, that beget each other 
amongst the mountains, the praise or blame of such 
men rolls in volleys long after the report from the 
original blunderbuss. Sequacitas est jxitius etcoitio 
quam consensus: et tamen (quod pessimum est) pu- 
sillanimitas ista non sine arrogantia et fastidio si 
offert. Novum Organum. 

I shall now proceed to the nature and genesis of the 
imagination : but I must first take leave to notice, 
that after a more accurate perusal of Mr. Words- 
worth's remarks on the imagination, in his prefiico to 
the new edition of his poems, 1 find that ray con- 
clusions are not so consentient with his, as, I confess, 
I had taken for granted. In an article contributed 
by me to Mr. Southey's Omniana, on the soul and it-s 
organs of sense, are the f()llowing sentences: "These 
(the human faculties) I would arrange under the 
different senses and powers ; as the eye, tiie ear, the 
touch, &c. ; the imitative power, voluntary and auto- 
matic ; the imagination, or shaping and modifying 
power; the fancy, or the aggregative and associative 
power ; the understanding, or the regulative, sub- 
stantiating and realizing power; the speculative rea- 
son — vis theoretica et scientifica, or the power by 
which we produce, or aim to produce, unity, necessity, 
and universality in all our knowledge, by means of 
principles a priori;* the will, or practical reason; 

* This phraBO, a prinri, is in common most Brossly miaun- 
derslood, and an absurdity burilicned un it, which it does not 
deserve 1 By knowledno, a priori, we do not moan that we 
can Itnow any Uiint; previoiiBly to experience, which would 
be a contradiction in terms ; but, that havin? once known it by 
occasion of experience, (i. o. something acting upon us from 
without,) we then know, that it must have pre-exisled, or the 
e.Tpericnco itself would have been impossible. By experience 
only, I know that I have eyes; but, then my reason con- 
vinces me, that 1 must have had eyes in orderto the experience. 
Bb 



the faculty of choice {Germanice, Willkuhr) and (dis- 
tinct both from the moral will and the choice) the 
settsaiion of volition, which I have found reason to 
iiichule und(-r the head of single and double touch." 
To this, as far as it relates to the subject in question, 
namely, the words (Ifie af^grrgalive and assorialive 
power) Mr. Wordsworth's "only objection is, that the 
definition is too general. To aggregate and associate, 
to evoke and combine, belongs as well to the im- 
agination a.s the fancy." I reply, that if by the 
power of evoking and combining, Mr. W. means 
the same as, and no more than, 1 meant by the ag- 
gregative and associative, I continue to deny, that it 
belongs at all to the imagination ; and I am disposed 
to conjecture, that he has mistaken the co-presence 
of fancy with imagination for the operation of the 
latter singly. A man may work with two very dif- 
ferent tools at the sauic moment ; each has its share 
III the work, but the work effected by each is distinct 
and diflerent. But it will prol)ably appear in the 
next chapter, that deeming it necessary to go back 
much further than Mr. Wordsworth's subject re- 
quired or permitted, 1 have attached a meaning tu 
both fancy and imagination, which he had not in 
view, at least while he was writing that preface. 
He will judge. Would to heaven, I might meet with 
many such readers. I will conclude with the words 
of Bishop Jeremy Taylor: he to whom all things are 
one, who dravveth all things to one, and seeth all 
things in one, may enjoy true peace and rest of spirit 
(J. Taylor's Via Pacis.) 



CHAPTER Xm. 

On the imagination, or esemplastic power. 

O Adam 1 ono Almishty is, from whom 

All things priicced, and up to him return, 

If nol depraved from good : created all 

Such lo pcrfeclion, one first nature all 

Indued with various forms, various degrees 

Of substance, and in lhin;»s that live, of life ; 

But more refined, more spirituous and pure. 

As nearer to him placed or nearer lending. 

Each ill their several active spheres assign'd, 

Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 

Prtiportion'd to each kind. So from the root 

Sprinij.j lighter the green stalk : from thence the leaves 

More airy : Inst, llio bright consummate flower 

Spirits ndornus lireathes. Flowers and their fruit, 

Man's nnurit-hnient, by gradual scale sublimed, 

To ?)(7r7/ spirits aspire: to animal : 

To inlcllecluni '. — give both life and sense. 

Fancy and understanding : whence the eoul 

Reason receives. And reason is her being, 

Discursive or intuitive. 

Par. Lost, h. v. 

"Sane si res corporales nil nisi maleriale continerent, veris- 
timo diccreniur in fluxu consislero neque habere substanliale 
qnirquam, i|nonia<lmodum et Plalonici olim rccte agnovere. — 
nine igilnr, prater pure malhernaiica et phanlasia; subjecia, 
collegi quimlam meiaphysica scdaque mente perceptibilia, esse 
admitlenda : et mas^ai maleriali principium quoddam superius 
el, ut sic dicam. formate addendum : quandoquidcra omnes 
veritates rerum corporearum ex solis axiomalibus logisticis et 
geometricis, nenipe do magno et parvo, toto et parte, figura et 
situ,culligi non possint; sed alia de causa et etfectu, acttoiM- 
305 



296 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



gite et passionc, accedere debeant, quibns ordinis rerum ra- 
tiones salventur. Id princlpium rerum, an evJcXtyiiav an 
vim appelemu?, nun reCert, modo nieminerimus, per solam 
Virium nutionum intclligibililer explicari." 

I^tibiuti ; Op. T. II. P. II. p. 53.— T. III. p. 321. 

Kpv(piav Tn^iv 
Xwpti TI MESON 
Oi) KaJa^vOcv. 

Su7usii, Hymn 111. 1. 231. 

Des Cartes, speaking as a naturalist, and in imi- 
tation of Archimedes, said, give me matter and mo- 
tion, and I will construct you the universe. We 
must of course understand him to have meant : I 
will render the construction of the universe intelli- 
gible. In the same sense the transcendental philoso- 
pher says, grant me a nature having two contrary 
forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely, 
while the other strives lo apprehend or^/ieZ itself in 
this infinity, and I will cause the world of intelli- 
gences, with the whole system of their representa- 
tions, to rise up before you. Every other science 
pre-supposes intelligence as already existing and com- 
plete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, 
and, as it were, represents its history to the mind 
from its birth to its maturity. 

The venerable Sage of Koenigsberg has preceded 
the march of this master-thought as an effective 
pioneer in his essay on the introduction of negative 
quantities into philosophy, published 1763. In this, 
he has shown, that instead of assailing the science 
of mathematics by metaphysics, as Berkeley did in his 
Analyst, or of sophisticating it, as Wolff did, by the 
vain attempt of deducing the first principles of ge- 
ometry from supposed deeper grounds of ontology, it 
behooved the metaphysician rather to examine whe- 
ther the only province of knowledge, which man 
has succeeded in erecting into a pure science, might 
not furnish materials, or at least hints for establishing 
and pacifying the unsettled, warrmg, and embroiled 
domain of philosophy. An imitation of the mathe- 
matical method, had indeed been attempted with no 
better success than attended the essay of David to 
wear the armor of Saul Another use, liowever, is 
possible, and of far greater promise, namely, the ac- 
tual application of the positions which had so won- 
derfully enlarged the discoveries of geometry, mutatis 
mutandis, to philosophical subjects. Kant, having 
briefly illustrated the utility of such an attempt in 
the question* of space, motion, and infinitely small 
quantities, as employed by the mathematician, pro- 
ceeds to the idea of negative quantities and the 
transfer of them to metaphysical investigation. Op- 
jiosites, he well observes, are of two kinds, either 
logical, i. e. such as are absolutely incompatible ; or 
real, without being contradictory. The former, he 
denominates Nihil negativum irrepraesentabile, the 
connexion of which produces nonsense. A body in 
motion is something — Aliquid cogitabile ; but a body, 
at one and the same time in motion and not in motion, 
is nothing, or, at most, air articulated into nonsense. 
But a motary force of a body in one direction, and an 
equal force of the same body in an opposite direction 



is not incompatible, and the result, namely, rest, is 
real and representable. For the purposes of mathe- 
matical calculus, it is indifferent which force we 
term negative, and which positive, and consequently, 
we appropriate the latter to that which happens to be 
the principal object in our thoughts. Thus, if a man's 
capital be ten and his debts eight, the subtraction 
will be the same, whether we call the capital nega- 
tive debt, or the debt negative capital. But in as 
much as the latter stands practically in reference to 
the former, we of course represent the sum as 10 — 8. 
It is equally clear, that two equal forces acting in 
opposite directions, both being finite, and each dis- 
tinguished from the other by its direction only, must 
neutralize or reduce each other to inaction. Now 
the transcendental philosophy demands, first, that 
two forces should be conceived which counteract 
each other by their essential nature ; not only in con- 
sequence of the accidental direction of each, but as 
prior to all direction, nay, as the primary forces from 
which the conditions of all possible directions are 
derivative and deducible: secondly, that these forces 
should be assumed to be both alike infinite, both 
alike indestructible. The problem will then be to 
discover the result or product of two such forces, as 
distinguished from the result of those forces which 
are finite, and derive their difference solely from the 
circumstance of their direction. When we have 
formed a scheme or outline of these two different 
kinds of force, and of their different results by the 
process of discursive reasoning, it will then remain 
for us to elevate the Thesis from notional to actual, 
by contemplating intuitively this one power with its 
two inherent, indestructible, yet counteracting forces, 
and the results or generations to which their inter- 
penetration gives existence, in the Jiving principle, 
and in the process of our own self-consciousness. By 
what instrument this is possible, the solution itself 
will discover, at the same time that it will reveal to, 
and for whom it is possible. J\on omnia possumes 
omnes. There is a philosophic, no less than a poetic 
genius, which is differenced from the highest perfec- 
tion of talent, not by degree, but by kind. 

The counteraction, then, of the two assumed 
forces, does not depend on their meeting from opf)0- 
sile directions; the power which acts in them is 
indestructible; it is, therefore, inexhaustibly re-ebul- 
lient; and as something must be the result of these 
two forces, both alike infinite, and both alike inde- 
structible ; and, as rest or neutralization cannot be 
this result, no other conception is possible, but that 
the product must be a tertium aliquid, or finite gene- 
ration. Consequently, this conception is necessary. 
Now this tertium aliquid can be no other than an in- 
terpenetration of the counteracting powers partaking 
of both. 

•*♦*****»* 

Thus far had the work been transcribed for the 
press, when I received the following letter from a 
friend, whose practical judgment 1 have had ample 
reason to estimate and revere, and whose taste and 
sensibility preclude all the excuses which my self- 
love might possibly have prompted me to set up in 
306 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



297 



plea against the decision of advisers of equal good 
sense, but with less tact and feeling. 

■• Dear C— 

"You nsk my opinion conccrnin? your cliaplcr on the 
iiiiutiinallon, both as to ilie iinprrsslons u matio on luy.-'cir, 
ami as to those wliicli I lliiiik it will make on the public, i. e. 
llml part of the public wbo, from tliti tiUe of the work, and 
from its forniini: >i sort of inlroduclion to a volume of poems, 
are likely to constiluto the great mijoriiy of your rcailt-rs. 

" As to myself, and Blalini!, in Ibo tirst place, Ihc etfect on 
Miy undi rstiindinf:, your opinions, and method of argument, 
were not only so new to me, but so directly the reverse of all 
I hud ever been accustomed to consider as trulh, that, even 
if I hail comprehended your premises sullinienlly to hiive ad- 
milled them, and hud seen Iho necessity of your conclusions, 
1 should still have been in that stale of mind, which, in your 
note, p. 'ijl, you have so ingeniously evulvuil, as the antithesis 
to that in which a man Is when he makes a hull. In your 
own words, I should have felt us if 1 li:i<l been standing on 
my head. 

"The effect on my fcrlinss, on Xhe other hand, 1 cannot 
belter reprerenl, than by supposing myself to have known 
only our light, airy, modern chapels of ease, and then, for the 
first time, to have been placed, and left alone, in oiio of onr 
largest Gothic cathedrals, in a gusty moonlight night of au- 
tumn. 'Now in glimmer, now in gloom ;' often in palpable 
darkness, not without a chdiy sensation of terror; then sud- 
denly emerging into broad, yet visionary lights, with colored 
shadows of fantastic shapes, yet all decked with huly insignia 
and mystic symbols; and, ever and anon, coming out full 
upon pictures, and stone-work images and great men, with 
whose names I was familiar, but which looked upon me with 
countenances and an e.\pression, the most dissimilar to all I 
had been in the habit of connecting with those names. Those 
whom I had been taught to venerate as almost super-human 
m magnitude of intellect. I found perched in little fret-work 
niches, as grotesque dwarfs; while the grotesques, in my 
hitherto belief, stood guarding the high altar with all the cha- 
racters of Apotheosis. In short, what I ha<l supposed sub- 
stances, were thinned away into shadows, while, everywhere, 
chadowg were deepened into substances: 

If substance may be callM what shadow seem'd. 

For each seem'd either I Milton. 

"Yet, after all, I could not but repeat the lines which you 
had quoted from a MS. poem of ynur own in the Friend, and 
applied to a work of Mr. Wordsworth's, though with a few 
of the words altered : 

" An Orphic tale indeed, 

A lale obscure, of high and passionate thoughts 
To a strange music chauiilcd 1" 

" Be assured, however, that [ look forward anxiously to 
your great book on the constructire philoionlit/, which you 
have promised and announced ; and that 1 will do my best to 
understand it. Only. I will not promise to doscrnd into the 
dark cave of Trophonius with you, there to ruh my ow.n eyes, 
in order to make the sparks and figured (lashes which I am 
required to sec. 

" So much for myself. But, ng for the public, I do not 
hesitate a moment in advising and urging you to withdraw 
the chapter from the present work, and to reserve it for your 
announced treatises on the Logos or comoiunientive intellect 
in Man and Deity. First, because, imperfectly as I understand 
the present chapter, I see clearly that you have done too 
much, and yet not enough. You have boon obliged to omit 
so many links from the necessity of comprcssicm, that what 
remaiTis, looks, (if I may recur to my former illiis ration.) like 
the fragments of the winding steps of an old ruined tower. 
Secondly, a still stronger argument, (at least, one that I am 
sure will bo more forcible with you,) is, that your readers will 
have both right and reason to complain of you. This chap- 
ter, which cannot, when it is printed, amount to so lilllo as 
an hundred pages, will, of necessity, greatly increase the e.\- 
pense of the work; and every reader who, like myself, is nei- 
ther prepared, or, perhaps, calculated for the study of so ab- 
struse a subject so abstrusely treated, will, as I have before 
bioted, be almost entitled to accuse you of a sort of impu.si- 

40 



tion on him. For who, ho might truly observe, could, from 
your title-page, viz: "MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPl 
NIONS." published, too, as introductory to a volume of 
miscellaneous poems, have anticipated, or even conjectured, 
a lung treatise on ideal Realism, which holds the same rela- 
tion, in ahslruseness, to Plotinus, as Plotiims does to Plato. 
It will be well if, already, you have not too much of meta- 
physical disquisition in your work, though, as the larger part 
of the dis(|uisition is historical, it will, doubtless, be both in- 
teresting and instructive to many, to whoBO unprepared minds 
your speculations on the esemplaslic power would be utterly 
unintelligible, lie assured, if you do publish this chapter in 
the present work, you will be reminded of Bishop Berkeley's 
Siris, announced as an Kssay on Tar-water, which, beginning 
with tar, ends with the Trinity, the omne scibile forming the 
interspace. I say in the present work. In that greater work 
to which you have devoted so many years, and study so in- 
tense and various, it will bo in its proper place. Your pros- 
pectus will have described and announced both its contents 
and their nature ; and if any persons purchase it, who feel 
no interest in the subjects of which it treats, they will have 
themselves only to blame. 

" I could add, to these arguments, one derived from pectl- 
niary motives, and particularly from the probable ctfecis on 
the sale of your present publication ; but they would weigh 
little with you, compared with the preceding. Besides, I have 
long observed, that arguments drawn from your own person- 
al interests, more often act on you as narcotics, than as stins- 
ulants, and that, in money concerns, you have some small 
portion of pig-naturo in your moral idiosyncrasy, and, like 
these ami ible creatures, must, occasionally, be pulled back- 
ward from the boat in order to inake you enter it. All suc- 
cess attend you, for if hard thinking and hard reading are 
merits, you have deserved it. 

Your affectionate, &c. 

In consequence of this very judicious letter, which 
produced complete- conviction on my mind, I shall 
content myself for the present with stating the main 
result of the chapter, which I have reserved for that 
future piiblifation, a detailed prospectus of which the 
reader will find at the close of the second voltime. 

The IM.\G1\.\TI0N, then, I consider cither as pri- 
mary or secondary. The primary imagi.natign I 
hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all 
human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite 
mind of the etertial act of creation in tiie infinite I 
AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the 
former, co-e.\isting with the conscious will, yet still 
as identical with the primary in the kind of ils agen- 
cy, and differing only in degree, and in the 7node of 
its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order 
to re-create ; or, wliere this process is rendered im- 
passible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize 
and to unify. It is essentially vilal, even as all ob- 
jects {as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. 

Fan'cv, on the contrary, has no other cotinters to 
play with, but fixities and dcfinilies. The Fancy is, 
indeed, no other than a mode of Memory emancipated 
from the order of lime and s[)ace, and blended with, 
and modified by, that empirical phenomenon of the 
will which we express by the word ciioicK. But, 
equally with the ordinary memory, it must receive 
all ils materials ready made from the law of association. 

Whatever, more than this, 1 shall think it fit to de- 
clare, concerning the powers and privileges of the 
imagination, in the present work, will be fiiund in 
the critical essay on the uses of the supernalural in 
poetry, and the principles that regulate its introduc- 
tion ; which the reader will fiud prefixed to the poena 
ol' 5l)c ^ttuii'ni '.Diariiicr. 

307 



298 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally 
proposed — Preface to the second edition — The ensuing con- 
troversy, its causes and acrimony — Philosophic definitions 
of a poem, and poetry with scholia. 

During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I 
were neighbors, our conversation turned frequently 
on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of 
exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful ad- 
herence to the truth of nature, and the power of giv- 
ing the interest of novelty, by the modifying colors 
of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents 
of ligiit and shade, which moon-light or sunset, dif- 
ftised over a known and familiar landscape, appeared 
to represent the practicability of combining both. 
These are the poetry of nature. The thought sug- 
gested itself, (to which of us I do not recollect,) that 
a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. 
In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in 
part at least, supernatural ; and the excellence aimed 
at, was to consist in the interesting of the affections 
by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would 
naturally accompany such situations, supposing them 
real. And real in this sense they have been to every 
human being who, from whatever source of delusion, 
has at any time believed himself under supernatural 
agency. For the second class, subjects were to be 
chosen from ordinary life ; the characters and inci- 
dents were to be such as will be found in every vil- 
lage and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and 
feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, 
when they present themselves. 

In this idea originated the plan of the " Lyrical 
Ballads ;" in which it was agreed that my endeavors 
should be directed to persons and characters super- 
natural, or at least romantic ; yet so as to transfer 
from our inward nature a human interest, and a 
semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these 
shadows of imagination that willing suspension of 
disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic 
faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to 
propose to himself, as his object, to give the charm 
of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feel- 
ing analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the 
mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and 
directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the 
world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for 
which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and 
selfish solicitude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears 
that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor under- 
stand. 

With this view, I wrote the " Ancient Mariner," 
and was preparing, among other poems, the " Dark 
Ladie," and the "Christabel," in which I should have 
more nearly realized my ideal, than I had done in 
my first attempt. But Mr. Wordsworth's industry, 
had proved so much more successful, and the num- j 
ber of his poems so much greater, that my composi- 
tions, instead of forming a balance, appeared rather 
an interfKjlation of heterogeneous matter. Mr. Words- ! 
worth added two or three poems written in his own 
character, in the impassioned, lofty, and sustained i 



diction, which is characteristic of his genius. In this 
form the "Lyrical Ballads" were published; and 
were presented by him, as an experiment, whether 
subjects, which, from their nature, rejected the usual 
ornaments and extra-colloquial style of poems in 
general, might not be so managed in the language of 
ordinary life, as to produce the pleasurable interest 
which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart. 
To the second edition he added a preface of consider- 
able length ; in which, notwithstanding some pas- 
sages of apparently a contrary import, he w as under- 
stood to contend for the extension of this style to 
poetry of all kinds, and to reject as vicious and inde- 
fensible all phrases and forms of style that were not 
included in what he (unfortunately, I think, adopting 
an equivocal expression,) called the language of real 
life. From this preface, prefixed to poems in which 
it was impossible to deny the presence of original 
genius, however mistaken ils direction might be 
deemed, arose the \\hole long continued controversy. 
For from the conjunction of perceived power with 
supposed heresy, I e.xplain the inveteracy, and in 
some instances, I grieve to say, the acrimonious pas- 
sions, with which the controversy has been conduct- 
ed by the assailants. 

Had Mr. Wordsworth's poems been the silly the 
childish things, which they were for a long time 
described as being; had they been really distinguish- 
ed from the compositions of other poets, merely by 
meanness of language and inanity of thought ; had 
they, indeed, contained nothing more than what is 
found in the parodies, and pretended imitations of 
them; they must have sunk at once, a dead weight, 
into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the 
preface along with them. But year after year in- 
creased the number of Mr. Wordsworth's admirers. 
They were {i)und, too, not in the lower classes of the 
reading public, but chiefly among young men of 
strong sensibility and meditative minds; and their 
admiration (inflamed, perhaps, in some degree by op- 
position) was distinguished by its intensity, I might 
almost say by its religious fervor. These facts, and 
the intellectual energy of the author, which was 
more or less consciously felt, where it was outwardly 
and even boisterously denied ; meeting with senti- 
ments of aversion to his opinions, and of alarm at 
their consequences, produced an eddy of criticism, 
which would, of itself, have borne up the poems by 
the violence with w liich it whirled them round and 
round. With many parts of this preface, in the sense 
attributed to them, and which the words undoubtedly 
seem to authorize, I never concurred ; but, on the 
contrary, objected to them as erroneous in principle, 
and as contradictory (in appearance at least) both to 
other parts of the same preface, and to the author's 
own practice in the greater number of the poems 
themselves. Mr. Wordsworth, in his recent collec- 
tion, has, I find, degraded this prefatory disquisition 
to the end of his second volume, to be read or not at 
the reader's choice. But he has not, as far as I can 
discover, announced any change in his poetic creed. 
At all events, considering it as the source of a oon- 
troversy, in which I have been honored more than I 
308 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



299 



deserve, by the freqiiont conjunction of my name 
witli his, I think it expedient to lieclare, once for all, 
m what points I coincide with his opinions, and in 
what (wints I altogether difler. But in order to ren- 
der myself intelligible, I must previously, in as few 
words as possible, explain my ideas, first, of a Poem; 
and secondly, of Foetkv itself, in hind, and in e.vse/ice. 
The oflice of philosophical ilisijitisition consists in 
just distitictiim ; while it is the privilege of the phi- 
losopher to preserve himself constantly aware, that 
distinction is not division. In order to obtain adequate 
notions of any truth, we must intellectually separate 
its distmgiiishable pans ; and this is the technical 
process of philosophy. But having so done, we must 
then restore them in our conceplions to the unity in 
which they actually co-exist ; and this is the rtsidl 
of philosophy. A poem contains the same elemenls 
as a prose composition ; the difference, therefore, 
must consist in a iliHcrent combination of them, in 
consequence of a different object proposed. Accord- 
ing to the difference of the object will be the differ- 
ence of the combination. It is possible, that the 
object may be merely to facilitate the recollection 
of any given facts or observations, by artificial ar- 
rangement; and the composition will be a poem, 
merely because it is distinguished from prose by 
metre, or by rhyme, or by both conjointly. In this, 
the lowest sense, a man might attribute the name of 
a [)oem to the well-known enumeration of the days 
in the several months : 

"Thirty days hath Septemhcr, 
April, June, and November," &c. 

and others of the same class and purpose. And as a 
particular pleasure is found in anticipating ihc recur- 
rence of sounds and quantities, all compositions that 
have this charm superadded, whatever be their con- 
tents, may be entitled pnems. 

So much for the superficial form. A difTerence of 
object and contents supplies an additional ground of 
distinction. The immediate purpose may be the 
communication of truths; either of truth absolute and 
demonstrable, as in works of science ; or of facts ex- 
perienced and recorded, as in history. Pleasure, and 
that of the highest and most permanent kind, may 
result from the altainmeid of the end ; but it is not 
itself the immediate end. In other works the com- 
munication of pleasure may be, the immediate pur- 
pose; and though truth, either moral or intellectual, 
ought to be the nUimatc end, yet this will distinguish 
the character of the author, not the class to which 
the work belongs. Blest, indeed, is that state of so- 
ciety, in which the immediate purpose would be baf- 
fled by the perversion of the proper ultimate end ; in 
which no charm of diction or imagery could exempt 
the Bathyllus even of an Anacreon, or the Alexis of 
Virgil, from disgust and aversion! 

But the communication of pleasure may be the im- 
mediate object of a w'ork not metrically composed ; 
and that object may have been in a high degree at- 
tained, as in novels and romances. Would then the 
mere superaddition of metre, with or without rhyme, 
entitle tfiese to the name of poems ? The answer is, 
Bb2 



that nothing can permanently please, which does not 
contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not other- 
wise. If metre be su[)eradded, all othei parts must 
be made consonant with it. They must be such as to 
justify the perpetual and distinct attention to each 
[lart, which an exact correspondent recurrence of ac- 
cent and sound is calculated to excite. The final 
definition, then, so deduced, may be thus worded : A 
poem is that species of com[X)sition, which is opposed 
to works of science, by proposing for its immediate 
object pleasure, not truth ; and from all other species, 
(having this object in common with it,) it is discrimi- 
nated by proixising to itself such delight from the 
w/iole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification 
from each component purl. 

Coulrovci'sy is not seldom excited, in consequence 
of the disputants attaching each a different meaning 
to the same word ; and in few instances has this been 
more striking than in disputes concerning the present 
subject. If a man chooses to call every comjxjsition 
a poem which is rhyme, or measure, or both, I must 
leave his opinion uncontroverted. The distinction is 
at least competent to characterize the writer's inten- 
tion. If it wore subjoined, that the whole is likewise 
entertaining or affecting, as a tale, or as a series of 
interesting reflections, 1 of course admit this as ano- 
ther fit ingredient of a poem, and an additional merit. 
But if the definition sought for be that of a legitimate 
poem, I answer, it must be one, the parts of which 
mutually sup|X)rt and explain each other; all in their 
proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the pur- 
(lose and known infiuences of metrical arrangement. 
The philosophic critics of all ages coincide with the 
ultimate judgment of all countries, in equally deny- 
ing the praises of a just poem, on the one hand, to a 
series of striking lines or distichs, each of which, ab- 
sorbing the whole attention of the reader to itself, 
disjoins it from its context, and makes it a separate 
whole, instead of an harmonizing part ; and on the 
other hand, to an unsustained composition, from 
which the reaper collects rapidly the general result, 
unatlraclod by the component parts. The reader 
should bo carried forward, not merely, or chiefly, by 
the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a restless 
desire to arrive at the final solution ; but by the plea- 
surable activity of mind, excited by the attractions of 
the journey itself Like the motion of a serpent, 
which Ilie Egyptians made the emblem of intellec- 
tual power; or like the jiath of sound through the 
air; at every step he pauses, and half recedes, and, 
from the retrogressive movement, collects the force 
which again carries him onward. Precipitandus est 
liher spiritus, says Peimnius Arbiter, most happily. 
The epithet, Z/ier, here balances the preceding verb; 
and it is not easy to conceive more meaning, con- 
densed in fewer words. 

But if this should bo admitted as a satisfactory 
character of a jxiom, wo have still to seek for a defi- 
nition of poetry. The writings of Plato, and Bishop 
Tavi.or. and the Theoria Sacra of Burnet, furnish 
undeniable proofs that poetry of the highest kind may 
exist without metre, and even without the contra-dis- 
lir.guishing objects of a poem. The first chapter of 
309 



300 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Isaiah, (indeed a very large portion of the whole 
book,) is poetry in the most emphatic sense ; yet it 
would be not less irrational than strange to assert, 
that pleasure, and not truth, was the immediate object 
of the prophet. In short, whatever specific import we 
attach to the word poetry, there will lie found in- 
volved in it, as a necessary consequence, that a poem 
of any length neither can be, or ought to be all poe- 
try. Yet if an harmonious whole is to be produced, 
the remaining parts must be preserved in keeping 
with the poetry ; and this can be no otherwise effect- 
ed than by such a studied selection and artificial ar- 
rangement as will partake of one, though not a pecu- 
liar, property of poetry. And this, again, can be no 
other than the property of exciting a more continuous 
and equal attention, than the language of prose aims 
at, whether colloquial or written. 

My own conclusions on the nature of poetry, in the 
strictest use of the word, have been, in part, antici- 
pated in the preceding disquisition on the fancy and 
imagination. What is poetry ? is so nearly the same 
question with, what is a poet ? that the answer to the 
one is involved in the solution of the other. For it 
is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, 
which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts and 
emotions of the poet's own mind. The poet, de- 
scribed in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of 
man into activity, with the subordination of its facul- 
ties to each other, according to their relative worth 
and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, 
that blends, and, (as it were,) fuses, each into each, 
by that synthetic and magical power, to which we 
have exclusively appropriated the name of imagina- 
tion. This power, first put in action by the will and 
understanding, and retained under their irremissive, 
though gentle and unnoticed, control, [laxis efferlur 
habenis,) reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation 
of opposite or discordant qualities ; of sameness, with 
difference; of the general, with the concrete; the 
idea, with the image; the individual, with the repre- 
sentative ; the sense of novelty and freshness, with 
old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of 
emotion, with more than usual order; judgment, ever 
awake, and steady self possession, with enthusiasm 
and feeling profound or vehement; and while it 
blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, 
etill subordinates art to nature; the manner to the 
matter: and our admiration of the poet to our sym- 
pathy with the poetry. " Doubtless." as Sir John 
Da vies observes of the soul, (and his words may, with 
Blight alteration, be applied, and even more appropri- 
ately, to the poetic imagination :) 

" Doubtless this could not be, but that she turns 
Bodies to spirit by sublimation strange. 
As fire converts to fire the things it burns. 
As we our food into our nature change. 

From their gross matter she abstracts their forms. 
And draws a kind of quintessence from things : 
Which to her proper nature she transforms, 
To bear them hght on her celestial winga. 

Thus docs she, when from individual states 
She doth abstract the universal kinds ; 
Which then, reclothod in divers nainns and fates. 
Steal access through our senses to our luinda." 



Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, 

FANCY its DRAPERY, MOTION its LIFE, and IMAGINA- 
TION the SOUL, that is every where, and in each ; and 
forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The specific symptoms of poetic power elucidated in a critical 
analysis of ShaKspeare's Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece. 

In the application of these principles to purposes of 
practical criticism, as employed in the appraisal of 
works more or less imperfect, I have endeavored to 
discover what the qualities in a poem are, which may 
be deemed promises and specific symptoms of poetic 
power, as distinguished from general talent deter- 
mined to poetic composition by accidental motives, 
by an act of the will, rather than by the inspiration of 
a genial and productive nature. In this investigation, 
I could not, I thought, do better than keep before me 
the earliest work of the greatest genius that, perhaps, 
human nature has yet produced, our myriad-minded* 
Shakspeare. I mean the " Venus and Adonis," and 
the " Lucrece ;" works which give at once strong 
promises of the strength, and yet obvious proofs of the 
immaturity of his genius. From these I abstracted 
the following marks, as characteristics of original po- 
etic genius in general. 

1. In the "Venus and Adonis," the first and most 
obvious excellence, is the perfect sweetness of the 
versification ; its adaptation to the subject ; and the 
power displayed in varying the march of the words 
without passing into a loftier and more majestic 
rhythm than was demanded by the thoughts, or per- 
mitted by the propriety of preserving a sense of mel- 
ody predominant. The delight in richness and sweet- 
ness ofsoimd, even to a fiiulty excess, if it be evidently 
original, and not the result of an easily imitable me- 
chanism, I regard as a highly favorable promise in the 
compositions of a young man. " The man that hath 
not music in his soul," can, indeed, never be a genu- 
ine poet. Imagery (even taken from nature, much 
more when transplanted from books, as travels, voy- 
ages, and works of natural history) affecting incidents ; 
just thoughts; interesting personal or domestic feel- 
ings; and with these the art of their combination or 
intertexture in the form of a poem ; may all, by inces- 
sant effort, be acquired as a trade, by a man of talents 
and much reading, who, as I once before observed, 
has mistaken an intense desire of poetic reputation 
for a natural poetic genius ; the love of the arbitrary 
end for a possession of the peculiar means. But the 
sense of musical delight, viith the power of producing 
it, is a gift of imagination; and this, together with the 
power of reducing multitude into unity of effect, and 
modifying a series of thoughts by some one predomi 
nant thought or feeling, may be cultivated and im 



* ''Avrjp jxvpiovS^, a phrase which I have borrowed from 
a Greek monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantino- 
ple. 1 might have said, that I have reclaimed, rather than 
hii'rowed it; for it seems to belong to Shakspeare, de jure 
singuluri. et ex i)iivilegio natura;. 

310 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA, 



301 



proved, but can never be learnt It is in these that 
" Poeta nascitur non fit." 

2. A spconil promise of genius is the choice of sub- 
jects very remote from the private interests and cir- 
i^umstances of the writer liiniself. At least I have 
(bund, that where tiie subject is taken immediately 
from the author's personal sensations and experiences, 
the excellence of a pariit-tilar poem is but an equivo- 
cal mark, and often a fallacious pledge, of genuine 
jwetic power. We may, perhaps, remember ihe tale 
of the statuary, who had acquired considerable repu- 
tation for the legs of his goddesses, though the rest 
of the statue accorded but indiffercnlly with the ideal 
beauty, lill his wife, elated with tiie husband's praises, 
modestly acknowledged, that she herself had been 
his constant model. In the Venus and Adonis, this 
proof of poetic |X)wer exists even to excess. Jt is 
throughout as if a superior spirit, more intuitive, more 
intimately conscious, even than the characters them- 
selves, not only of every outward look and act, but 
of the flux and reflux of the mind in all its subtlest 
thoughts and feelings, were placing the whole before 
our view ; himself, meanwhile, unparticipating in the 
passions, and actuated only by that pleasurable ex- 
citement, which had resulted from the energetic fer- 
vor of his own spirit, in so vividly exhibiting what it 
had so accurately and profoundly contemplated. I 
think I should have conjectured from these poems, 
that even tiie great instinct, which impelled the poet 
to the drama, was secretly working in him, prompt- 
ing him by a series and never-broken chain of im- 
agery, always vivid, and because unbroken, often mi- 
nute; by the highest efibrt of the picturesque in 
words, of which words are capable, higher, perhaps, 
than was ever realized by any other poet, even Dante 
not excepted ; to provide a substitute for that visual 
language, that constant intervention and running com- 
ment, by tone, look and gesture, which in his dra- 
matic works he was entitled to expect from the play- 
ers. His "Venus and Adonis" seem at once the 
characters themselves, and the whole representation 
of those characters by the most consummate actors. 
You seem to be told nothing, but to see and hear 
every thing. Hence it is, that from the perpetual ac- 
tivity of attention required on the part of the reader; 
from the rapid flow, the quick change, and the play- 
ful nature of the thoughts and images ; and, above 
all, from the alienation, and, if I may hazard such an 
expression, the utter oloofnenit of the poet's own feel- 
ings, from those of which he is at once the painter 
and the analyst; that though the very subject cannot 
but detract from the pleasure of a delicate mind, yet 
never was poem less dangerous on a moral account. 
Instead of doing as Ariosto, and as, still more offen- 
sively, Weiland has done ; instead of degrading and 
deforming passion into appetite, the trials of love into 
the struggles of concupiscence, Shakspeare has here 
represented the animal impulse itself, so as to pre- 
clude all sympathy with it, by dissipating the reader's 
notice among the thousand outward images, and now 
beautiful, now fanciful circumstances, which form 
its dresses and its scenery ; or by diverting our atten- 
tion from the main subject by those frequent witty or 



profound reflections, which the poet's ever active 
mind has deduced from, or connected with, the im- 
agery and the incidents. The reader is forced into 
loo much action to sympathize with the merely pas- 
sive of our nature. As little can a mind thus roused 
and awakened be brooded on by mean and indistinct 
emotion, as the low, lazy mist can creep upon the 
surface of a lake, while a strong gale is driving it on- 
ward in waves and billows. 

3. It has been before observed, that images, how- 
ever beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, 
and as accurately represented in words, do not of 
themselves characterize the poet. They become 
proofs of original genius, only as far as they are mod- 
ified by a predominant passion ; or by associated 
thoughts or images awakened by that passion ; or, 
when they have the effect of reducing multitude to 
unity, or succession to an instant; or, lastly, when a 
human and intellectual life is transferred to them 
from the poet's own spirit, 

" Which shoots its being through earth, sea, and air." 
In the two following lines, for instance, there is 
nothing objectionable, rwthing which would preclude 
them from forming, in their proper place, part of a 
descriptive poem : 

" Behold yon row of pines, that, shorn and bow'd, 
Uend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve." 

But with the small alteration of rhythm, the same 
words would be equally in their place in a book of 
topography, or in a descriptive tour. The same 
image will rise into a semblance of poetry if thus 
conveyed : 

" Yon row of bleak and visionary pines, 
l!y twiliiiht-gliinpse discerned, mark 1 how they flee 
From the tierce sea-blnst, all their tresses wild 
Streaming before them." 

I have given this as an illustration, by no means 
as an instance of that particular excellence which I 
had in view, and in which Shakspeare, even in his 
earliest, as in his latest works, surpasses all other 
poets. It is by this, that he still gives a dignity and 
a passion to the objects which he presents. Unaided 
by any previous excitement, they burst upon us at 
once in life and in power. 

" Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye." 

Shalispcarc's Sonnet 33. 

" Not mine own fears, nor Ihe prophetic soul 
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come^ 



The mortal moon hath her eclip.se endured. 
And Ihe sad augurs mock their own presage; 
Incerluiiities now crown themselves assured. 
And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
Now with the drops of this most balmy lime 
My lovo looks fresh : and Death to me subscribes ! 
Since spite of him I "11 live in ihis poor rhyme, 
While lie insulis o'er dull and speechless tribes. 
And thou in this shall find thy monument. 
When tyrants' crests, and tombs of brass arc spent." 
Sonnet 107. 

As of higher worth, so doubtless still more charac- 
teristic of poetic genius does the imagery become, 
311 



302 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



when it moulds and colors itself to the circumstances, 
passion, or character, present and foremost in the 
mind. For unrivalled instances in this excellence, 
the reader's own memory will refer him to the Lear, 
Othello, in short, to which not of the " great, ever- 
living, dead man's" dramatic works? Inopem me 
copia fecit. IIow true it is to nature, he has himself 
finely expressed in the instance of love, in Sonnet 98. 

" From you have 1 been absent in the spring, 
When proud pied April, dresl in ail its trim, 
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing ; 
'J'hat heavy Saturn lauj h'd and leap'd with him. 
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet emcll 
Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 
Could make me any summer's story tell. 
Or from their proud lap pluck them, where they grew ; 
Nor did I wonder at the lilies while, 
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; 
They were, tho' sweet, but figures of delight, 
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away, 
Jis loith yoiLT shadow I with these did play ! 

Scarcely less sure, or if a less valuable, not less 
indispensable mark 

Tovlftu jiiv YloniTu 



'ojij f»7/ia ytvvaiov \aKot, 

will the image supply, when, with more than the 
power of the painter, the poet gives us the liveliest 
image of succession with the feeling of simultaneous- 
ness! 

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace 
Of those fair arms, that held him to her heart, 
And homeward through the dark lawns runs apace : 
Look how a bright star shootcth from the sky ! 
So glides he through the night from Venus'" eye. 

4. The last character I shall mention, which would 
prove indeed but little, except as taken conjointly 
with the former ; yet, without which the former could 
scarce exist in a high degree, and (even if this were 
possible) would give promises only of transitory 
flashes and a meteoric power, is depth, and energy 
of THOUGHT. No man was ever yet a great poet, 
without being at the same time a profound philoso- 
pher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy 
of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human 
passions, emotions, language. In Shakspeare's poems, 
the creative power, and the intellectual energy, 
wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess of 
strength seems to threaten the extinction of the other. 
At length, in the drama they were reconciled, and 
fought each with its shield before the breast of the 
other. Or, hke two rapid streams, that at their first 
meeting within narrow and rocky banks, mutually 
strive to repel each other, and intermix reluctantly 
and in tumult; but soon finding a wider channel and 
more yielding shores, blend, and dilate, and flow on 
in one current and with one voice. The Venus and 
Adonis did not, perhaps, allow the display of the 
deeper passions. But the story of Lucretia seems to 
favor, and even demand their intensest workings. 
And yet we find in Sliahspeare' s management of the 
tale, neither pathos, nor any other dramatic quality. 
There is the same minute and faithful imagery as in 
the former poem, in the same vivid colors, inspirited 



by the same impetuous vigor of thought, and diverg 
ing and contracting with the same activity of the 
assimilative and of the modifying faculties; and with 
a yet larger display, a yet wider range of know- 
ledge and reflection ; and, lastly, with the same per- 
fect dominion, often domination, over the whole 
world of language. What then shall we say ? even 
this : that Shakspeare, no mere child of nature ; no 
automaton of genius ; no passive vehicle of inspira- 
tion possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first 
studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood mi- 
nutely, till knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, 
wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length 
gave birth to that stupendous power, by which he 
stands alotie, with no equal or second in his own 
class ; to that povier, which seated him on one of the 
two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain, 
with Milton as his compeer, not rival. While the 
former darts himself forth, and passes into all the 
forms of human character and passion, the one Pro- 
teus of the fire and the flood ; the other attracts all 
forms and things to himself, in the unity of his own 
IDEAL. All things and modes of action shape them- 
selves anew in the being of Milton ; while Shak- 
speare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining 
himself O what great men hast thou not produced, 
England ! my country ! truly indeed — 

Must we be free or die, who speak the tongue 
Which Shakspeare spake ; the faith and morals hold 
Which J\Iilton held. In everything we are sprung 
Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold ! 

Wordsworth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present 
age, and those of the 15th and 16th centuries — Wish ex- 
pressed for the union of the characteristic merits of both. 

Christendom, from its first settlement on feudal 
rights, has been so far one great body, however im- 
perfectly organized, that a similar spirit will be found 
in each period to have been acting in all its members. 
The study of Shakspeare's poems (I do not include 
his dramatic works, eminently as they too deserve 
that title) led me to a more careful examination of 
the contemporary poets both in this and in other coun- 
tries. But my attention was especially fixed on those 
of Italy, from the birth to the death of Shakspeare ; 
that being the country in which the fine arts had 
been most sedulously, and, hitherto, most successfully 
cultivated. Abstracted from the degrees and pecu- 
liarities of individual genius, the properties common 
to the good writers of each period seem to establish 
one striking point of diflference between the poetry 
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that of 
the present age. The remark may, perhaps, be ex- 
tended to the sister art of painting. At least, the 
latter will serve to illustrate the former. In the 
present age, the poet (I would wish to be understood 
as speaking generally, and without allusion to indi- 
vidual names) seems to propose to himself as his 
318 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



303 



main object, and as that which is the most charnfter- 
isticofhis art, new and strii\ing i.maoes, with inci- 
dents that interest the ntTections or excite the curi- 
osity- Both his characters and his descriptions lie 
renders, as much as possible, specific and individual, 
even to a degree of [wrtrailure. In his diction and 
metre, on the other hand, he is comparatively care- 
less. The measure is either coiisirucled on no pre- 
vious system, and acknowledges no justifying princi- 
ple but that of the writer's convenience ; or else 
some mechanical movement is adopted, of which one 
couplet or stanza is so far an adeijuate specimen, as 
that the occasional ditrerences appear evidently to 
arise from accident, or the (pialities of the language 
itself, not from meditation and an intelligent purpose. 
And the language, from " Pope's translation of Ho- 
mer," to " Darwin's Temple of Nature," may, not- 
withstanding some illustrious exceptions, be too 
faithfully characterized, as claiming to be pwelical 
for no better reason than that it would be intolerable 
in conversation or in prose. Though alas ! even our 
prose writings, nay, even the style of our more -set 
discourses, strive to be in the fashion, and trick them- 
selves out in the soiled and over-worn finery of the 
meretricious muse. It is true, that of late a great 
improvement in this resjDect is observable in our most 
popular writers. But it is equally true, that this 
recurrence to plain sense, and genuine mother En- 
glish, is far from being general ; and that the com- 
position of our novels, magazines, public harangues, 
&c. is commonly as trivial in thought, and enigmatic 
in expression, as if Echo and Sphinx had laid their 
heads together to construct it. Nay, even of those 
who have most rescued themselves from this conta- 
gion, I should plead inwardly guilty to the charge of 
duplicity or cowardice, if I withheld my conviction, 
that few have guarded the purity of their native 
tongue with that jealous care which the sublime 
Dante, in his tract "De la nobile volgare clo<^uenza," 
declares to be the first duty of a poet. For language 
is the armory of the human mind ; and at once con- 
tains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its 
future conquests. " Animadverte, quam sit ab im- 
proprietate verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in 
errores circa res !" Hobbes : Exam, et Exmend. hod. 
Math. — "Sat vero, in hac vitae breviiate et natur.-c 
obecuritate, rerum est, quibus cognoscendis tempus 
impendatur, ut confusis et mullivocis sermonibus 
intelligendis illud consumere non opus est. Kheu I 
quantas strages paravere verba nubila, quK tot dicunt, 
ut nihil dicunt — nubes fwlius, e quibes et in rebus 
politicis et in ecclesia turbines et tonitrua erumpunt! 
Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia : 
Of av ra ovofiara ctSct, ncrai Kai ra vpayfiara : et 
ab EpictetO, ap;^i; vaiSevfcWi 'rj nav ovofiartjiv crrtiKt- 

'J'lf: et prudentissime Galenus scribit, ';; riiiv ovajxa- 
Tiiiv Xpvi'S irapa)(iciia Kai rrjv tu)v Tpayfiariav cntTa- 
poTTci yvoiiiv. Egregrie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib. 
1. de Plantis: Est pnmum, inquit, sapienlis offwium, 
bene sent ire, ut sibi vital: proximum, bene loqui, ut 
patricB vivat." Se.nnertus de P«/s .- Dijferentia. 

Something analogous to the materials and structure 
of modern poetry I seem lo have noticed (but here I 
21 



beg to be understiHKl as s|)eaking with the utmost 
diflidence) in our common landscape painters. Their 
foregrounds and intermeiliate distances are compara- 
tively unattractive: while the main interest of the 
landscape is thrown into the back ground, where 
mountains and torrents and castles forbid the eye to 
proceed, and nothing tempts it to trace its way back 
again. But in the works of the great Italian and 
F'lemish masters, the front and middle objects of the 
landscape are the most obvious and determinate, the 
interest gradually dies away in the back-ground, and 
the charm and iieculiar worth of the picture consists, 
not so much m the specific ohjocls which il conveys 
to the understanding in a visual language formed by 
the substitution of figures for words, as in the beauty 
and harmony of the colors, lines, and expression, 
with which the objects are represented. Hence, 
novelty of subject was rather avoided than sought 
for. Superior excellence, in the manner of treating 
the same subjects, was the trial and test of the artist's 
merit. 

Not otherwise is it with the more polished poets of 
the 15th and lOth centuries, especially with those of 
Italy. The imagery is almost always general : sun, 
moon, flowers, breezes, murmuring streams, warbling 
songsters, delicious shades, lovely damsels, cruel as 
fair, nymphs, naiads and goddesses, are the materials 
which are common to all, and which each shaped 
and arranged according to his judgment or fancy, 
little solicitous to add or to particularize. If we make 
an honorable exception in favor of some English 
poets, the thoughts too are as little novel as the 
images ; and the fable of their narrative poems, for 
the most part drawn from mythology, or sources of 
equal notoriety, derive their chief attractions from 
their manner of treating them ; from impassioned 
flow, or picturesque arrangement. In opposition to 
the present age, and perhaps in as faulty an extreme, 
they placed the essence of poetry in the art. The 
excellence at which they aimed consisted in the ex- 
quisite polish of ihe diction, combined with perfect 
simplicity. This, their prime object, they attained by 
the avoidance of every word which a gentleman 
would not use in dignified conversation, and of every 
word and phrase, which none but a learned man 
would use; by the studied position of words and 
phrases, so that not only each part should be melodi- 
ous in itself, but contribute lo the harmony of the 
whole, each note referring and conducing to Ihe me- 
lody of all the foregoing and following words of the 
same period or stanza; and, lastly, with equal labor, 
the greater because unbelrayed, by the variation and 
various harmonies of their metrical movement. Their 
measures, however, were not indebted for their vari- 
ety to the introduction of new metres, such as have 
been attempted of late in the " .Alonzo and Imogen," 
and others borrowed from the German, having in 
their very mechanism a specific overpowering tune, 
to which the generous reader humors his voice and 
emphasis, with more indulgence to the author than 
attention to the meaning or quantity of the words; 
but which to an ear fiimiliar with the numerous 
sounds of the Greek and Roman poets, has an effect 
313 



304 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



not unlike that of galloping over a paved road in a 
German stage-wagon witliout springs. On the con- 
trary, our elder bards, both of Italy and England, 
produced a for greater, as well as more charming va- 
riety, by countless modifications, and subtle balances 
of sound, in the common metres of their country. A 
lasting and enviable reputation awaits tiie men of ge- 
nius, who should attempt and realize a union ; who 
should recall the high finish ; the appropriativeness ; 
the facihty; the delicate proportion; and, above all, 
the perfusive and omnipresent grace, vvliich have pre- 
served, as in a shrine of precious amber, the " Spar- 
row" ofCatullus, the "Swallow," the " Grasshopper," 
and all the other little loves of Anacreon : and which 
with bright, though diminished glories, revisited the 
youth and early manhood of Christian lilurope, in the 
vales of Arno,* and the groves of Isis and of Cam ; and 

* These thoughts were suegcsted to me durin;! the perusal 
of the Madrigals of Giovamhntista Strozzi, publislied in 
Florence (nella Stamperia del Sermartelli) 1st May, 1593, by 
his sons Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi, wilh a dedication to 
their deceased paternal uncle, " Signor Leone Sirozzi, Gen- 
erale delle batlaligie di Santa Chiesa." As I do not remem- 
ber to have seen either the poems or their author mentioned 
in any English work, or have found them in any of the com- 
mon collections of Italian poetry, and as the little work is of 
rare occurrence, 1 will transcribe a few specimens. I have 
eeldora met with compositions that possessed, to my feelmgs, 
more of that satisfying entircness, that complete adequate- 
ness of the manner to the matter which so charms us in 
Anacreon, joined with the tenderness, and more than the 
delicacy ofCatullus. Trifles as they are, they were probably 
elaborated wilh great care ; yet in the perusal we refer them 
to a spontaneous energy rather than to voluntary effort. To 
a cultivated taste, there is a delight in perfection fur its own 
sake, independent of the material in which it is manifested, 
that none but a cultivated taste can understand or appre- 
ciate. 

After what 1 have advanced, it would appear presumption 
to offer a translation ; even if the attempt was not dis- 
couraged by llie different genius of the English mind and lan- 
guage, which demands a denser body of thought as the con- 
dition of a high polish, than the Italian. I cannot but deem 
it likewise an advantage in the Italian tongue, in many other 
respects inferior to our own, that the language of poetry is 
more distinct from that of prose than with us. From the 
earlier appearance and established primacy of the Tuscan 
poets, concurring with the number of independent states, and 
the diversity of written dialects, the Italians have gained a 
poetic idiom, as the Greeks before them had obtained from 
the same causes, with greater and more various discrimi- 

dtions — ex. gr. the ionic for their heroic verses ; the attic for 
their iambic; and the two modes of the doric, the lyric or 
Bacerdotal, and the pastoral, the distinctions of which were 
doubtless more obvious to the Greeks themselves than they 
are to us. 

I will venture to add one other observation before I pro- 
ceed to the transcription. I am aware, that the sentiments 
which I have avowed concerning the points of difference be- 
tween the poetry of the present age, and that of the period 
between 151X) and 1650, are the reverse of the opinion com- 
monly entertained. I was conversing on this subject with a 
friend, when the servant, a worthy and sensible woman, 
coming in, I placed before her two engravings, the one a 
pinky-colored plate of the day, the other a masterly etching 
by Salvator Rosa, from one of his own pictures. On pres- 
sing her to tell us which she preferred, after a little blushing 
and flutter of feeling, she replied — why, that. Sir ! to be sure 1 
(pointing to the ware from the Fleet street print shops,) it 's 
Bo neat and elegant. T' other is such a scratchy slovenly 
thing." An artist, whose writings are scarcely less valuable 
than his works, and to whose authority more deference will 
be willingly paid, than I could even wish should be shown to 
mine, has told us, and from his own experience too, that 



who with these should combine the keener interest, 
deeper pathos, manlier reflection, and the fresher and 
more variotis imagery, which give a value and a 
name that will not pass away, to the poets who have 
done honor to our own limes, and to those of our 
immediate predecessors. 



good taste must be acguired,and like all other good things, 

is the result of thought, and the submissive study of the best 
models. If it be asked — "But what shall 1 deem such 1" 
the answer is : presume these to be the best, the reputation 
of which has been matured into fame by the consent of ages. 
For wisdom always has a final majority, if not by conviction, 
yet by acquiescence. In addition to Sir J. Reynolds, I may 
mciition Karris of Salisbury, who, in one of his philosophical 
disquisitions, has written on the means of acquiring a just 
taste wilh the preci^ion of .\ristotle, and the elegance ot 
Quintillian. 

MADRIGALE. 

Gelido suo rusccl chiaro, e tranquiUo 
M'iiiscgno Amor, di state a mezzo'l giomo : 
Ardean le selve, ardean le piagge, e i colli. 
Oi)d 'io, ch' al piu gran gielo ardo e sfavillo, 
Suliito corsi ; ma si piiro adorno 
Girsene il vidi, ehe turbar no'l volli : 
Sol mi specchiava, e'n dolce ombrosa sponda 
Mi stava intento al mormorar dell' onda. 

MADRIG.4LE. 

Aure dcir angoscioso viver mio 

Refrigerio soavp, 

E dolce si, che piu nnn mi par grave 

Ne'l arder, ne'l morir, anz' il desio ; 

Deh voi' I ghiaccio, e le nubi, e'l tempo rio 

Discacciatene omai, che I'onde chiara, 

E I' ombra non men cara 

A scherzare, e cantar per suoi hoschetti 

E prati Fesia ed Allegrezza alletti. 

IMADRIGALE. 

Pacifiche, ma spcsso in amorosa 

Guerra co'fiori, e I'erba 

Alia stagione acerba 

Verde Insegne del giglio e della rosa 

IMovetf, Aure, plan plan : che tregna o posa, 

Se nnn pace, io ritrovo ; 

E so ben dove — Oh vago, mansueto. 

MADRIGALE. 

Sguardo, labbra d'ambrosia, oh rider lieto ! 

Hor come un Scoglio slassi, 

Hor come un Rio se"n fugge 

Ed hor crud' Orsa rugge, 

Hor canta Angelo pio : ma che non fasai 

E che non fammi, O Sasrsi, 

O Rivi, o helve, o Dii, questa mia vaga 

Non so, se Ninfa, o Maga, 

Non so, so Donna, o Dea, 

Non so, se dolce o rua 7 

MADRIGALE. 

Piangendo mi baciaste, 
E ridendo il negaste : 
Indoglia hebbivi pia. 
In fosta hebbivi ria : 
Nacque Gioia di pianti. 
Dolor di riso: O amanti 
Miseri, habbiate insieme 
Ognor Paura e Speme. 

MADRIGALE. 

Bel Fior, tu mi rimembri 
La rugiadosa guancia del be! viso ' 
E si vera I'aesembri, 
Chc'n te sovente, come in lei m'afT>«o ; 
314 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



305 



CHAPTKR XVII. 

Examination of the tonpts peculiur to iMr. VVordsworlli — 
Ruslic lifii fnbove all, loir and rinlic lifi',) osnociaMy iinfii- 
vorablc to the formation of a human cliciion— The best purls 
of laniriu\?e the prodiiKi of plulosopliora, nm cl iwoa or 
ehcpherd.- — Poetry essentially ideal niul generic — The Ian- 
guage of Milton as much the lanijUMse of re,il life, yea, in- 
comparably more so tlian that of Uio coit!ii;er. 



the majoiity of those produced previously to the ap- 
pearance of thtit prefnce, leave no doubt on my mind, 
that Mr. Wordsworth is fully justified in believing 
his ortorls to have born by no means inrflectual. Not 
only in the verses of those who profe.ssed their admi- 
ration of his penius, but even of those who have dis- 
tinguished themselves by hostility to his theory, and 
depreciation of his wriiincjs.are the impressions of his 
As far, then, as Mr. Wordsworlh in his preface I P'"'"'"'P'ps plainly visible. It is possible, that with 
contended, and most ably contended, lor a refonua- j '^^""^ principles others may have been blended, 
tion in our poetic diction, as far as he 1ms evinced the "^^'^^ "'"'' "'" equally evident; and some which are 
truth of passion, and the drnmnlir propriety of those I ""steady and subverlible from the narrowness or 
figures and metaphors in the original poeis, which, ' ""P^'-'cf""" "<' 'I'P'r ha^^is- 15ul it is more than pos- 
stript of their justifying rea.sons, and converted into , ^"*''^' "'■'" ""'■''«' '^"'"^ "<" ''<^'p'^* ">• exaggeration, by 
mere artifices of connection or ornament, consiitute '^'"<"'".? =»"'' deeding the controversy, may have con- 
the characteristic falsity in the poetic sivie of (he mo- ! ''"''^''' "°' ""'^^ "* "^<' ^'■'•''''" Propagation of the ao 
derns; and, as far as he has, will, cpial acuieness ' <'""'P-''".Ving truths, but that, by their frequent pre- 
and clearness, pointed out the pr .cess ni which this ^""'a""" '" t'i« "iind in an excited state, they may 
change was effected, and the resemblances between ^^"^ "^"^ ^"' '^^"^ " """"^ permanent and practical 

result. A man will borrow a part from his opponent, 
the more easily, if he feels himself justified in con- 
tinuing io reject a part. While there remain import- 
ant poinls, in which he can still feel himself in the 
right, in which he still linds firm footing for continued 
resistance, he will gradually adopt those opinions 
which were the least remote from his own convic- 
tions, as not less congruous with his own theory than 
with that which he reprobates. In like manner, 
with a kind of instinctive prudence, he will abandon 
by little and little his weakest posts, till at length he 
seems to forget that they had ever belonged to him, 
or aflects to consider them, at most, as accidental and 
" petty annexments," the removal of which leaves 
the citadel unhurt and unendangered. 

My own differences, from certain supposed parts of 
Mr. Wordsworth's theory, ground themselves on the 
assumption, that his words had been rightly interpret- 
ed, as purporting that the proper diction fijr poetry in 
general consists altogether in a language taken, with 
due exceptions, from the mouths of men in real life, 
a language which actually constitutes the natural 
conversation of men under the influence of natural 
feelings. My objection is, first, that in any sense, this 
rule is applicable only to certain classes of |xietry ; 
secondly, that even to these classes it is not applica- 
ble, except in such a sense as hath never, by any one, 
(as far as I know or have read,) been denied or doubt- 
ed ; and, lastly, that as far as, and in that degree in 
which it is practicable ; yet as a ride it is useless, if 
not injurious, and therefore, either need not, or ought 
not to be practised. The poet informs his reader, that 
he had generally chosen low and rustic life; but not 
as low and rustic, or in order to repeat that pleasure 
of doubtful moral effect, which persons of elevated 
rank and of superior refinement oftentimes derive 
from a happy imitation of the rude, unpolished man- 
ners, and discourse of their inferiors. For the plea- 
sure so derived may be traced to three exciting causes. 
The first is the naturalness, in fact, of the things re- 
presented. The second is the apparent naturalness 
of the representation, as raised and qualified by an 
imperceptible infusion of the author's own knowledge 
and talent, which infusion does, indeed, constitute it 
315 



tliat state into which the reader's mind is thrown by 
the pleasurable confusion of thought, from an unac- 
customed train of words and images; and that state 
which is induced by the natural language of impas- 
sioned feeling; he undertook a useful task, and de- 
serves all praise, both for the attempt, and for the 
execution. The provocations to this remonstrance, in 
behalf of truth and nature, were still of perpetual 
recurrence, before and after the publication of ihis 
preface. I cannot, likewise, but add, that the com- 
parison of such poems of merit, as have been given 
to the public within the last ten or twelve years, with 

Ed hor dell vago riao, 

Hor dell Eereno sguardo 

Io pur cieco risguardo. Ma qual fugge, 

O RoBa, il mattin here ? 

E chi te, come neve, 

E'l mio cor teco, e la mia vita atrugge. 

MADRIGALE. 

Anna mia, Jlnna dolce, oh semprc nuovo 

E piu chiaro concento, 

Quanta dolcezza sento 

In Bol Anna dicendo 1 Io mi par pruovo, 

Ne qui Ira noi ritruovo, 

Ne tra cieli armonia, ' 

Che del bcl nome suo piu dolce eia : 

Altro il Cielo, altro .\more, 

Altro non suona I'Eco del mio core. 

MADRIGALE. 

Hor che'l prato, e la eelva si scolora, 

Al tuo Sereno ombroso 

Muovine, alto Riposo ! 

Deh ch 'io riposi una sol notte, un hora '. 

Han le fere, e gli auftelli, ognun talora 

Ha qualche pace; io quando. 

Lasso ! non vonne errando, 

E non piango, e non grido ? e qual pur forte ? 

Ma poiche non sente egli, odine, Morte ! 

MADRIGALE. 
Risi 8 piansi d'Amor; ne pero mai 
Se non in Gamma, o 'n onda o 'n vento ecrissi : 
8pe£so merce trovai 

Crudel ; sempre in me mono, in altri vissi ! 
Hor da' piu scuri abyssi al Ciel m'alzai, 
Hor ne pur caddi giuso; 
Stance al fin qui son chiuso ! 

41 



306 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



an imitation as distinguished from a mere copy. The 
third cause may be found in the reader's conscious 
feehng of his superiority, awakened by the contrast 
presented to him ; even as, for the same purpose, the 
kings and great barons of yore retained, sometimes, 
actual clowns and fools, but more frequently shrewd 
and witty fellows in that character. These, however, 
were not Mr. Wordsworth's objects. He chose low 
and rustic life, " because in that condition the essen- 
tial passions of the heart find a better soil, in which 
they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, 
and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; 
because in that condition of life our elementary feel- 
ings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, con- 
sequently, may be accurately contemplated, and more 
forcibly communicated ; because the manners of ru- 
ral life germinate from those elementary feelings, 
and, from the necessary character of rural occupa- 
tions, are more easily comprehended, and are more 
durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the 
passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful 
and permanent forms of nature." 

Now it is clear to me, that in the most interesting 
of the poems, in which the author is more or less dra- 
matic, as the "Brothers," "Michael," "Ruth," the 
" Mad Mother," &c., the persons introduced are by no 
means taken from loiu or rustic life, in the common 
acceptation of those words ; and it is not less clear, 
that the sentiments and language, as far as they can 
be conceived to have been really transferred from 
the minds and conversation of such persons, are at- 
tributable to causes and circumstances not necessarily 
connected with " their occupations and abode." The 
thoughts, feelings, language, and manners of the shep- 
herd-farmers in the vales of Cumberland and West- 
moreland, as far as they are actually adopted in those 
poems, may be accounted for from causes which will, 
and do produce the same results in eue?-!/ state of life, 
whether in town or country. As the two principal, 
I rank that independence, which raises a man above 
servitude, or daily toil, for the profit of others, yet not 
above the necessity of industry, and a frugal simpli- 
city of domestic life; and the accompanying unambi- 
tious, but solid and religious education, which has 
rendered few books familiar but the Bible, and the 
liturgy or hymn-book. To this latter cause, indeed, 
which is so fiir accidental, that it is the blessing of 
particular countries, and a particular age, not the 
product of particular places or employments, the poet 
owes the show of probability, that his personages 
might really feel, think, and talk, with any tolerable 
resemblance to his representation. It is an excellent 
remark of Dr. Henry More's, (Enthusiasmus triumph- 
atus, sec. xxxv.) that " a man of confined education, 
but of good parts, by constant reading of the Bible, 
will naturally form a more winning and commanding 
rhetoric than those that are learned ; the intermixture 
of tongues and of artificial phrases debasing their 
style." 

It is, moreover, to be considered, that to the forma- 
tion of healthy feelings, and a reflecting mind, nega- 
tions involve impediments, not less formidable than 
Bophistication and vicious intermixture. I am con- 



vinced, that for the human soul to prosper in rustic 
life, a certain vantage-ground is pre-requisite. It ia 
not every man that is likely to be improved by a 
country life, or by country labors. Education, or 
original sensibility, or both, must pre-exist, if the 
changes, forms, and incidents of nature are to prove 
a sufficient stimulant. And where these are not 
sufficient, the mind contracts and hardens by want 
of stimulants ; and the man becomes selfish, sensual, 
gross, and hard-hearted. Let the management of the 
Poor Laws in Liverpool, Manchester, or Bristol, be 
compared with the ordinary dispensation of the poor 
rates in agricultural villages, where the farmers are 
the overseers and guardians of the poor. If my own 
experience have not been particularly unfortunate, 
as well as that of the many respectable country cler- 
gymen with whom I have conversed on the subject, 
the result would engender more than scepticism, 
concerning the desirable influences of low and rustic 
life in and for itself Whatever may be concluded 
on the other side, from the stronger local attachments 
and enterprising spirit of Swiss, and other moun- 
taineers, applies to a particular mode of pastoral life, 
under forms of property, that permit and beget man- 
ners truly republican, not to rustic life in general, or 
to the absence of artificial cultivation. On the con- 
trary, the mountaineers, whose manners have been 
so often eulogized, are, in general, better educated, 
and greater readers than men of equal rank else- 
where. But where this is not the case, as among the 
peasantry of North Wales, the ancient mountains, 
with all their terrors and all their glories, are pictures 
to the blind, and music to the deaf 

I should not have entered so much into detail upon 
this passage, but, here seems to be the point to which 
all the lines of difference converge as to their source 
and centre. (I mean, as far as, and in whatever re- 
spect, my poetic creed does differ from the doctrines 
promulged in this preface.) I adopt, with full faith, 
the principle of Aristotle, that poetry, as poetry, is 
essentially ideal ;* that it avoids and excludes all ac- 
cident ; that its apparent individualities of rank, cha- 
racter, or occupation, must be representative of a 
class ; and that the persons of poetry must be clothed 



* Say not that lam recommending abstractions; for these 
class-characteristics, which constitute the instructivene.ss of a 
character, are so modified and particularized in each person 
of the Shaksperian Drama, that life itself does not excite 
more distinctly that sense of individuality which helonga to 
real existence. Paradoxical as it may snund, one of the es- 
sential properties of geometry is not less essential to dramatic 
excellence; and Aristotle has, accordinglyj required of the 
poet an involution of the universal in the individual. The 
chief diffc rences are, that in geometry, it is the universal 
truth which is uppermost in the consciousness; in poetry, the 
individual form, in which the truth is clothed. With the an- 
cients, and not less with the elder dramatists of England and 
France, both comedy and tragedy were considered as kinds 
of poetry. They neither sought, in comedy, to make us 
laugh merrily; much less to make us laugh by wry faces, ac- 
cidents of jargon, slang phrases for the day, or the clothing 
of common-place morals in metaphors drawn from the shops, 
or mechanic occupations of their characters. Nor did they 
condescend, in tragedy, to wheedle away the applause of the 
spectators, by representing before them fac similes of their 
own mean selves in all their existing meanness, or to work on 
their sluggish sympathies by a pathos not a whit more re 
316 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



307 



with generic altribiites, with the common attributes 
of tlie class; not witli such as one gifted individual 
might pofnibli/ (xissess, but such as from ills situation, 
it is most probable belbrchand, that he troiild possess. 
if my premises are right, and my deductions legiti- 
mate, it Ibllows that there can be no poetic medium 
between the swains of Theocrilus and those of an 
imaginary golden age. 

The characters of the vicar and the shcplierd-ma- 
riner, in the jwem of the " Hrotiikrs," lliose of the 
shepherd of Green-head Gill in the " IMicii.vEi.," 
have all the verisimilitude and representative tiual- 
ity that the purposes of [loeiry can require. They 
arc persons of a known and abiding class, and their 
manners and sentiments the natural product of cir- 
cumstances common to the class. Take " Miciiaei-," 
for instance : 

An old man stout or heart, and strong of limb: 

His budily frame had been frnm youth to age 

Of an unusual slrensjlh : his mind was keen. 

Intense and frugal, apt for all alTiiirs, 

And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt 

And watchful more than ordinary men. 

Hence, he had learnt the meaning of all winds. 

Of blasts of every tone, and oftentimes 

When others heeded not, he heard the south 

Make subterraneous music, like the noise 

Of bagpipers on distant higldand hills. 

The shepherd, at such warning, of his flnck 

Bethought him, and he to himself would say. 

The winds are now devising work for me '. 

And truly at all times the storm, that drives 

The traveller to a shelter, summon'd him 

Up to the mountains. He had been alone 

Amid the heart of many thousand mists, 

That came to him and left him on the heights. 

So lived he, till his eightieth year was pass'd. 

And grossly that man errs, who should suppose 

That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks, 

Wcro things indifferent to the shepherd's thoughts. 

Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed 

The common air ; the hills which he so oft 

Had rlimb'd with vigorous steps ; which had imprcss'd 

So many incidents upon his mind 

Of hardship, skill, or courage, joy or fear ; 

Which, like a hook, preserved the memory 

Of the dumb animals whom he had saved. 

Had fed, or shelter'd, linking to such acts. 

So grateful in themselves, the certainty 

Of honorable gains ; these tielils, these hills, 

Which wcro his living being, even more 

Than his own blood — what could they less 7— had laid 

Strong hold on his atTections — were to him 

A pleasurable feeling of blind love. 

The pleasure which there is in life itself. 

On the other hand, in the poems which are pitched 
at a lower note, as the " Harry Gill," " Idiot Boy," 
&c., the feelings are those of human nature in gene- 
ral, though the poet has judiciously laid the scene in 
the country, in order to place himself in the vicinity 
of interesting images, without the necessity of ascrib- 



epcctable than the maudlin tears of drunkenness. Their tra- 
gic scenes were meant to affect us indeed ; but yet within the 
hounds of pleasure, and in union with the activity both of our 
understanding and imagination. They wished to transport 
the mind to a sense of its possible greatness, anri to implant 
the germs of that greatness, during the temporary oblivion of 
the w.iriblcss " thing we are," and of the peculiar state in 
which each man havpena to be, suspending our individual 
recollections, and lulling them to slfep amid the music of no- 
bier thoughts. Friend, Paces '251 ami 'WJ. 

Cc 



ing a sentimental perception of their beauty to the 
persons of his drama. In the " Idiot IJoy," indeed, 
the mother's character is not so much a real end na- 
tive product of a " situation where the essential pas- 
sions of the heart find a belter soil, in which they can 
attain their maturity, and speak a plainer and more 
emphatic language," as it is an impersonation of an 
instinct abandonment by judgment. Hence, the two 
(iillowing charges seem to me not wholly groundless ; 
at least, they are the only plausible objections which 
I have heard to that fine (ioem. The one is, that the 
author has not, in the poem itself, taken suflicient 
care to preclude from the reader's fancy the disgust- 
ing images of ordinary, morbid idiocy, which yet it 
was by no means his intention to represent. He haa 
even by the " burr, burr, burr," uncounteracted by 
any preceding description of the boy's beauty, assisted 
in recalling them. The other is, that the idiocy of 
the boy is so evenly balanced by the folly of the mo- 
ther, as to present to the general reader rather a 
laughable burlesque on the blindness of anile dotage, 
than an analytic display of maternal affection in its 
ordinary workings. 

In the " Thorn," the poet himself acknowledges, 
in a note, the necessity of an introductory poem, in 
which he should have portrayed the character of the 
person from whom the words of the poem are sup- 
posed to proceed : a superstitious man, moderately 
imaginative, of slow faculties, and deep feelings; '-a 
captain of a small trading vessel, for example, who, 
being past the middle age of life, had retired upon 
an annuity, or small independent income, to some 
village or country town, of u hich he was not a native, 
or in which ho had not been accustomed to live. 
Such men, having nothing to do, become credulous 
and talkative from indolence." But in a poem, still 
more in a lyric poem, (and the nurse in Shakspcare'a 
Romeo and Juliet alone prevents me from extending 
the remark even to drainalic poetry, if indeed the 
JVurse itself can be deemed altogether a case in 
point,) it is not possible to imitate truly a dull and 
garrulous discourser, without repealing the effects of 
dullness and garrulity. Hovvever this may be, I dare 
assert, that the parts, (and these form the far larger 
portion of the whole,) which might as well, or still 
better, have proceeded from the poet's own imagina 
tion, and have been spoken in his own character, are 
those which have given, and which will continue to 
give, universal delight; and that the passages exclu- 
sively appropriate to the supposed narrator, such as 
the last couplet of the third stanza ;* the seven last 
lines of the tenth ;t and the five following stanzas. 



* " I've measured it from side to fide; 
'T is three feet long, and two feet wide. 

t " Nay. rack your brain— 't is all In vain, 
I 'II tell you every thing I know ; 
But to the Thorn, and to the Pond, 
Which is a little step beyond, 
! wish that yiiu would go: 
Perhaps, when you are at the place, 
You something of her tain may trace. 



I'll give you the best help I can ; 
Before you u|) the mountain go, 



317 



308 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



with the exception of the four admirable lines at the 
commencement of the fourteenth, are felt by many 
unprejudiced and unsophisticated hearts, as sudden 
and unpleasant sinkings from the height to which 
the poet had previously lifted them, and to which he 
again re-elevates both himself and his reader. 

If then I am compelled to doubt the theory by 
which the choice of characters was to be directed, 
not only a priori, from grounds of reason, but both 
from the few instances in which the poet himsell' 
Tieed be supposed to have been governed by it, and 
from the comparative inferiority of those instances ; 
still more must I hesitate in my assent to the sen- 
tence which immediately follows the former citation; 
and which I can neither admit as particular fact, or 
as general rule. " The language, too, of these men, 
IS adopted, (purified, indeed, Irom what appears to be 
its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes 

Up to the dreary mountain-top, 
I'll tell you all I know. 
'Tis now some two-and-twenty years 
Since ehe (her name is Martha Ray) 
Gave, with a maiden's true good will, 
Her company to Stephen Hill ; 
And she was blithe and gay, 
And she was happy, happy still. 
Whene'er she thought of Stephen Hill. 

And they had fix'd the wedding-day, 

The morning that must wed them both ; 

But Stephen to another maid 

Had sworn another oath ; 

And with this other maid to church 

Unthinking Stephen went — 

Poor Martha ! on that woful day 

A pang of pitiless dismay 

Into her soul was sent ; 

A fire was kindled in her breast. 

Which might not burn itself to rest. 

They say, full six months after this, 

While yet the summer leaves were green. 

She to the mountain-top would go. 

And there was often seen. 

'T is said a child was in her womb. 

As now to any eye was plain ; 

She was with child, and she was mad : 

Yet often she was sober sad 

From her exceeding pain. 

Oh me I ten thousand times I'd rather 

That he had died, that cruel father I 



Last Christmas, when we talk'd of this, 
Old farmer Simpson did maintain. 
That in her womb the infant wrought 
About its mother's heart, and brought 
Her senses back again : 
And when at last her time drew near, 
Her looks were calm, her senses clear. 

No more I know, I wish I did. 

And I would tell it all to you ; 

For what became of this poor child 

There 's none that ever knew : 

And if a child was born or no. 

There 's no one that could ever tell ; 

And if 'twas born alive or dead. 

There 's no one knows, as I have said ; 

But some remember well, 

That Martha Ray, about this time. 

Would up the mountain often climb." 



of dislike or disgust,) because such men hourly com 
municate with the best objects from which the bes» 
part of language is originally derived ; and, because 
from their rank in society, and the sameness and nar- 
row circle of their intercourse, being less under the 
action of social vanity, they convey their feelings 
and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. 
To this I reply, that a rustic's language, purified 
from all provincialism and grossness, and so far re- 
constructed as to be made consistent with the rules 
of grammar, (which are, in essence, no other than 
the laws of universal logic applied to Psychological 
materials,) will not differ from the language of any 
other man of common sense, however learned or 
refined he may be, except as far as the notions which 
the rustic has to convey are fewer and more indis- 
criminate. This will become still clearer if we add 
the consideration, (equally important, though less ob- 
vious,) that the rustic, from the more imperfect de- 
velopment of his faculties, and from the lower state 
of their cultivation, aims almost solely to coiivey in- 
sulated facts, either those of his scanty experience, 
or his traditional belief; while the educated man 
chiefly seeks to discover and express those connection^ 
of things, or those relative bearings of fact to fact, 
from which some more or less general law is deduci 
ble. For facts are valuable to a wise man, chiefly 
as they lead to the discovery of the in-dwelling law, 
which is the true being of things, the sole solution 
of their modes of existence, and in the knowledge 
of which consists our dignity and our power. 

As little can I agree with the assertion, that from 
the objects with which the rustic hourly communi- 
cates, the best part of language is formed. For, first, 
if to communicate with an object implies such an 
acquaintance with it as renders it capable of being 
discriminately reflected on, the distinct knowledge 
of an uneducated rustic would furnish a very scanty 
vocabulary. The few things and modes of action, 
requisite for his bodily conveniences, would alone be 
individualized, while all the rest of nature would be 
expressed by a small number of confused, general 
terms. Secondly, I deny that the words, and combi- 
nations of words derived from the objects with which 
the rustic is fiimiliar, whether with distinct or con- 
fused knowledge, can be justly said to form the best 
part of language. It is more than probable, that 
many classes of the brute creation possess discrimi- 
nating sounds, by which they can convey to each 
other notices of such objects as concern their food, 
shelter, or safety. Yet we hesitate to call the aggre- 
gate of such sounds a language, otherwise than meta- 
phorically. The best part of human language, pro- 
perly so called, is derived from reflection on the acta 
of the mind itself It is formed by a voluntary ap- 
propriation of fixed symbols to internal acts, to pro- 
cesses and results of imagination, the greater part ol 
which have no place in the consciousness of unedu- 
cated man; though, in civilized society, by imitation 
and passive remembrance of what they hear from 
their religious instructors and other superiors, the 
most uneducated share in the harvest, which they 
neither sowed or reaped. If the historv of the 
318 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



309 



phrases in hourly currency among our peasants were 
traced, a person not previously aware of the fact 
would be surprised al finding so large a number, I 
which, Iliree or (bur centuries ago, were the exclu- 
sive properly of the universities and the schools; 
and, at the rommencemcnt of the Reformation, h.id 
been transferred imm the school to the pulpit, and 
thus gradually passed into common life. The ex- ' 
Ireme dilliculty, and ofien tlie impossibility, of lind- 
ing words lor the simplest moral and intellectual pro- I 
cesses in the languages of uncivilized tribes has 
proved, perhaps, the weightiest obstacle to the pro- 
gress of our most zealous and adroit missionaries. 
Yet these tribes are surrounded by the same nature 
as our peasants are ; but in still more impressive 
Ibrms ; and they arc, moreover, obliged to purlicu- 
larize many more of them. When, lhcrel()re, Mr. 
Wordsworth adds, •' accordingly, such a language," 
(meaning, as before, the language of rustic life, puri- 
fied from provincialism,) " arising out of repeated ex- 
perience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, 
and a far more philosophical language, than that 
which is frequently substituted for it by poets, who 
think they are conferring honor uixtn themselves and 
their art, in proportion as they indulge in arbitrary 
and capricious habits of expression ;" it may be an- 
swered, that the language which he has in view can 
be attributed to rustics with no greater right than the 
style of Hooker or Bacon to Tom Brown or Sir Roger 
L'Estrange. Doubtless, if what is peculiar to each 
were omitted in each, the result must needs be the 
same. Further, that the poet, who uses an illogical 
diction, or a style fitted to excite only the low and 
changeable pleasure of wonder, by means of ground- 
less novelty, substitutes a language off (illy and vanift/, 
not for that of the rustic, but for that of good sense 
and natural feeling. 

Here let me be permitted to remind the reader, 
that the positions, which I controvert, are contained 
in the sentences — " a selection of the real language 
of men ;" — " t/ie language of these men, (i. e. men in 
low and rustic life,) I propose to myself to imitate, 
and, as far as possible, to adopt the very lansuage of 
men." " Between the language of prose and that of 
metrical composition, there neither is, nor can be, any 
essential difference." It is against these exclusively 
that my opposition is directed. 

I object, in the very first instance, to an equivo- 
cation in the use of the word " real." Every man's 
language varies according to the extent of his know- 
ledge, the activity of his faculties, and the depth or 
quickaess of his feelings. Every man's language 
has, first, its individualities ; secondly, the commcm 
properties of the class to which he belongs; and 
thirdly, words and phrases of universal use. The 
language of Hooker, Bacon, Bishop Taylor, and 
Burke, differs from the common language of the 
learned class only by the superior number and novel- 
ty of the thoughl.s and relations which they had to 
convey. The language of Algernon Sidney differs 
not at all from that which every well-educated gen- 
tleman would wish to write, and (with due allow- 
ances for the undeliberateness, and less connected 



train of thinking natural and proper to conversation,) 
such he would wish to talk. Neither one or the 
other differs half as much from the general language 
of cultivated society, as the language of Mr. Words- 
worth's homeliest cora|>osiiion differs from that of a 
common peasant. For " real," therefore, we must 
substitute ordinary or lingua communis. And this, 
we have proved, is no more to be found in the 
phraseology of low and rustic life, than in that of 
any other class. Omit the peculiarities of each, and 
the result, of course, must be common to all. And, 
assuredly, the omissions and changes to be made in 
the language of rustics, before it could be transferred 
to any species of |X)em, except the drama or other 
prol(?ssed imitation, are at least as numerous and 
weighty as would be required in adapting to the 
same purpose the ordinary language of tradesmen 
and manufacturers. J\ot to mention, that the lan- 
guage so highly extolled by Mr. Wordsworth varies 
in every county, nay, in every village, according to 
the accidental character of the clergymen; the ex- 
istence or non-existence of schools; or even, perhaps, 
as the exciseman, publican, or barber happen to be, 
or not to be, zealous politicians, and readers of the 
weekly newspaper pro bono publico. Anterior to 
cultivation, the lingua communis of every country, 
as Dante has well observed, exists every where in 
parls, and no where as a whole. 

Neither is the case rendered at all more tenable 
by the addition of the words, " in a slate of excite- 
ment." For the nature of a man's words, when he 
is strongly affected by joy, grief or anger, must ne- 
cessarily depend on the number and quality of the 
general truths, conceptions, and images, and of the 
words expressing them, with which his mind has 
been previously stored. For the property of passion 
is not to create, but to set in increased activity. At 
least, whatever new connections of thought or im- 
ages, or (which is equally, if not more than equally, 
the appropriate effect of strong excitement) whatever 
generalizations of truth or experience the heat of 
passion may produce, yet, the terms of their convey- 
ance must have pre-existed in his former conversa- 
tions, and are only collected and crowded together 
by the unusual stimulation. It is, indeed, very pos- 
sible to adopt in a poem the unmeaning repetitions, 
habitual phrases, and other blank counters, which an 
unfurnished or confused understanding interposes at 
short intervals, in order to keep hold of his subject, 
which is still slipping from him, and to give him 
time for recollection; or, in mere aid of vacancy, as 
in the scanty companies of a country stage, the same 
player jwps backwards and forwards, in order to 
prevent the appearance of empty spaces in the pro- 
cession of Macbeth, or Henry \lllth. But what 
assistance to the jioct, or ornament to the poem, these 
can supply, I am at a loss to conjecture. Nothing, 
assuredly, can differ either in origin or in mode more 
widely from the apparent tautologies of intense and 
turbulent feeling, in which the pa-ssion is greater, 
and of longer endurance, than to be exhausted or 
satisfied by a single representation of the image or 
incident exciting it. Such repetitions I admit v\ ba 
3)9 



310 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



a beauty of the highest kind, as illustrated by Mr. 
Wordsworth himself from the song of Deborah. "Al 
her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down ; at her feet he 
bowed, he fell ; where he bowed, there he fell down 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Language of metrical composition, why and wherein essen- 
tially different from that of pnisp — Origin and elements of 
metre — Its necessary conspquenoes, and the conditions 
thereby imposed on the metrical writer in the choice of his 
diction. 

I CONCI^UDE, therefore, that the attempt is imprac- 
ticable; and that, were it not impracticable, it would 
still be useless. For the very power of making the 
selection implies the previous possession of the lan- 
guage selected. Or where can the poet have lived ? 
And by what rules could he direct his choice, which 
would not have enabled him to select and arrange 
his words by the light of his own judgment ? We do 
not adopt the language of a class by the mere adop- 
tion of such words exclusively, as that class would 
use, or at least understand ; but, likev.ise, by follov\- 
ing the order in which the words of such men are 
wont to succeed each other. Kow, this order, in the 
intercourse of uneducated men, is distinguished from 
the diction of their superiors in knowledge and power, 
by the greater disjunctioji and separation in the com- 
ponent parts of that, whatever it be, which they wish 
to communicate. There is a want of that ])rospec- 
tiveness of mind, that surview, which enables a man 
to foresee the whole of what he is to convey, apper- 
taining to any one point; and, by this means, so to 
subordinate and arrange the different parts according 
to their relative importance, as to convey it at once, 
and as an organized whole. 

Now I will take the first stanza on which I have 
chanced to open, in the Lyrical Ballads. It is one of 
the most simple and least peculiar in its language. 

" In distant countries I have been. 
And yet I have not often seen 
A healthy man, a man full grown. 
Weep in the public road alone. 
But such a one, on English ground. 
And in the broad highway, I met ; 
Along the broad highway he came. 
His cheeks with tears were wet. 
Sturdy he seem'd, though he was sad, 
And in his arms a lamb he had." 

The words here are doubtless such as are current 
in all ranks of life ; and, of course, not less so in the 
hamlet and cottage, than in the shop, manufactory, 
college, or palace. But is this the order in which the 
rustic would have placed the words ? I am grievously 
deceived, if the following less compact mode of com- 
raencmg the same tale be not a far more faithful 
copy. "I have been in a many parts, far and near, 
and I don't know that I ever saw before, a man cry- 
ing by himself in the public road ; a grown man I 
mean, that was neither sick nor hurt," &c. Ac. But 
when I turn to the following stanza in " The Thorn :" 



" At all times of the day and night, 
This wretched woman thither goes. 
And she is known to every star, 
And every wind that blows : 
And there beside the thorn she sits, 
When the blue day-light's in the skies , 
And when the whirlwind's on the hill. 
Or frosty air is keen and still ; 
And to herself she cries, 
Oh misery ; Oh misery ! 
Oh wo is me i Oh misery I'' 

And compare this with the language of ordinary men; 
or with that which I can conceive at all likely to pro- 
ceed, in real life, from such a narrator as is supposed 
in the note to the poem; compare it either in the suc- 
cession of the images or of the sentences, I am re- 
minded of the sublime prayer and hymn of praise, 
which MiLT0.\, in opposition to an established litur- 
gy, presents as a fair specimen of common cotempo- 
rary devotion, and such as we might expect to hear 
from every self-inspired minister of a conventicle! 
And I reflect with delight, how little a mere theory, 
though of his own workmanship, interferes with the 
processes of genuine imagination in a man of true po- 
etic genius, who possesses, as Mr. Wordsworth, if 
ever man did, most assuredly does possess, 

" The Vision and the Faculty divine." 

One point, then, alone remains, but the most im- 
portant; its examination having been, indeed, my 
chief inducement for the preceding inquisition, 
" There neither is, nor can be, any essential difference 
between the language of prose and metrical composi- 
tion." Such is Mr. Wordsworth's assertion. Now, 
prose itself, at least, in all argumentative and conse- 
cutive works, differs, and ought to differ, from the 
language of conversation ; even as reading ought to 
differ from talking.* Unless, therefore, the difference 
denied be that of the mere words, as materials com- 



* It is no less an error in teachers, than a torment to the 
poor children, to enforce the necessity of reading as they 
would talk. In order to cure them of singing, as it is called, 
that is, of loo great a difference, the child is made to repeal 
the words with his eyes from off the book ; and then, indeed, 
his tones tesembie talking, as far as his fears, tears, and trem 
bling will permit. But. as soon as the eye is again directed 
to the printed page, the spell begins anew ; for an instinctive 
sense tells the child's feelings, that to utter its own momen- 
tary thoughts, and to recite the written thoughts of another, 
as of anuthcr, and a far wiser than himself, are two widely 
dilferent things; and, as the two acts are accompanied with 
widely different feelings, so must they justify different modes 
of enunciation. .losiiili Lancisier, among his other sophisti- 
cations of ihe excellent Dr. Bell's invaluable system, cures 
this tiiult of sivging, by hnnging fetters and chains on the 
child, to Ihe music of which one of his school-fellows, who 
walks bcfiire, dole'ully cbaunts out the child's last speech 
and confcs*i<in, hirth, parentage, and education. And this 
Boul-brnumbing ignominy, this unholy and heart-hardening 
burlesque on the last fearful infliction of outraged law. in 
pronouncing the sentence at whiith the stern and familiarized 
judge not seldom bursts into tears, has been extolled as a 
happy and ingenious melhod of remedying — what 1 and how? 
— why, one extreme in order to introduce another, scarce less 
distant from good sense, and certainly likely to have worse 
moral effects, by enforcing a seml)lance of petulant ease and 
self-sufficiency, in repression, and possible after-perversion of 
the natural feelings. 1 have to beg Dr. Bell's pardon for this 
connexion of the two names, but he knows that contrast is 
no less powerful a cause of association than likeness 
32<) 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARTA. 



311 



mon to all styles of writing, nnd not of the slijle itself, 
in the universally iidmilted sense of llie term, it might 
be naturally prosuincd that there must exist a still 
greater between the onlonnance of ptietic composi- 
tion, and tliat of prose, than is expected to distinguish 
prose from onliiiar)' conversation. 

There are not, indeed, examples wanting in the 
history of literature, of apparent parailoxes that have 
summoned the public wonder, as new and startling 
truths, but which, on examination, have shrunk into 
tame and harmless truisms; as the eyes of a cat, seen 
in the dark, have been mistaken f()r flames of fire. 
But Mr. Wordsworth is among the last men, to whom 
a delusion of this kind would be attributed by any 
one who had enjoyed the slightest opportunity of un- 
derstanding his mind and character. Where an ob- 
jection has been anticipated by such an author as 
natural, his answer to it must needs be interpreted in 
some sense, which either is, or has been, or is capable 
of being, controverted. My object then, must be to 
discover some other meaning for the term " essential 
difference" in this place, exclusive of the indistinc- 
tion and community of the words themselves. For 
whether there ought to exist a class of words in the 
English, in any degree resembling the poetic dialect 
of the Greek and Italian, is a question of very subor- 
dinate importance. The number of such words 
•would be small indeed, in oiir language, and even in 
the Italian and Greek; they consist not so much of 
different words, as of slight differences in the forms 
of declining and conjugating the same words; forms, 
doubtless, which having been, at some period more 
or less remote, the common grammaiio flexions of 
some tribe or province, had been accidentally appro- 
priated to poetry by the general admiration of certain 
master intellects, the first established lights of inspi- 
ration, to whom that dialect happened to be native. 

Essence, in its primary signification, means the 
principle orindividuation, the inmost principle of the 
7>os.?i6i7i7// of any thing, OS that particular thing. It 
is equivalent to the idcaofa thing, whenever we use 
the word idea with philosophic precision. Existence, 
on the other hand, is distinguished from essence, by 
the superinduction of reality. Thus we speak of the 
essence, and essential properties of a circle; but we 
do not therefore assert, that any thing which really 
exists is mathematically circular. Thus too, without 
any tautology, we contend for the exislenceoi \\\e Su- 
preme Being; that is, for a reality corresponding to 
the idea. There is, next, a secondanj use of the word 
essence, in which it signifies the point or ground of 
contra-distinction between two modifications of the 
same substance or subject. Thus we should be al- 
low'ed to say, that the style of architecture of West- 
minister Abbey is essentiaUij different from that of 
Saint Paul, even though both had been built with 
blocks cut into the same form, and from the same 
quarry. Only in this latter sense of the term must it 
have been denied by Mr. Wr)rdsworlh (for in this 
sense alone is it affirmed by the general opinion) that 
the language of poetry (i. e. the formal construction, 
or architecture of the words and phrases) is essentially 
different from that of prose. IVow the burthen of the 
Cc2 



proof lies with the oppugner, not with the supporters 
of the common belief Mr. Wordsworth, in conse- 
quence, assigns, as the proof of his position, " that not 
only the language of a large portion of every good 
poem, even of the most elevated character, must ne- 
cessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no 
respect difffer from that of good jirose ; but likewise 
that some of the most interesting parts of the best 
poems will be strictly the language of prose, when 
prose is well written. The truth of this assertion 
might be demonstrated by innumerable pa.ssages from 
almost all the pt)etical writings even of Milton him- 
self" He then quotes Gray's sonnet — 

" In vain to me the pmiline mornines Bliine, 
And reddening Piiffbus lifts liia jtolden fire ; 
The hirds in vain their anioroua descant join, 
Or cheerful fields resnme their areen atlire ; 
These ears, alas 1 for other notes repine ; 
Ji diO'erent ohjvct do ttitse eyes require ; 
J\[!i Ivneli/ atiffuisli iiu/ts no heart but mine, 
.find in mn brca.il the imperfect jnys expire! 
Yet mnrninz smiles, the busy race to cheer. 
And new-born pleasure brines to happier men : 
The fields to all their wonted Irilmtes bear, 
To warm tlieir lillle loves the binls complain. 
1 friiil.'css viourn to liiin tliat cnvvot hear, 
Jind icccp the more, because I weep in vain." 

and adds the following remark: — "It will easily be 
perceived, that the only part of this Sonnet which is 
of any value, is the lines printed in italics. It is 
equally obvious, that except in the rhyme, and in the 
use of the single word "fruitless" for fruitlessly 
which is so far a defect, the language of these lines 
does in no respect differ from that ofpro.se." 

An idealist defending his system by the fact, that 
when asleep we often believe ourselves awake, was 
well answered by his plain neighbor, " Ah, but when 
awake do we ever believe ourselves asleep ?" Things 
identical must be convertible. The preceding pas- 
sage seems to rest on a similar sophism. For the 
question is not, whether there may not occur in prose 
an order of words, which would be equally proper in 
a |)oem; nor whether there are not beautiful lines 
and sentences of frequent occurrence in good poems, 
which would be eijually becoming, as well as beau- 
tiful, in good prose; for neither the one or the olher 
has ever been either denied or doubted by any one. 
The true question must be, whether there are not 
modes oi" expression, a construction, and an order of 
sentences, which are in their fit and natural place in 
a serious prose composition, but would be dispropor 
tionate and heterogeneous in metrical poetry; and, 
vice versa, whether in the language of a serious poem 
there may not be an arrangement both of words and 
sentences, and a use and selection of (what are called) 
figures of speech, both as to their kind, their frequency, 
and their occasions, w hit h, on a subject of etptal 
weight, would be vicious and alien in correct and 
manlv prose. I contend, that in both cases, this un- 
fitness of each for the place of the other frequently 
will and ouahl to exist. 

And, first, from the origin of metro. This I would 
trace to the balance in the mind efl"ecled by that spon- 
taneous effort which strives to hold in check the 
worldngs of passion. It might be easily explained, 
321 



312 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



likewise, in what manner t'ais salutary antagonism is 
assisted by the very state which it counteracts, and 
how this balance of antagonists became organized into 
metre, (in the usual acceptation of that term,) by a su- 
pervening act of the will and judgment, consciously, 
and for the foreseen purpose of pleasure. Assuming 
these principles as the data of our argument, we de- 
duce from them two legitimate conditions, which the 
critic is entitled to expect in every metrical work. 
First: that as the c'emf ?//« of metre owe their exist- 
ence to a state of increased excitement, so the metre 
itself should be accompanied by the natural language 
of excitement. Secondly: that as th.ese elements are 
formed into metre artificially, by a voluntary act, with 
the design, and for the purpose of blending delight 
with emotion, so the traces of present volition should, 
throughout the metrical language, be proportionally 
discernible. IVow, these two conditions must be re- 
conciled and co-present. There must be, not only a 
partnership, but a union; an interpenetration of pas- 
sion and will, oi spontaneous impulse and o{ voluntary 
purpose. Again : this union can be manifested only 
in a frequency of forms and figures of speech, (origin- 
ally the offspring of passion, but now the adopted 
children of power,) greater than would be desired or 
%ndured where the emotion is not voluntarily en- 
couraged, and kept up for the sake of that pleasure 
which such emotion, so tempered and mastered by 
the will, is found capable of communicating. It not 
only dictates, but of itself tends to produce a more 
frequent employment of picturesque and vivifying 
language, than would be natural in any other case in 
which there did not exist, as there does in the present, 
a previous and well understood, though tacit, rompact 
between the poet and his reader, that the latter is en- 
titled to expect, and the former bound to supply this 
species and degree of pleasurable excitement. We 
may, in some measure, apply to this union, the an- 
swer of PoLixENES, in the Winter's Tale, to Perdi- 
ta's neglect of the streaked gilly-flowers, because 
she had heard it said, 

"There is an art wSich in their pie'iriess shares 
" Willi great crenling nature. 

Put. Say there be : 
" Yet nature is made betier by no mean, 
" But nature makes that mean. So ev'n that art, 
" Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
"That nature makes I You see, sweet maid, we marry 
" A gentler scion to the wildest .itoclc : 
" And mal<e conceive a barlj of ruder kind 
" By bud of nobler race. This is an art. 
" Which does mend nature — change il rather ; but 
"The art itself is n.iture." 

Secondly, I argue from the effects of metre. As 
far as metre acts in and for itself, it tends to increase 
the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general 
feelings and of the attention. This effect it produces 
by the continued excitement of surprise, and by the 
quick reciprocations of curiosity, still gratified and 
still re-excited, which are too slight, indeed, to be at 
any one moment objects of distinct consciousness, 
yet Oecome considerable in their aggregate influence. 
As a medicated atmosphere, or as wine, during an- 
imated conversation, they act powerfully, though 



themselves unnoticed. Where, therefore, corres- 
pondent food and appropriate matter are not provided 
for the attention and feelings, thus roused, there must 
needs be a disappointment felt ; like that of leaping 
in the dark from the last step of a stair-case, when 
we had prepared our muscles for a leap of three or 
fi)ur. 

The discussion on the powers of metre in the 
preface is highly ingenious, and touches at all points 
on truth. But I cannot find any statement of its 
powers considered abstractly and separately. On 
the contrary, Mr. Wordsworth seems always to esti- 
mate metre by the powers which it exerts during, 
(and, as I think, in consequence of) its combination 
with other elements of poetry. Thus, the previous 
difficulty is left unanswered, wliat the elements are 
with which it must be combined, in order to produce 
its own effects to any pleasurable purpose. Double 
and trisyllable rhymes, indeed, form a lower species 
of wit, and attended to, exclusively for their own 
sake, may become a source of momentary amuse- 
ment ; as in poor Smart's distich to the Welsh 'Squire, 
who had promised him a hare : 

"Tell me, Ihou son of great Cadwallader 
Kast sent the hare, or hast thou awallow'd her? 

But, for any poetic purposes, metre resembles (if 
the aptness of the simile may excuse its meanness) 
yest, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but giving 
vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is pro- 
portionally combined. 

The reference to the " Children of the Wood," by 
no means satisfies my judgment. W'e all willingly 
throw ourselves back for a while into the feelings of 
our childhood. This ballad, therefore, we read un- 
der such recollections of our own childish feelings, 
as would equally endear us to poems which Mr. 
V»'ordsvvorth himself would regard as faulty in the 
opposite extreme of gaudy and technical ornament 
Before the invention of printing, and in a still greater 
degree before the introduction of writing, metre, 
especially alliterative metre, (whether alliterative at 
the beginning of the words, as in "Pierce Plouraan," 
or at the end, as in rhymes) possessed an independent 
value, as assisting the recollection, and, consequently, 
the preservation of any series of truths or incidents. 
But I am not convinced by the collation of facts, 
that the " Children in the Wood," owes either its pre- 
servation or its popularity to its metrical form. Mr. 
Marshal's repository afliirds a number of tales in 
prose, inferior in pathos and general merit. Some of 
as old a date, and many as widely popular. Tom 
HiciCATiiRiFT, Jack the Giant-killer, Goody 
Two-shoes, and Little Red Ridi.ng-hood, are 
formidable rivals. And that they have continued in 
prose, cannot he fairly explained by the assumption, 
that the comparative meanness of their thoughts and 
images precluded even the humblest forms of metre. 
The scene of Goody Two-shoes in the church 
is perfectly susceptible of metrical narration ; and 
among the OavfiaTa -Sau/iaso-arir, even of the present 
age, I do not recollect a more astonishing image than 
that of the " whole roohery, that flew out of the giant's 
322 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



313 



beard," scared by the ircmciulous voice with which 
tliis monsier answered the challenge of the heroic 
Tom Hh'kathrift! 

If from ihese we turn to compositions, universally, 
and indeiHMulently <>f all early associations, beloved 
and admired, would the Maria, The Monk, or The 
Poor Man's Ass of Sterne, be read with more de- 
light, or have a better chance of immortality, hod 
they, without any chana;o in the diction, been com- 
posed in rhyme, than in the present state? If I am 
not grossly mistaken, the general reply would be in 
the negative. Aay, I will confess, that in Mr. 
Wordsworth's own volumes, the Aniocdote for 
Fathers, Si.mo.v Lee, Acij.e Fell, The Heggars, 
and The Sailor's Mother, notwithstanding the 
beauties which are to be foimd in each of them, 
where the poet interposes the music of his own 
thoughts, would have been more delightful to me in 
prose, told and managed, as by Mr. Wordsworth 
they would have been, in a moral essay, or pedes- 
trian tour. 

Metre in itself is simply a stimulant of the atten- 
tion, and therefore excites the question — Why is the 
attention to be thus stimulated ? Now the question 
cannot be answered by the pleasure of the metre it- 
self; for this we have shown to be crmdiiional , and 
dependent on the appropriateness of the thoughts and 
expressions, to which the metrical form is superadded. 
Neither can I conceive any other answer that can be 
rationally given, short of this : I write in metre, be- 
cause I am about to use a language different from 
that of prose. Besides, where the language is not 
such, how interesting soever the reflections are that 
are capable of being drawn by a philosophic mind 
from the thoughts or incidents of the poem, the metre 
itself must often become feeble. Take the three last 
stanzas of the Sailor's Mother, for instance. If I 
could for a moment abstract from the effect produced 
on the author's feelings, as a man, by the incident at 
the time of its real occurrence, I would dare appeal 
to his own judgment, whether in the vieire itself he 
found a suflicient reason for their being written met- 
rically ? 

" And thus continuing, she said, 
I had a son, who many a day 
Sailed on the seas ; but he is dead ; 
In Denmark he was cast away : 
And I have travelled far as Hull, to see 
W^hat clothes he minht have left, or other property. 

The bird and cage, they both were his ; 

'T was my son's bird ; and neat and trim 

He kept it ; many voyages 

This singini bird hath gone with him : 

When Inst he sailed he left the bird behind ; 

As it might be, perhaps, from budings of his mind. 

He to a fellow- lodger's care 

Had lefi it. to be watched and fed. 

Till he came back again ; and there 

I found it when my son was dead ; 

And now, God help me for my liitle wit! 

I trail it with me, Sir I he took so much delight in it." 

If disproportioning the emphasis we read these 

stanzas so as to make the rhymes perceptible, even 

trisyllahle rhymes could scarcely produce an equal 

Bense of oddity and strangeness, as we feel here in 

42 



finding rhymes at all in sentences so exclusively col- 
loiiuial. I would further ask whether, but for that 
visionary state, into which the figure of the woman 
and the susceptibility of his own genius had placed 
ihe poet's imagination, (a state, which spreads its in- 
fluence and coloring over all that co-exists with the 
exciting cause, and in which 

"The simplest, and Ihe most familiar things 
Gain a struiige power of spreading awe around them ;"*) 

I would ask the poet whether he would not have felt 
an abrupt downfall in these verses from the preceding 
stanza ? 

" The ancient spirit is not dead ; 
Old limes, thought I, arc breathing there ! 
Proud was I, that my country bred 
Such strength, a dignity so fair ! 
She begged an alms, like one in poor estate ; 
I looked at her again, nor did my pride abate." 

It must not be omitted, and is, besides, worthy of 
notice, that those stanzas furnish the only fair instance 
that I have been able to discover in all Mr. Words- 
worth's writings, of an actual adoption, or true imita- 
tion, of the real and very language of low and rustic 
life, freed from provincialisms. 

Thirdly, I deduce the position from all the causes 
elsewhere assigned, which render metre the proper 
form of poetry, and poetry imperfect and defective 
without metre. Metre, therefore, having been con- 
nected with poetry most often and by a peculiar fit- 
ness, whatever else is combined with metre must, 
though it be not itself essentially poetic, have never- 
theless some property in common with poetry, as an 
intern) edi tun of affinity, a sort (if I may dare borrow 
a well-known phrase from technical chemistry) of 
mordaunt between it and the superadded metre. 
Now, poetry, Mr. Wordsworth truly affirms, does 
always imply passio.n, which word must be here 
understood in its most general sense, as an excited 
state of the feehngs and faculties. And as every 
passion has its proper pulse, so will it likewise have 
its characteristic modes of expression. But where 
there exists that degree of genius and talent which 
entitles a writer to aim at the honors of a poet, the 
very act of |X)etic composition itself i^, and is allowed 
to imply and to produce, an unusual state of excite- 
ment, which, of course, justifies and demands a cor- 
respondent difference of language, as truly, though 
not perliaps in as marked a degree, as the excitement 
of love, fear, rage, or jealousy. The vividness of the 
description or declamations in Donne, or Dryden, is 
as much and as often derived from the force and fer- 
vor of the describer, as from the reflections, forms, or 



* Altered from the description of Night-Mare in the Re- 
morse : 
"Oh Heaven I 'twas frightful ! Now run down and stared at 

By hideous shapes that cannot be remembered ; 

Now seeing nothing, and imaging nothing ; 

B»t only being afraid — sliHod with fear I 

While every goodly or familiar form 

Had a strange power of spreading terror round mo :" 

N. B. Though Shakspcare has, for his own all-juslifying 
purposes, iniroduccd the Nighl-^Varc with her own foals, yet 
Muir means a Sister, or perhaps a Hag. 

323 



314 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



incidents, which constitute their subject and mate- 
rials. The wheels take fire from the mere rapidity 
of their motion. To what extent, and under what 
modifications, this may be admitted to act, I shall at- 
tempt to define in an after remark on Mr. Words- 
worth's reply to this objection, or rather on his objec- 
tion to this reply, as already anticipated in his preface. 

Fourthly, and as intimately connected with this, if 
not the same argument in a more general ibrm, I ad- 
duce the high spiritual iiisiinct of tlie human being, 
impelhng us to seek unity by harmonious adjustment, 
and thus establishing the principle, that all the parts 
of an organized whole must be assimilated to the 
more impnrlant and essential parts. This and the 
preceding arguments may be strengthened by the re- 
flection, that the composition of a poem is among the 
imitative arts, and that imitation, as opposed to copy- 
ing, consists either in the interfusion of the same, 
throughout the radically different, or of the differ- 
ent throughout a base radically the same. 

Lastly, I appeal to the practice of the best poets of 
all countries and in all ages, as authorizing the opin- 
ion, (deduced from all the foregoing,) that in every 
import of the word essential, which would not here 
involve a mere truism, there may be, is, and ought to 
be, an essential difference between the language of 
prose and of metrical composition. 

In Mr. Wordsworth's criticism of Gray's Sonnet, 
the reader's sympathy with his praise or blame of the 
different parts is taken f jr granted, rather perhaps too 
easily. He has not, at least, attempted to win or com- 
pel it by argumentative analysis. In mij conception, 
at least, the lines rejected, as of no value, do, with 
the exception of the two first, differ as much and as 
little from the language of common life, as those 
which he has printed in italics, as possessing genuine 
excellence. Of the five lines thus honorably distin- 
guished, two of them differ from prose even more 
widely than the lines which either precede or follow, 
in the position of the words: 

" j9 different object do these eyes require ; 
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; 
And in my breast the imperfect joi/s expire.'" 

But were it otherwise, what would this prove, but 
a truth, of which no man ever doubted ? videlicet, 
that there are sentences which would be equally in 
their place, both in verse and prose. Assuredly, it 
does not prove the point, wiiieh alone requires proof; 
namely, that there are not passages which would suit 
the one, and not suit the other. The first line of this 
sonnet is distinguished from the ordinary language of 
men by the epithet to morning. (For we will set 
aside, at present, the consideration that the particular 
word "smiling" is hackneyed, and, (as it involves a 
sort of personification,) not quite congruous with the 
common and material attribute of shining.) And, 
doubtless, this adjunction of epithets, for the purpose 
of additional description, where no particular atten- 
tion is demanded for the quality of the thing, would 
be noticed as giving a poetic cast to a man's conver- 
sation. Should the sporLsman exclaim, "come, boijs ! 
Jie rosy morn calls you up," he will be supposed to 



have some song in his head. But no one suspects 
this, when he says, " a wet morning shall not confine 
us to our beds." This, then, is either a defect in 
poetry, or it is not. Whoever should decide in the 
affirmative, I would request him to re-peruse any one 
poem, of any confessedly great poet, from Homer to 
Milton, or from Eschylus to Shakspeare, and to strike 
out (in thought I mean) every instance of this kind. 
If the number of these fancied erasures did not star- 
tle him, or if he continued to deem the work im- 
proved by their total omission, he must advance rea- 
sons of no ordinary strength and evidence — reasons 
grounded in (he essence of human nature; otherwise 
I should not hesitate to consider him as a man not so 
much proof against all authority, as dtad to it. The 
second line, 

" And reddening Phrebus lifts his golden fire ;" 
has indeed almost as many faults as words. But then 
it is a bad line, not because the language is distinct 
from that of prose, but because it conveys incongru- 
ous images ; because it confounds the cause and the 
effect, the real thing with the personified representa- 
tive of the thing; in short, because it differs from 
the language of good sense! That the "Phoebus" 
is hackneyed, and a school-boy image, is an accidental 
fault, dependent on the age in which the author 
wrote, and not deduced from the nature of the 
thing. That it is part of an exploded mythology, 
is an objection more deeply grounded. Yet when 
the torch of ancient learning was re-kindled, so 
cheering were its beams, that our eldest poets, cut 
off by Christianity from all accredited machinery, 
and deprived of all acknowledged guardians and sym- 
bols of the great objects of nature, were naturally 
induced to adopt, as a poetic language, those fabulous 
personages, those forms of the supernatural in nature,* 
which had given them such dear delight in the 
poems of their great masters. Nay, even at this day, 
what scholar of genial taste will not so far sympa- 
thise with them, as to read with pleasure in Pe- 
trarch, Chaucer, or Spenser, what he would 
perhaps condemn as puerile in a modern poet? 

I remember no poet whose writings would safe- 
lier stand the test of Mr. Wordsworth's theory, than 
Spenser. Yet will Mr. Wordsworth say, that the 
style of the following stanzas is either undistinguish- 
ed from prose, and the language of ordinary life, or, 
that it is vicious, and that the stanzas are blots in the 
Faery Queen ? 

" By liiis the northern wagoner had set. 
His sevenfold leuie behind the sleiidfast starre, 
That was in ore m waves yet never wit, 
But firm is fixt and sendelh light from farre 
To all that in the wild deep wandering are. 
And cheerful chanticleer with his nole shrill 
Had warned once that Phoebus's fiery carre 
In haste was climbing up the eastern hill. 
Full envious ihal night so long his room did fill." 
Hook 1. Can. 2. St. 2. 

* But still more by the mechanical system of philosophy 
which has needlessly infected our theological opinions; and 
teaching us to consider the world in its relation to God, as of 
a buildmg to its mason, leaves the idea of omnipresence a 
mere abstract notion in the stale-room of our reason. 
324 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



315 



" At laft the golden oricntall gale 
Of gtentest heaven gan to open fayrc. 
And l'hii'bu9 fresh as brydesrumc to his male, 
C'aino dauncini; forth, ehakini; his deawio huyro. 
And hurl'd his tfhsl'ring beams through ulooniy nyre ; 
Which when the wakeful elfe perceived, sireightway 
He started up, and did him selfc prepayro 
In sunbiit'ht urnies, and bullailuus array ; 
Fur wilji ihut pagan proud he cumbut will that d'ly-" 
Jl. 1. Can. 5. St. 2. 

On the contrary, to how many passages, both in 
hymn books and in blank verse iioeins, coiilil 1 (were 
it not inviiiioiis) direct tiie reader's attention, the 
style of which is most iinpoetic because, and only 
because, it is the style of prose? He will not su|)- 
pose me cajwible of having in my mind such verses, 
as 

" I put my hat upon my head, 
* And walk'd into the sirand ; 
And there I met anollier man, 
Whose hat wa.s iii his hand." 

To such specimens it would indeed be a fair and 
full reply, that these lines are not bad, becau.se they 
are unpoetic; but because they are empty of all 
sense and leeling, and that it were an idle attempt 
to prove that an ape is not a Newton, when it is 
evident that he is not a man. But the sense shall be 
good and weighty, the language correct and dignified, 
the subject interesting, and treated with leeling ; and 
yet the style shall, notwithstanding all the.se merits, 
be justly blameable as prosair, and solely because 
the words and the order of the words would find 
their appropriate place in prose, but are not suitable 
to metrical composition. The " Civil Wars " of Daniel, 
is an instructive, and even interesting work ; but 
lake the following stanzas, (and from the hundred 
instances which abound, I might probably have se- 
lected others far more striking :) 

" .\nd to the end we may with better ease 
Iliscern the true discourse, vouchsafe to show 
What were the times foregoing near to these. 
That these we may with better profit know. 
Tell how the world fell into this disease ; 
And how so ereat distcinperaiure did grow ; 
So shall we see with what degrees it came ; 
How things at full do souti wax out of frame." 

" Ten kings had from the Norman conqu'ror reign'd 
With iniermi.xt and variable fate. 
When England to her greatest height attain'd 
Of power, dominion, glory, wealth, and slate ; 
After it had with much ado sustain'd 
The violence of princes wiih debate 
For titles, and the often mutinies 
Of nobles for their ancient liberties." 

"For first the Norman, comu'ring all by might. 
By might was forced to keep what he had got ; 
Mixing our customs and the form of right 
With foreign constitutions, he had brought ; 
Mastering the michty, humbling the poorer wight, 
liy all severest me ins that could be wrought ; 
And making the succession doubtful, rent 
His new-got stale, and left it turbulent." 

B. 1. Sl 7. 8. 9. 

Will it be contended, on the one side, that these 
lines are mean and senseless ? Or, on the other, that 
they are not prosaic, and for that reason unpoetic ? 
This poet's well-merited epithet is that of the " well- 



languaged Daniel ;" but likewise, and by the consent 
of his conlemporaries no less than of all succeeding 
critics, the " prosaic Daniel." Yet those, who thus 
designate this wise and amiable writer, from the fre- 
(luent incorres|>onilency of his diction to his metre in 
the majority of his coniiwsilions, not only deem them 
valuable and interesting on other accounts, but will- 
ingly admit, that there are to be found throughout his 
poems, and especially in his Epistles, and in his Hy- 
men's Triumpit, many and extjuisiie specimens of that 
style which, as the neutral ground of prose and verse, 
is common to both. A fine, and almost faultless ex- 
tract, eminent as for other beauties, so for its perfec- 
tion in this species of diction, may be seen in Lamb's 
Dramatic Specimens, &c. a work of various interests 
from the nature of the selections themselves, (all 
from the plays of Shakspeare's contemporaries,) and 
deriving a high additional value from the notes, 
which are full of just and original criticism, express- 
ed vvilh all the freshness of originality. 

Among the po.ssible effects of practical adherence 
to a theory, that aims to identify the style of prose 
and verse, (if it does, indeed, claim for the latter a 
yet nearer resemblance to the average style of men 
in the viva voce intercourse of real life,) we might 
anticipate the following, as not the least likely to oc- 
cur. It will happen, as I have inileed before ob- 
served, that the metre itself, the sole acknowledged 
diflerence, will occasionally become metre to the eye 
only. The existence of prosaisms, and that they de- 
tract from the merit of a poem, must at length be 
conceded, when a number of successive lines can be 
rendered, even to the most delicate ear, unrecogniz- 
able as verse, or as having even been intended for 
verse, by simply transcribing them as prose; when, 
if the poem be in blank verse, this can be effected 
withotit any alteration, or at most by merely restoring 
one or two words to their proper places, from which 
they had been transplanted* for no assignable cause 

* As the ingenious genlleman, under the influence of the 
Tragic Muse, contrived to dislocate, " 1 wish you a good 
morning, Sir ! Thank you, Sir, and I wish you the same," 
into two blank verse heroics : 

To you a morning good, good Sir ! I wish. 
Yciu, Sir ! I thank : to you the same wish I. 

In those parts of Mr. Wordsworth's works which I have 
thoroUL'hIy s:urlied, I find fewer instances in which this would 
bo practiciilile than I have met in many poems, where an ap- 
proximation of prose has been sedulously, and on system, 
gnarde<l aciinst. Indeed, excepting the stanzas already 
quoted from the Suilur's Mother, I can recollect but one in- 
stance, viz : a short passage of four or five lines in The Bro- 
thers, thai m)del of English pastoral, which I never yet read 
wiih unclouded eye. — "James, pointing to its summit, over 
which Ihey had all purposed to return together, informed 
them thai ho would wait for Ihem there. They parted, and 
his comrades pas.ucd that way some two hours after, hut they 
did not find him at the appomted place, a circumstance of 
which they took no heed; but one of them going by chance 
into the h<iuse, which at this limu was James's house, learnt 
there that nobody hud seen him, all that day." The only 
change which h is been made is in the position of the little 
word there in two instances, the position in the original being 
clearly such as is not adopted in ordinary conversa'Jon. The 
other words printed in itilics, were so marked because, 
IhouL'h good and genuine English, they arc not the phrase- 
oloijy of common conversation, either in the word put in op- 
325 



316 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



or reason, but that of the author's convenience ; but 
if it be in rhyme, by the mere exchange of the final 
word of each line for some other of the same mean- 
ing, equally appropriate, dignified and euphonic. 

The answer or objection in the preface to the an- 
ticipated remark, " that metre paves the way to other 
distinctions," is contained in the following words: 
"The distinction of rhyme and metre is voluntary 
and uniform, and not like that produced by (what is 
called) poetic diction, arbitrary, and subject to infinite 
caprices, upon which no calculation whatever can be 
made. In the one case, the reader is utterly at the 
mercy of the poet respecting what imagery or diction 
he may choose to connect with the passion." But is 
this a. poet, of whom a poet is speaking? No, surely! 
rather of a fool or madman ; or, at best, of a vain or 
ignorant phantast! And might not brains so wild 
and so deficient make just the same havoc with 
rhymes and metres, as they are supposed to effect 
with modes and figures of speech ? How is the 
reader at the mercy of such men ? If he continue to 
read their nonsense, is it not his own fault ? The 
ultimate end of criticism is much more to establish 
the principles of writing, than to furnish rules how to 
pass judgment on what has been written by others; 
if indeed it were possible that the two could be 
separated. But if it be asked, by what principles the 
poet is to regulate his own style, if he do not adhere 
closely to the sort and order of words which he hears 
in the market, wake, high-road, or plough-field ? J 
reply: by principles, the ignorance or neglect of 
which would convict him of being no poet, but a 
silly or presumptuous usurper of the name ! By the 
principles of grammar, logic, psychology ! In one 
word, by such a knowledge of the facts, material and 
spiritual, that most appertain to his art, as, if it have 
been governed and applied by good sense, and ren- 
dered instinctive by habit, becomes the representative 
and reward of our past conscious reasonings, insights, 
and conclusions, and acquires the name of taste. 
By what rule that does not leave the reader at the 
poet's mercy, and the poet at his own, is the latter to 
distinguish between the language suitable to sup- 
pressed, and the language which is characteristic of 
indidged, anger? Or between that of rage and that 
of jealousy? Is it obtained by wandering about in 
search of angry or jealous people in uncultivated 
society, in order to copy their words ? Or not far 
rather by the power of imagination proceeding upon 
the all in each of human nature ? By meditation, 
rather than by observation ? And by the latter in 
consequence only of the former? As eyes, for 
which the former has pre-determined their field of 
vision, and to which, as to its organ, it communicates 
a microscopic power ? There is not, I firmly believe, 
a man now living, who has from his own inward ex- 
perience, a clearer intuition than Mr. Wordsworth 



position, or in the connection by the genitive pronoun. Men 
in general would have said, " but that was a circumstance 
they paid no attention to, or tooli no notice of," and the lan- 
guage is, on the theory of the prefnce, justified only by the 
narrator's being the Vicar. Yet if any car could suepect that 
Ihese sentences were ever printed as metre, on those very 
words alone could ths suspicion have been gvoundod. 



himself, that the last mentioned are the true sourcss 
of genial discrimination. Through the same process 
and by the same creative agency, will the poet dis« 
tinguish the degree and kind of the excitement pro- 
duced by the very act of poetic composition. As in- 
tuitively will he know, what differences of style it 
at once inspires and justifies ; what intermixture of 
conscious volition is natural to that state ; and in 
what instances such figures and colors of speech de- 
generate into mere creatures of an arbitrary purpose, 
cold technical artifices of ornament or connection. 
For even as truth is its own light and evidence, dis- 
covering at once itself and falsehood, so is it the pre- 
rogative of poetic genius to distinguish, by parental 
instinct, its proper offspring from the changelings 
which the gnomes of vanity or the fairies of fashion 
may have laid in its cradle, or called by its names. 
Could a rule be given from without, poetry would 
cease to be poetry, and sink into a mechanical art. 
It would be iiop(i>wsig not Troirjii;. The rules of the 
IMAGINATION are themselves the very powers of 
growth and production. The words to which they 
are deducible present only the outlines and external 
appearance of the fruit. A deceptive counterfeit of 
the superficial form and colors may be elaborated ; 
but the marble peach feels cold and heavy, and 
children only put it to their mouths. We find no dif- 
ficulty in admitting as excellent, and the legitimate 
language of poetic fervor self-impassioned, Donne's 
apostrophe to the Sun in the second stanza of his 
" Progress of the Soul." 

" Thee, eye of heaven ! this great soul envies not : 
By thy ninlft force is all we have, begot. 
In the first Eiist thou now beginn'st to shine, 
Suck'st parly Ijalm and island spices there ; 
And wilt anon in thy loose-rein'd career 
At Tagus, Pii, Seine, Thames, and Danow dine, 
And see at night this western world of mine : 
Yet hast thou not more nations seen, than she. 
Who before thee one day began to be. 
And, thy frail light being quench'd, shall long, long out-live 
thee 1" 

Or the next stanza but one : 

"Great destiny, the commissary of God, 
That hast marked nut a path and period 
For ev'ry thing ! Who, where we offspring took, 
Our ways ami ends see'st at one instant : thou 
Knot of all causes ! Thou, whose changeless brow 
Ne'er smiles or frowns ! O vouchsafe thou to look 
And show my story in thy eternal book," &c. 

As little difficulty do we find in excluding from 
the honors of unaffected warmth and elevation the 
madness prepense of Psendo-poesy, or the startling 
hysteric of weakness over-exerting itself which bursts 
on the unprepared reader in sundry odes and apos- 
trophes to abstract terms. Such are the Odes to 
Jealousy, to Hope, to Oblivion, and the like in Dods- 
ley's collection, and the magazines of that day, which 
seldom fail to remind me of an Oxford copy of verses 
on the tW'O Suttons, commencing with 

" Inoculation, heavenly maid I descend I" 

It is not to be denied that men of undoubted 
talents, and even poets of true, though not of first- 
rate genius, have, from a mistaken theory, deluded 
both themselves and others in the opposite extreme. 
326 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



317 



I once reaJ, to a company of sensible and well-edu- 1 
cated women, the inirodiictory period of Cowley's 
preface to his " Pindaric Odes, written in imitation t 
qftJie style and manner of the Odes of Pindar." " If 
(says Cowley) a man should undertake to translate 
Pindar, word for word, it would be thouglit that one 
madman had translated another: as may appear, 
when he, that undorsiands not the orisrinal, reads the 
verbal traduction of him into I.alin prose, than which 
nothinp: seems more ravincr." I then iirocceded with ! 

a 3 1 

his own free version of the second Olympic, com|iosed ' 
for the charitable purpose of ra/ionaZisiM^ theTheban 
Eagle. 

" Queen of all harmonious tilings. 
Dancing words and si)i;akini; strings. 
What God, what hero, wilt ihou sins ? 
What happy man to cqu:il ijlories bring 7 
Begin, begin thy noble choice, 

And let tlie hills aionnd reflect the image of thy voice. 
Pisa does to Jove belong, 
Jove and Pisa cliiiin thy sons. 
The fair first-fruits of war, th' Olympic games, 
Alcides ofler'd up to Jove ; 
Alcides to thy strings may move 1 

But oh 1 what man to jnin with those can worthy prove ? 
Join Theron boldly to their sacred names ; 
Tberon the next honor claims; 
Theron to no man give's place ; 
Is first in Pisa's and in Virtue's race; 
Theron there, and he alone. 
E'en his own swift forefathers has outgone.'' 

One of the compmny exclaimed, with the full assent 
of the rest, that if the original were madder than this, 
it must be incurably mad. I then translated the ode 
from the Greek, and, as nearly as possible, word for 
word ; and the impression was, that in the general 
movement of the periods, in the form of the connec- 
tions and transitions, and in the sober majesty of lofty 
sense, it appeared to them to approach more nearly 
than any other poetry they had heard, to the style of 
our bible in the prophetic books. The first strophe 
will suffice as a specimen : 

"Ye harp-controlling hymns ! (or) ye hymns the sovereipn? 
of harps I 

What God ? what Hero 1 

What man shall we celebrate ? 

Truly Pisa is of Jove, 

But the Olympiad (or the Olympic games) did Hercules es- 
tablish. 

The first fruits of the spoils of war. 

But Theron for the four-horsed car. 

That bore victory to him, 

It behooves us now to voice aloud ; 

The Just, the Hospitable. 

The bulwark of Agrigentum, 

Of renowned fathers 

The Flower, even him 

Who preserves his native city erect and safe." 

But are such rhetorical caprices condemnable only 
for their deviation from the language of real life >. 
and are they by no other means to be precluded, but 
by the rejection of all distinctions between prose and 
verse, save that of metre ? Surely, good sense, and a 
moderate insight into the constitulion of the human 
mind, would be amply stifTicient to prove, that such 
language and such combinations are the native pro- 
duce neither of the fancy nor of the imagination; that 
their operation consists in the excitement of surprise 



by the ju.vta-position and apparent reconciliation of 
widely different or incompatible things. As when, 
for instance, the hills are made to reflect the image 
of a voice, i^urcly, no unusual taste is requisite to 
see clearly, that this compulsory juxta-position is 
not produced by the presentation of impressive or de- 
lightfid forms to the inward vision, nor by any sym- 
pathy with the modifying powers with which the 
genius of the poet had iniited and inspirited all the 
objects of his thought; that it is therefore a species 
of wit, a pure work of the will, and implies a leisure 
and self-possession both of thought and of feeling, in- 
compatible with the steady fervor of a mind pos- 
sessed and filled with the grandeur of its subject. To 
sum up the whole in one sentence: When a poem, 
or a jwirt of a poem, shall be adduced, which is evi- 
dently vicious in the figures and contexture of its 
style, yet for the condemnation of which no reason 
can be assigned, except that it differs from the style 
in which men actually converse; then, and not till 
then, can I hold this theory to be either plausible or 
practicable, or capable of furnishing cither rule, guid- 
ance, or precaution, that might not, more easily and 
more safely, as well as more naturally, have been 
deduced in the author's own mind, from considera- 
tions of grammar, logic, and the truth and nature of 
things, confirmed by the authority of works, whose 
fame is not of one country, nor of one age. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Continuation — Concerning the real olyect which, it is proba- 
ble, Mr. Wordsworth had before him in his critical preface — 
Elucidation and application of this. 

It might appear from some passages in the former 
part of Mr. Wordsworth's preface, that he meant to 
confine his theory of style, and the necessity of a 
close accordance with the actual language of men, to 
those particular subjects from low and rustic life, 
which, by way of experiment, he had purposed to 
naturalize as a new species in our English poetry. 
But from the train of argument that follows ; from 
the reference to Millon ; and from the spirit of his 
critique on Gray's sonnet, those sentences appear to 
have been rather courtesies of modesty than actual 
limitations of his system. Yet so groundless does 
this system ap])ear on a close examination; and so 
strange and overwhelming in its consetpicnces,* that 
I cannot, and I do not, believe that the poet did ever 
himself adopt it in the unqualified sense in which his 
expressions have been understood by others, and 

* I had in my mind the striking but untranslatable epithet, 
which the celebrated .Mcndelossohn applied to the great 
founder of the Critical Philosophy, " Dcr allesicrmalmtnde 
Kavt," i. e. the nll-bocruahing, or rather the all-tn-nothin?- 
crushint: Knrtt. In the facility and force of compnund epi- 
thets, the Gorman, from the nuinbrr of its cases and inflections, 
approaches to the Greek : that language so 

" Bless'd in the happy marriage of sweet words." 

It is in the woful barshne.'^s of its sound? alone that th« 
German need shrink from the comparison. 

327 



318 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



which, indeed, according to all the common laws of 
interpretation, they seem to bear. What then did he 
mean? I apprehend, that in the clear perception, 
not unaccompanied with disgust or contempt, to the 
gaudy affectations ofa style which passed too current 
with too many for poetic diction, (though in truth, it 
had as little pretensions to poetry as to logic or com- 
mon sense,) he narrowed his view for the time; and 
feeling a justifiable preference for the language of 
nature and of good sense, even in its humblest and 
least ornamented forms, he suffered himself to ex- 
press, in terms at once too large and too exclusive, his 
predilection for a style the most remote possible from 
the false and showy splendor which he wished to ex- 
plode. It is possible, that this predilection, at first 
merely comparative, deviated for a time into direct 
partiality. But the real object which he had in view 
was, I doubt not, a species of excellence which had 
been long before most happily characterized by the 
judicious and amiable Garve, whose works are so 
justly beloved and esteemed by the Germans, in his 
remarks on Gellert, (see Sammlung Einiger Ab- 
handlunged von Christian Garve) from which the 
following is literally translated. " The talent that is 
required in order to make excellent verses, is perhaps 
greater than the philosopher is ready to admit, or 
would find it in his power to acquire: the talent to 
seek only the apt expression of the thought, and yet 
to find at the same time with it the rhyme and the 
metre. Gellert possessed this happy gift, if ever any 
one of our poets possessed it ; and nothing perhaps con- 
tributed more to the great and universal impression 
which his fables made on their first publication, or 
conduces more to their continued popularity. It was 
a strange and curious phenomenon, and such as, in 
Germany, had been previously unheard of to read 
verses in which every thing was expressed, just as 
one would wish to talk, and yet all dignified, attract- 
ive and interesting ; and all at the same time per- 
fectly correct as to the measure of the syllables and 
the rhyme. It is certain that poetry, when it has at- 
tained this excellence, makes a far greater impression 
than prose. So much so, indeed, that even the grati- 
fication which the very rhymes afford, becomes then 
no longer a contemptible or trifling gratification." 

However novel this phenomenon may have been 
in Germany at the time of Gellert, it is by no means 
new, nor yet of recent existence in our language. 
Spite of the licentiousness with which Spenser occa- 
sionally compels the orthography of his words into a 
subservience to his rhymes, the whole Fairy Queen 
is an almost continued instance of this beauty. Wal- 
ler's song, " Go, lovely Rose," &o., is doubtless fami- 
liar to most of my readers; but if I had happened to 
have had by me the Poems of Cotton, more, but far 
less deservedly, celebrated as the author of V'irgil tra- 
vestied, I should have indulged myself, and, I think, 
have gratified many who are not acquainted with his 
serious works, by selecting some admirable specimens 
of this style. I'here are not a few poems in that vo- 
ume, replete with every excellence of thought, im- 
age, and passion, which we expect or desire in the 
poetry of the milder muse; and yet so worded, that 



the reader sees no one reason either in the selection 
or the order of the words, why he might not ha'e 
said the very same in an appropriate conversation, 
and cannot conceive how indeed he could have ex- 
pressed such thoughts otherwise, without loss or in- 
jury to his meaning. 

But, in truth, our language is, and, from the first 
dawn of poetry, ever has been, particularly rich in 
compositions distinguished by this excellence. The 
final e, which is now mute, in Chaucer's age was 
either sounded or dropt indifferently. We ourselves 
still use either beloved or belov'd, according as the 
rhyme, or measure, or the purpose of more or less so- 
lemnity may require. Let the reader, then, only 
adopt the pronunciation of the poet, and of the court 
at which he lived, both with respect to the final e 
and to the accentuation of the last syllable, I would 
then venture to ask what, even in the colloquial lan- 
guage of elegant and unaffected women, (who are the 
peculiar mistresses of" pure English, and undefiled,") 
what could we hear more natural, or seemingly more 
unstudied, than the following stanzas from Chaucer's 
Troilus and Creseide. 

"And after this forth to the gate he went, 
Ther as Creseide out rode a full gode paas : 
And up and doun there made he many a wente, 
And to himself full oft he said, Alas! 
Fro hennis rode my blisse and my solas : 
As would blissful God now for his joie, 
I misht her sene agen come into Troie ! 
And to the yonder hill I gan her guide, 
Alas! and there I took of her my leave: 
And yond I saw her to her fathir ride ; 
For sorrow of which my hearte shall to-cleve; 
And hithir home I came when it was eve ; 
And here I dwell ; out-cast from alle joie. 
And shall, lil I male seen her efle in Troie. 
And of himselfe imaginid he ofle 
To l)en defaitid, pale and waxen less 
Than he was wonte, and that men saidin softe, 
What may it be 7 Who can the sothe guess, 
Why Troilus hath all this heaviness ■? 
And al this n' as but his melancholie. 
That he had of himselfe such phantasie. 
Another time imaginin he would ' 

That every wight, that passed him by the wey 
Had of him roulhe, and that they saien should, 
I am right sorry, Troilus will die ! 
And thus he drove a dale yet forth or twey, 
As ye have herde : suche life gan he to lede 
As he that strove betwixin hope and drede : 

For which him likid in his songis shews 
Th' eucheson of his wo as he best might. 
And made a songe of wordis but a fewe, 
Somewhat his woefull herte for to light, 
And when he was from every mann'is sight 
With softe voice he of his lady dere. 
That absent was, gan sing as ye may hear : 
* * * * * * * 

This song when he thus songin had, full soon 
He fell again into his sighis olde : 
And every nieht. as was his wonte to done. 
He stode the bright moone to beholde. 
And all his sorrowo to the moone he tolde. 
And said ; 1 wis, when thou art hornld newe, 
I shall be glad, if al the world be trevve!'' 

Another exquisite master of this species of style, 

where the scholar and the poet supplies the material, 

but the perfect well-bred gentleman the expressions 

and the arrangement, is George Herbert. As from 

328 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



310 



the nature of the subject, and the too frequent quainl- 
ness of the lh')uglits, liis '• Temple, or Sacred Poems 
and Private Kjacuhiiions," ore comparaiively but lit- 
tle known, I shall extract two |Micins. The first is a 
sonnet, equally adinirahle for the weic;lit, number, 
and expression of the thoughts, and for the simple dig- 
nity of the language. (I'nioss, indeed, a (asiidious 
taste should object t<i the latter hall of the sixth line.) 
The second is a jioeni of greater length, which I have 
chosen not only fjr the present purpose, but, likewise, 
as a striking example and illustration of an assertion 
hazarded in a former page of these sketches: namely, 
that the characteristic fault of our elder poets is the 
reverse of that vvhicn distinguishes too many of our 
more recent versihers; tlie one conveying the most 
fantastic thoughts m the most correct and natural lan- 
guage ; the other in the most fantastic language con- 
veying the most trivial thoughts. The latter is a rid- 
dle of words; the former an enigma of thoughts. The 
one reminds me of an odd passage in Drayton's Ideas: 

SOXXET IX. 
As other men, so I myself do muse. 
Why in this sort I wrest invention so ; 
And why these giddv metaphors I use. 
Leaving the path the greater part do go ? 
I will resolve you : / am lunatic! 

The other recalls a still odder passage in the " Syn- 
agogue; or the Shadow of lite Temple" a connected 
series of poems in imitation of Herbert's "Temple," 
and in some editions annexed to it. 

O how my mind 
Is gravell'dl 

Not a thought. 
That I can find, 

But 'a ravell'd 

All to nought ! 
Short ends of threds. 

And narrow shreds 

Of lisU ; 
Knot's snarled ruffs. 

Loose liroken tufis 
Of twists; 
Are my torn meditation's ragped clothing, 
Which, wound and woven, shape a sule for nothing: 
One while I think, and then I am In pain 
To think how to unthink that thought again ! 

Immediately after these burlesque passages, I can- 
not proceed to the extracts promised, without chang- 
ing the ludicrous tone of feeling by the interposition 
of the three following stanzas of Herbert's: 

VIRTUE. 
Sweet day, so cool, bo calm, so bright. 
The bridal of the earth and sky : 
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, 
For thou must dye 1 

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave 
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye : 
Thy root is ever in its grave. 
And thou must dye ! 

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 
A nest, where sweets compacted lie : 
My music shows ye have your closes. 
And all must dye ! 

THE B0S0.M-9Ii\. 

A Sonnet, by George Herbert. 
Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round ? 
Parents first season us ; then schooimastcra 
22 Dd 



Pi'livor us to laws ; Ihcy send us bound 

Tn rules of reason, huly mcesongers. 
Pulpits and Suiuliiys, Burrow dogging sin, 

Afilictions sorted, unguisli of all sizes. 

Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, 
Bil)lps laid open, millions of surprise."; 
BloFsinrs before hand, lies of gratefulness, 

'J'he sound of glory ringing in our ears: 

Wiihoul, our sliamc ; within, our consciences; 
Antols .'ind grace, clornal hopes and fears I 

Yet all ihiise fi nces, and their whole array. 

One cunning losom-sin blows quite away. 

LOVE UNK.N'OWN. 

Dear friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad : 

And in my fiiinlings, I presume, your love 

Will mori? corflply than help. ,\ Lord I had, 

And have, of whom some grounds, which may improve, 

I hulil lor two lives, and both lives in me. 

To him I brought u dish of fruit one day 

And in the middle placed my heart. But he 

(I sigh to eay) 
Lookt on a servant who did know his eye. 
Betler than you knew me, or (which is one) 
Than I myself. The servant instantly. 
Quitting the fruit, sc-iz'd on my heart alone. 
And threw it in a font, w herein did full 
A stream of blood, which issued from the side 
Of a great rock : I well remember all. 
And have good cause : there it was dipt and dy'd. 
And washt, and wrung ! the very ringing yet 
Enfurccib tears. Yuur heart was foul, I fear. 
Indeed 't is true. I did and do commit 
Many a fault, morn than my lease will bear ; 
Yet still ask'd pardon, and was not deny'd. 
But you shall hear. After my heart was well, 
And clean and fair, as 1 one eventide, 

(I sigh to tell.) 
Walkt by myself abroad, I saw a large 
And spacious furnace flaming, and thereon 
A boiling calilr(m, round about whose verge 
Was in great letters set AFFLICTION. 
The greatni'ss show'd the owner. So I went 
To fetch a sacrifice out of my fold. 
Thinking with that, which I did thus present. 
To warm his love, which, I did fear, grew cold. 
But as my heart did tender it, the man 
Who was to lake it from mo, slipt his hand, 
And threw my heart into the scalding pan ; 
My heart that brought it (do you understand 1) 
The o.tfcrer's heart. Your heart was hard, I fear. 
Indeed 'tis true. I found a callous maUer 
Began to spread and to expatiate there : 
But with a richer blood than scalding water 
I bathed it often, e en wilh holy blood. 
Which at a board, while many drank bare wine, 
A friend did steal into my cup for good, 
F/'en taken inwardly, and most divine 
To supple hardnesses But at the length 
Out of the caldron getting, soon I fled 
Unto my house, where to repair the strength 
Which I bad lost, I basled to my bed ; 
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults, 

(I sigh to speaK.) 
I found that some had slufl''d the bed with thoughts. 
I would say thorns. Dear, could my heart not break. 
When with my pleasures even my rest was gone 1 
Full well I understood who had been there ; 
For I had given ihe key to none but one : 
It must be he. Your liiiirl was dull, I fear. 
Indeed a slack and sleepy siaie of mind 
Did oft possess me ; so that when 1 pray'd. 
Though my lips went, my lieiirt did stay behind. 
But all my scores were by another paid. 
Who took my guilt upon him. Truly , fritnd ; 
Fur ousht I hear, your vtastcr shows to you 
Mire faror than you wot of. .Mark the cndl 
The font did onto what was old renew ■ 
The caldron suyjdcd what was grown too hard: 
The thorns did quicken what was grown too dull t 

32a 



320 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



All did but strive to mend what you had marred. 
Wherefore be cheer' d and praise him to the full 
Each day, each hour, each moment of the week. 
Who fain would have you be new, tender, quick! 



CHAPTER XX. 

The former subject continued — The neutral style, or that 
common to Prose and Poetry, exemphfied by specimens 
from Chaucer, Herbert, &c. 

I HAVE no fear in declaring my conviction, that tlie 
excellence defined and exemplified in the preceding 
Chapter is not the characteristic excellence of Mr. 
Wordsworth's style ; because I can add with equal 
sincerity, that it is precluded by higher powers. The 
praise of uniform adherence to genuine, logical Eng- 
lish, is undoubtedly his ; nay, laying the main em- 
phasis on the word uniform, I will dare add, that of 
all contemporary poets, it is his alone. For in a less 
absolute sense of the word, I should certainly include 
Mr. Bowles, Lord Byron, and, as to all his later 
writings, Mr. Soutiiey, the exceptions in their works 
being so few and unimportant. But of the specific 
excellence described in the quotation from Garve, I 
appear to find more and more tindoubted specimens 
in Ihe work of others ; for instance, among the minor 
poems of Mr. Thomas Moore, and of our illustrious 
Laureate. To me it will always remain a singular 
and noticeable fact, that a theory which would estab- 
lish this lingua communis, not only as the best, but as 
the only commendable style, should have proceeded 
from a poet whose diction, next to that of Shakspeare 
and Milton, appears to me of all others the most indi- 
vidualized and characteristic. And let it be remem- 
bered, too, that I am now interpreting the controvert- 
ed passages of Mr. W.'s critical preface by the pur- 
pose and object which he may be supposed to have 
intended, rather than by the sense which the words 
themselves must convey, if they are taken without 
this allowance. 

A person of any taste, who had but studied three 
or four of Shakspeare's principal plays, would, with- 
out the name affixed, scarcely fail to recognize as 
Shakspeare's, a quotation from any other play, though 
but of a few lines. A similar peculiarity, though in 
a less degree, attends Mr. Wordsworth's style, when- 
ever he speaks in his own person; or whenever, 
though under a feigned name, it is clear that he him- 
self is still speaking, as in the different dramatis per- 
sonsB of the " Recluse." Even in the other poems 
in which he purposes to be most dramatic, there are 
few in which it does not occasionally burst forth. 
The reader might often address the poet in his own 
words with reference to the persons introduced : 

" It seems, aa I retrace the ballad line by line. 
That but half of it is theirs, and the better half is thine." 

Who, having been previously acquainted with any 
considerable portion of Mr. Wordsworth's publica- 
tions, and having studied them with a full feeling of 
the author's genius, would not at once claim as 
Wordsworthian, the little poem on the rainbow ? 

"The child is father of the man, &c." 



Or in the " Lucy Gray ?" 



" No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; 
She dwelt on a wide moor ; 
The sweetest thing that ever grew 
Beside a human door." 

Or in the "Idle Shepherd-boys?" 

' Along the river's stony marge 
The sand-lark chants a joyous song ; 
The thrush is busy in the wood. 
And carols loud and strong. 
A thousand lambs are on the rock. 
All newly born ! both earth and sky 
Keep jubilee, and more than all. 
Those buys with their green coronal, 
They UHver hear the cry. 
That plaintive cry which up the hill 
Comes from the depth of Dungeon Gill." 

Need I mention the exquisite description of the Sea 
Lock in the " Blind Highland Boy." Who but a poet 
tells a tale in such language to the little ones by the 

fireside as — 

"Yet had he many a restless dream, 
T?olh when he hoard the eagle's scream. 
And when he heard the torrent's roar, 
.•Vnd heard the water beat the shore 

Near where their cottage stood. 

Beside a lake their cottage stood. 
Not small like ours a peaceful flood; 
But one of mighty size, and strange 
That rough or smooth is full of change 
And stirring in its bed. 

For to this lake by night and day. 
The great sea-water finds ils way 
Through long, long windings of the hills, 
And drinks up all the pretty rills ; 

And rivers large and strong : 

Then hurries back the road it came — 
Returns on errand still the same ; 
This did it when the earth was new; 
And this for evermore will do. 

As long as earth shall last. 

And with the coming of the tide. 
Come boats and ships that sweetly ride. 
Between the woods and lofty rocks ; 
And to the shepherd with their flocks 
Bring tales of distant lands." 

I might quote almost the whole of his ' Ruth,' 
but take the following stanzas : 

" But as you have before been told. 
This stripling, sportive, gay and bold, 
And with his dancing crest. 
So beautiful, through savage lands 
Had roam'd about with vagrant bands 
Of Indians in the West. 

The wind, the tempest roaring high. 
The tumult of a tropic sky. 
Might well be dangerous food 
For him, a youth to whom was given 
So much of earth, so much of heaven. 
And such impetuous blood. 

Whatever in those climes he found 

Irregular in sight or sound. 

Did to his mind impart 

A kindred impulse ; seem'd allied 

To his own powers, and justified 

The workings of his heart. 

Nor less to feed voluptuous thought 
The beauteous forms of nature wrought, 
330 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



321 



Fair trees and lovely flowers ; 
The breezes their own languor lent. 
The stars hud feelinRS, which they sent 
Into those magic bowers. 

Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween, 
That siimeiimes there did intervene 
Pure hopes of hifh intent. 
For passions, linked to forms so fair 
And stalely, needs must have their share 
Of noblo sentiment." 

But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compo- 
sitions, which already form three-fourths of his works ; 
and will, I trust, constitute hereafter a still larsrer 
proportion ; — from these, whether in rhyme or hlank 
verse, it would be difllcult, and alinost superfluous, 
to select instances of a diction peculiarly his own ; of 
a style which cannot be imitated without its being 
at once recognized, as originatincr in Mr. Words- 
worth. It would not be easy to open on any one of 
his loftier strains, that does not contain examples of 
this; and more in proportion as the lines are more 
excellent, and most like the author. For those who 
may happen to have been less familiar with his 
writings, I will give three specimens taken with little 
choice. The first from the lines on the " Boy of 
Wiwander-Mere," — who 

" Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls. 
That they mieht answer him. And they would shout, 
Across the watery vale and shout again 
With Ion?; halloos, and screams, and echoes loud 
Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild 
Of mirth, and jocund din. And when it chanc'd. 
That pauses of deep silence mock'd his skill, 
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung 
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
Has carried far into his heart the voice 
Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene* 
Would enter unawares into his mind 
fVith all its solemn imagcnj, its rocks. 
Its wno'ls. and t'lat wrcrtain heaven, received 
Into the bosom of the steady lake." 

* Mr. Wordworth's having judiciously adopted "concourse 
tcild" in this passage for " a wild scene" as it stood in the 
former edition, encourages me to hazard a remark, which I 
certainly should not have mnde in the works of a poet less 
austerely accurate in the use of words, than he is, to his own 
great honor. It respects the propriety of the word " scene" 
even in the sentence in which it is retained. Dri/drn, and he 
only in his more careless verses, was the first, as far as my 
researches have discovered, who for the convenience of rhyme 
used this word in the vague sense, which has been since too 
current, even in our best writers, and which (unfortunately, 1 
think) is given as its first explanation in Dr. Johnson's Dic- 
tionary, and therefore would be taken by an incautious reader 
as its proper sense. In Shakspeare and Milton, the word is 
never used without some clear reference, proper or meta- 
phorical, to the theatre. Thus Milton ; 

" Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
A sylvan scene ; and as the ranks ascend 
Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
Of stateliest view." 

I object to any extension of its meaning, because the word 
is already more equivocal than might bo wished ; inasmuch 
as in the limited use which I recommend, it may still signify 
two ditTi;renl things ; namely, the scenery, and the characters 
and actions presented on the stage during the presence of 
particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from ob- 
scuritij only by keeping the original signification full in the 
mind. Thus Milton again ; 

" Prepare thou for another scene." 
43 



The second shall be that noble imitation of Dray- 
tout (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the " Jo- 



" When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space, 
Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld 
That ravishment of mine, and laugh'd aloud. 
The rock, like something starling from a sleep, 
Took up the lady's voice, and laugh'd again ! 
That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag 
Was ready with her cavern I Ilnmmar scar. 
And the tall sleep of Silver-How, sent forth 
A noise of laughter : southern Louahrigg heard 
And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone. 
Hclvillnn far into the clear blue sky 
Carried the lady's voice 1— old Skiddaw blew 
Mis speaking trumpet 1 — back out of the clouds 
From (Haramara southward came the voice : 
And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head ! " 

The third, which is in rhyme, I fake from tlie 
" Song at the feast of Brougham Castle upon the re- 
storation of Lord Cliflurd.the shepherd to the estate* 
of his ancestors." 

" Now another day is come 
Filter hopes, and nobler doom : 
Ho hath thrown aside his crook, 
And hath buried deep his book ; 
Armour rusting in the halls 
On the blood of Cli,fford calls ; 
Quell the Scot, exclaims the lance ! 
Bear me to the heart of Prance, 
Is the longing of the shield — 
Ttll thy name, thou trembling field I 
Field of death, where'er thou be. 
Groan thou with our victory I 
Happy day, and mighty hour. 
When our shepherd, in his power. 
Mailed and horsed with lance and sword. 
To his ancestors restored, 
Like a re-appearing star. 
Like a glory from afar, 
First shall head the .Hock of war .'" 

Alas ! the fervent harper did not know. 
That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed, 
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go. 
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed. 
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie • 
His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
The silence that is in the starry sky. 
The sleep that is among the lonely hills." 

The w-ords themselves in the foregoing extracts 
are, no doubt, sufiicienlly common, for the greater 
part. (But in what poem are they not so? if we ex- 
cept a few misadventurous attempts to translate the 
arts and sciences into verse ?) In the " Excursion," 
the number of polysyllabic (or what the common 
people call, diclionan/) words is more than usually 
great. (.\nd so must it needs be, in proportion to the 
number and variety of an author's conception, and 
his solicitude to express them with precision.) But 

t Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill 
Upon her verge that stands, the neighboring valleys fill . 
Hclvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw 
From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrasc drew. 
From whose stone-trophied head, it on the IVtndross went. 
Which, low'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent : 
That Broadwater, therewith within her banks astound, 
In sailing to the sea told it to F.gremound, 
Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and 

long. 
Did mightily commend old Copland for her song I 

Drayton's Polyolbion : Song XXX 
331 



322 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



are those words in those places, commonly employed 
m real life to express the same thought or outward 
thing? Are they the style used in the ordinary in- 
tercourse of spoken words ? No ! nor are the modes 
of connexions : and still less the breaks and transi- 
tions. Would any but a poet — at least could any one 
without being conscious that he had expressed him- 
self with noticeable vivacity — have described a bird 
singing loud, by ' The thrush is busy in the wood ?" 
Or have spoken of boys with a string of dub-moss 
round their rusty hals, as the boys " with their green 
coronal?" Or have translated a beautiful Mayday, 
into " Both earth and sky heep jubilee V Or have 
brought all the different marks and circumstances of 
a sea-lock before the mind, as the actions of a living 
and acting power ? Or have represented the reflec- 
tion of the sky in the water, as '• That uncertain hea- 
ven received into the bosom of the steady lake ?" Even 
the grammatical construction is not unfrequently pe- 
culiar ; as " The wind, the tempest roaring high, the 
tumult of a tropic sky, might well be dangerous food 
to hi?n, a youth to whom was given, &c." There is 
a peculiarity in the frequent use of the aswaprridv 
(i. e. the omission of the connective particle before 
the last of several words, or several sentences, used 
grammatically as single words, all being in the same 
case, and governing or governed by the same verb) 
and not less in the construction of words by apposi- 
tion (to him a youth.) In short, were there excluded 
from Mr. Wordsworth's poetic compositions all that a 
literal adherence to the theory of his preface would 
exclude, two-thirds at least, of the marked beauties 
of his poetry must be erased. For a far greater 
number of lines would be sacrificed, than in any 
other recent poet; because the pleasure received 
from Wordsworth's poems being less derived either 
from excitement of curiosity, or the rapid flow of 
narration, the striking passages form a larger propor- 
tion of their value. I do not adduce it as a fair crite- 
rion of comparative excellence, nor do I even think 
it such ; but merely as matter of fact. I affirm, that 
from no contemporary writer could so many lines be 
quoted, without reference to the poem in which they 
are found, for their own independent weight or 
beauty. From the sphere of my own experience I 
can bring to my recollection three persons of no every 
day powers and acquirements, who had read the 
poems of others with more and more unallayed plea- 
sure, and had thought more highly of their authors, 
as poets ; who yet have confessed to me, that from 
no modern work had so many passages started up 
anew in their minds at different times, and as differ- 
ent occasions had awakened a meditative mood. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals. 

Long have I wished to see a fair and philosophical 
inquisition into the character of Wordsworth, as a 
poet, on the evidence of his published works ; and a 
positive, not a comparative, appreciation of their 



characteristic excellences, deficiencies, and defects. 
I know no claim, that the mere opinion of any indi- 
vidual can have to weigh down the opinion of the 
author himself; against the probability of whose pa- 
rental partiality we ought to set that of his having 
thought longer and more deeply on the subject. But 
I should call that investigation fair and philosophical, 
in which the critic announces and endeavors to es- 
tablish the principles, which he holds for the founda- 
tion of poetry in general, with the specification of 
these in their application to the different classes of 
poetry. Having thus prepared his canons of criticism 
for praise and condemnation, he would proceed to 
particularize the most striking passages to which he 
deems them applicable, faithfully noticing the fre- 
quent or infrequent recurrence of similar merits or 
defects, and as faithfully distinguishing what is cha- 
racteristic from what is accidental, or a mere flag- 
ging of the wing. Then, if his premises be rational, 
his deductions legitimate, and his conclusions justly 
applied, the reader, and possibly the poet himself, 
may adopt his judgment in the light of judgment, and 
in the independence of free agency. If he has erred, 
he presents his errors in a definite place and tangible 
form, and holds the torch and guides the way to their 
detection. 

I most willingly admit, and estimate at a high value, 
the services which the Edinburgh Review, and 
others formed afterwards on the same plan, have 
rendered to society in the diffusion of knowledge. I 
think the commencement of the Edinburgh Review, 
an important epoch in periodical criticism ; and that 
it has a claim upon the gratitude of the literary re- 
public, and, indeed, of the reading public at large, for 
having originated the scheme of reviewing those 
books only which are susceptible and deserving of 
argumentative criticism. Not less meritorious, and 
far more faithfully, and, in general, far more ably 
executed, is their plan of supplying the vacant place 
of the trash of mediocrity, wisely left to sink into ob- 
livion by their ow-n weight, with original essays on 
the most interesting subjects of the time, religious or 
political ; in which the titles of the books or pam- 
phlets prefixed furnish only the name and occasion 
of the disquisition. I do not arraign the keenness or 
asperity of its damnatory style, in and for itself, as 
long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere 
impersonation of the work then under trial. I have 
no quarrel with them on this account, so long as no 
personal allusions are admitted, and no recommit- 
ment (for new trial) of juvenile performances, that 
were published, perhaps forgotten, many years before 
the commencement of the review : since for the 
forcing back of such works to public notice no mo- 
tives are easily assignable, but such as are furnished 
to the critic by his own personal malignity; or what 
is still worse, by a habit of malignity in the foim of 
mere wantonness. 

" No private grudge they need, no personal spite 
The viva sectio is its own delight! 
All enmity, all envy, they disclaim, 
Disinterested thieves of our good name : 
Cool, sober murderers of their neighbor's fame !" 

S. T. C. 
332 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



Every censure, every sarcasm resjieeling a publi- 
catiun wliicli the irilie, with the criticised work 
Deiore him, can inuke gcxxJ, is llie critic's right. The 
writer is auliiorized to reply, but not to comphtin. 
Neither can any one prescribe to the critic, how soft 
or liow hard ; how friendly or how bitter, shall be 
the phrases which he is to select for the expression 
of such reprehension or ridicule. The critic must 
know what effect it is his object to produce ; and 
with a view to this effect must he weigh his words. 
But as soon as the critic betrays that he knows more 
A' his author than the author's publications could 
have told him; as soon as from this more intimate 
knowledge, elsewhere obtained, he avails himself of 
the slightest trait against the author, his censure in- 
stantly becomes personal injury, his sarcasms person- 
al insults. He ceases to be a critic, and takes u|X)n 
him the most contemptible character to which a 
rational creature can be degraded, that of a gossip, 
backbiter, and pasquillant : but with this heavy ag- 
gravation, that he steals the unquiet, the deforming 
passions of the World into the Museum ; into the 
very place, w'hich, next to the chapel or oratory, 
should be our sanctuary, and secure place of refuge ; 
offers abominations on the altar of the muses ; and 
makes its sacred paling the very circle in which he 
conjures up the lying and profane spirit. 

This determination of unlicensed personality, and 
of permitted and legitimate censure (which I owe in 
part to the illustrious Lessing, himself a model of 
acute, spirited, sometimes stinging, but always argu- 
mentative and honorable criticism) is beyond contro- 
versy, the true one : and though I would not myself 
exercise all the rights of the latter, yet, let but the 
former be excluded, I submit myself to its exercise 
in the hands of others, without complaint and with- 
out resentment. 

Let a communication be formed between any num- 
ber of learned men in the various branches of sci- 
ence and literature ; and whether the President and 
central committee be in London or J'xlinburgh.if otdy 
they previously lay aside their individuality, and 
pledge themselves inwardly, as well as ostensibly, 
to administer judgment according to a constitution 
and code of laws ; and if by grounding this code on 
the two-fold basis of universal morals and philosophic 
reason, independent of all foreseen application to 
particular works and authors, they obtain the right 
to speak each as the representative of their body 
corporate ; they shall have honor and good wishes 
from me, and I shall accord to them their fair digni- 
ties, though self assumed, not less cheerfully, than if 
1 could inquire concerning them in the herald's 
office, or turn to them in the book of peerage. How- 
ever loud may be the outcries for prevented or sub- 
verted reputation, however numerous and impatient 
•he complaints of merciless severity and insupjwrf- 
af)le des|x)ti8m, I shall neither feel nor utter aught 
but to the defence and justification of the critical 
machine. Should any literary Quixote find himself 
provoked by its sounds and regular movements, I 
should admonish him with Sancho Panza, that it is 
no giant, but a windmill ; there it stands on its own 
Ud2 



place, and its own hillock, never goes out of its way 
to attack any one, and In none and from none cither 
gives or asks assistance. When the public press has 
poured in any part of its produce between its mill- 
stones, it grinds it off; one man's sack the same as 
another, and with whatever wind may happen to be 
then blowing. All the two and thirty winds are 
alike its friends. Of the whole wide atmosphere it 
does not desire a single finger breadth more than 
what is necessary for its sails to turn round in. But 
this space must be left free and unimpeded. Gnats, 
beetles, wasps, butterflies, and the whole tribe of 
ephemerals and insignificants, may fiit in and out and 
between; may hum, and buzz, and jarr; may shrill 
their tiny pipes, and wind their puny horns unchas- 
tibcd and unnoticed. But idlers and bravadoes of a 
larger size and prouder show must beware how they 
place themselves within its sweep. Much less may 
they presume to lay hands on the sails, the strength 
of which is neither greater or less than as the wind 
is, which drives them round. Whomsoever the re- 
morseless arm slings aloft, or whirls along with it 
in the air, he has himself alone to blame ; though 
when the same arm throws him from it, it will more 
often double than break the force of his fall. 

Putting aside the too manifest and too frequent 
interference of national party, and even perso.v- 
AL predilection or aversion ; and reserving for deeper 
feelings those worse and more criminal intrusions in- 
to the sacredne.ss of private life, which not seldom 
merit legal rather than literary chastisement, the two 
principal objects and occasions which I find for 
blame and regret in the conduct of the review in 
question are : first, its unfaithfulness to its own an- 
nounced and excellent plan, by subjecting to criticism 
works neither indecent or immoral, yet of such tri- 
fling importance even in point of size and according 
to the critic's own verdict, so devoid of all merit, as 
must excite in the most candid mind the suspicion, 
either that dislike or vindictive feelings were at work, 
or that there was a cold prudential ])re-determination 
to increase the sale of the review, by flattering the 
malignant passions of human nature. That I may 
not myself become subject to the charge which I am 
bringing against others by an accusation without 
proof, I refer to the article on Dr. Rennell's sermon, 
in the very first number of the Edinburgh Review, as 
an illustration of my meaning. If in looking through 
all the succeeding volumes the reader should find 
this a solitary instance, I must submit to that painful 
forfeiture of esteem, which awaits a groundless or 
exaggerated charge. 

The second point of objection belongs to this re- 
view only in common with all other works of period- 
ical criticism ; at least, it applies in common to the 
general system of all, whatever exception there may 
be in favor of [)articular articles. Or if it attaches 
to the Edinburgh Review, and to its only co-rival, 
(the Quartf:rlv) with any peculiar force ; this re- 
sults from the superiority of talent, acquirement and 
information, which both have so undeniably display- 
ed ; and which doubtless deepens the rcgrel, thouerli 
not the blame. I am referring to the substitution of 
333 



324 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



assertion for argument ; to the frequency of arbi- 
tration and sometimes petulant verdicts, not seldom 
unsupported even by a single quotation from the 
work condemned, which might at least have explain- 
ed the critic's meaning, if it did not prove the justice 
of his sentence. Even where this is not the case, 
the extracts are too often made, without reference to 
any general grounds or rules, from which the faulti- 
ness or inadmissibility of the qualities attributed, 
may be deduced ; and without any attempt to show, 
that the qualities are attributable to the passage ex- 
tracted. I have met with such extracts from Mr. 
Wordsworth's poems, annexed to such assertions, as 
led me to imagine that the reviewer, having written 
his critique before he had read the work, had then 
pricked with a pin for passages, wherewith to illus- 
trate the various branches of his preconceived opin- 
ions. By what principle of rational choice can we 
suppose a critic to have been directed (at least in a 
Christian country, and himself, we hope, a Christian) 
who gives the following lines, portraying the fervor 
of solitary devotion excited by the magnificent dis- 
play of the Almighty's works, as a proof and ex- 
ample of an author's tendency to downright ravings 
and absolute unintelligibility. 

" O then what soul was his, when on the tops 
Of the high mountains he beheld the sun 
Rise up, and bathe the world in light ! He looked — 
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth. 
And ocean's liquid mas?, beneath him lay 
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched. 
And ia their silent faces did he read 
Unutterable love '. Sound needed none. 
Nor any voice of joy : his spirit drank 
The spectacle ! sensation, soul, and form, 
All melted into him. They swallowed up 
His animal being ; in them did he live. 
And by them did he live: they were his life." 

(Excursion.) 

Can it be expected, that either the author or his 
admirers, should be induced to pay any serious atten- 
tion to decisions which prove nothing but the pitiable 
state of the critic's own taste and sensibility ? On 
opening the Review they see a favorite passage, of 
the force and truth of which they had an intuitive 
certainty in their own inward experience, confirmed, 
if confirmation it could receive, by the sympathy of 
their most enhghtened friends ; some of whom, per- 
haps, even in the world's opinion, hold a higher 
intellectual rank than the critic himself would pre- 
sume to claim. And this very passage they find 
selected as the characteristic effusion of a mind 
deserted by reason : as furnishing evidence that the 
writer was raving, or he could not have thus strung 
words together without sense or purpose ! No di- 
versity of taste seems capable of explaining such a 
contrast in judgment. 

That I had over-rated the merit of a passage or 
poem ; that I had erred concerning the degree of its 
excellence, I might be easily induced to believe or 
apprehend. But that lines, the sense of which I had 
analysed and found consonant with all the best con- 



victions of my understanding; and the imagery and 
diction of which had collected round those convic- 
tions my noblest, as well as my most delightful feel- 
ings; that I should admit such lines to be mere 
nonsense or lunacy, is too much for the most ingeni 
ous arguments to effect. But that such a revolution 
of taste should be brought about by a few broad as- 
sertions, seems little less than impossible. On the 
contrary, it would require an effort of charity not to 
dismiss the criticism with the aphorism of the wise 
man, in aniraam malevolam sapientia baud intrare 
potest. 

What, then, if this very critic should have cited a 
large number of single lines, and even of long para- 
graphs, which he himself acknowledges to possess 
eminent and original beauty ? What if he himself has 
owned, that beauties as great are scattered in abun- 
dance throughout the whole book? And yet, though 
under this impression, should have commenced his 
critique in vulgar exultation, with a prophecy meant 
to secure its own fulfilment ? With a " Tins won't 
do!" What? if after such acknowledgments, ex- 
torted from his own judgment, he should proceed 
from charge to charge of tameness, and raving; 
flights and flatness; and at length, consigning the au- 
thor to the house of incurables, should conclude with 
a strain of rudest contempt, evidently grounded in 
the distempered state of his own moral associations? 
Suppose, too, all this done without a single leading 
principle established or even announced, and without 
any one attempt at argumentative deduction, though 
the poet had presented a more than usual opportunity 
for it, by having previously made public his own 
principles of judgment in poetry, and supported them 
by a connected train of reasoning ! 

The office and duty of the poet is to select the 
most dignified as well as 

" The happiest, gayest attitude of things." 

The reverse, for in all cases a reverse is possible, is 
the appropriate business of burlesque and travesty, a 
predominant taste for which, has been always deemed 
a mark of a low and degraded mind. When I was 
at Rome, among many other visits to the tomb of Ju- 
lius II., 1 went thither once with a Prussian artist, a 
man of genius and great vivacity of feeling. As we 
were gazing on Michael Angelo's MosES, our con- 
versation turned on the horns and beard of that stu- 
pendous statue ; of the necessity of each to support 
the other; of the super-human eflfect of the former, 
and the necessity of the existence of both to give a 
harmony and integrity both to the image and the feel- 
ing excited by it. Conceive them removed, and the 
statue would become ?«i-natural, without being siiper- 
natural. We called to mind the horns of the rising 
sun, and I repeated the noble passage from Taylor's 
Holy Dying. That horns were the emblem of power 
and sovereignty among the Eastern nations, and are 
still retained as such in Abyssinia; the Achelous of 
the ancient Greeks ; and the probable ideas and feel- 
ings, that originally suggested the mixture of the hu- 
man and the brute form in the figure, by which they 
334 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



325 



realized the idea of" their mysterious Pan, as repre- 
Benting intelligence blended with a darker power, 
deeper, mightier, and more universal than the con- 
scious intellect of man ; than intelligence ; — all these 
thoughis and recollections pa.ssed in procession be- 
fore our minds. My companion, who possessed more 
than his share of the hatred which his countrymen 
bore to the French, had just observed to me, " a 
Frenchman, Sir! is the only animal in the human 
fhapc, that by no possibility can lift itfelf up to reli- 
gion or poetry :" when, lo ! two French ofFicers of 
distinction and rank entered the church ! " Mark 
you," whispered the Prussian, " the first thing vhich 
those scoundrels will notice, {for they iritl begin by 
insiantli/ noticing the statue in parts, vnlhout one mo- 
ment's pause of admiration impressed by the tohole,) 
will be the horns and the beard. And the associatioiis, 
which they will immediately connect with them, will be 
those of a he-goat and a cuckold." Never did man 
guess more luckily. Had he inherited a portion of 
the great legislator's prophetic powers, whose statue 
we had been contemplating, he could scarcely have 
uttered words more coincident with the result; for 
even as he had said so it came to pass. 

In the Excursion, the poet has introduced an old 
man, born in humble but not abject circumstances, 
who had enjoyed more than usual advantages of edu- 
cation, both from books and from the more awful dis- 
cipline of nature. This person he represents, as hav- 
ing been driven by the restlessness of fervid feelings, 
and from a craving intellect to an itinerant life ; and 
as having in consequence passed the larger portion 
of his time, from earliest manhood, in villages and 
hamlets from door to door, 

" A vagrant merchant bent beneath his load." 

Now whether this be a character appropriate to a 
lofty didactic poem, is, perhaps, questionable. It pre- 
sents a fair subject for controversy ; and the question 
is to be determined by the congruily or incongruity 
of such a character, with what shall be proved to be 
the essential constituents of poetry. But surely the 
critic, who, passing by all the opportunities which 
such a mode of life would present to such a man ; all 
the advantages of the liberty of nature, of solitude 
and of solitary thought ; all the varieties of places and 
seasons, through which his track had lain, with all 
the varying imagery they bring with tiiem; and, 
lastly, all the observations of men, 

" Their manners, their enjoyments and pursuits, 
Their passions and their reelings," 

which the memory of these )'early journeys must 
have given and recalled to such a mind — the critic, I 
say, who, from the multitude of possible associations 
should pass by all these, in order to fix his attention 
exclusively on the pin papers, and stay tapes, which 
might have been among the wares of his pack ; this 
critic, in my opinion, cannot be thought to possess a 
much higher or much healthier state of moral feeling, 
than the Fre.nch.me.n above recorded. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The chnraclcristic dofecls of Wordsworth's poetry, with Iho 
principlcp from which the judgment, that they are dcfecto, 
is deduced — Their proportion lo the beauties — For the 
greatest part characteristic of his tlioory only. 

If Mr. Wordsworth have set forth principles of 
poetry which his arguments are insunicient to sup- 
port, let him and those who have adopted his senti- 
ments be set right by the confutation of those argu- 
ments, and by the siitistitution of more philosophical 
principles. And still let the due credit be given lo 
the portion and imparlance of the truths which are 
blended with his theory ; truths, the too exclusive at- 
tention to which had occasioned its errors, by tempt- 
ing him to carrj' those truths beyond their proper 
limits. If his mistaken theory have at all influenced 
his poetic compositions, let the effects be pointed out, 
and the instances given. But let it likewise be 
shown, how far the influence has acted: whether dif- 
fusively, or only by starts; whether the number and 
imiKirlance of the poems and passages thus infected 
bo great or trifling compared with the sound portion; 
and, lastly, whether they are inwoven into the tex- 
ture of his works, or are loose and separable. The 
result of such a trial would evince, beyond a doubt, 
what it is high time to announce decisively and aloud, 
that the .«k;);jo.W characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's 
poetry, whether admired or reprobated ; whether 
they are simplicity or simpleness ; faithful adherence 
to essential nature, or wilful selections from human 
nature of its meanest forms and under the least at- 
tractive as.sociations ; are as little the real character- 
istics of his jwetry at large, as of his genius and the 
constitution of his mind. 

In a comparatively small number of poems, he 
chose to try an experiment; and this experiment we 
will suppose to have failed. Yet even in these po- 
ems it is impossible not to perceive, that the natural 
tendency of the poet's mind is to great objects and 
elevated conceptions. The (Kiem entitled "Fidelity," 
is, for the greater part, wriiten in language as un- 
raised and naked as any pei'haps in the two volumes. 
Yet take the following stanza, and compare it with 
the preceding stanzas of the same poem : 

" There sometimes does a leapin? fish 
Send throush the turn a lonely cheer ; 
The crn«s repeat the Raven's croak 
In pymphony austere; 
Thilher the rainbow comes — the cloud, 
And mists that spread the flyini; shroud ; 
And sun-beams: and the sounding blast, 
That if it could would hurry past. 
But that enormous barrier binds it fast." 

Or compare the four last lines of the concluding 
stanza with the fi)rmer half: 

" Yet proof was plain, that since the day 
On which the traveller thus had died. 
The dog had walch'd about the spot, 
Or by his master's side : 
How nourish' d there for such long time 
He linvws wlm gave that love sublime, 
A. id gave Hint strength of feeling, great 
Move all human estimate." 

335 



326 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Can any candid and intelligent mind hesitate in 
determining, which of these best represents the ten- 
dency and native character of the poet's genius ? Will 
he not decide that the one was so written because 
the poet would so write, and the other because he 
could not so entirely repress the force and grandeur 
of his mind, but that he must in some part or other 
of every composition write otherwise? In short, that 
his only disease is the being out of his element; like 
the swan, that having amused himself for a while, 
with crushing the weeds on the river's bank, soon re- 
urns to his own majestic movements on its reflecting 
and sustaining surface. Let it be observed, that I 
am here supposing the imagined judge, to whom I 
appeal, to have already decided against the poet's the- 
ory, as far as it is different from the principles of the 
art generally acknowledged. 

I cannot here enter into a detailed examination of 
Mr. Wordsworth's works; but I will attempt to give 
the main results of my own judgment, after an ac- 
quaintance of many years, and repeated perusals. 
And though, to appreciate the defects of a great mind, 
it is necessary to understand previously its character- 
istic excellences, yet I have already expressed myself 
with sufficient fulness, to preclude most of the ill ef- 
fects that might arise from my pursuing a contrary 
arrangement. I will therefore commence with what 
I deem the prominent defects of his poems hitherto 
published. 

The first characteristic, tliough only occasional, de- 
fect, which I appear to myself to find in those poems 
is the INCONSTANCY of the style. Under this name 1 
refer to the sudden and unprepared transitions from 
lines or sentences of peculiar felicity, (at all events 
striking and original) to a style, not only unimpas- 
sioned but undistinguished. He sinks too often and 
too abruptly to that style which I should place in the 
second division of language, dividing it into the three 
species ; first, that which is peculiar to poetry ; second, 
that which is only proper in prose ; and, third, the 
neutral, or common to both. There have been works, 
such as Cowley's Essay on Cromwell, in which prose 
and verse are intermixed (not as in the Consolation 
of Boetius or the Argenis of Barclay, by the insertion 
of poems supposed to have been spoken or compo.sed 
on occasions previously related in prose, but) the poet 
passing from one to the other, as the nature of his 
thoughts or his own feelings dictated. Yet this mode 
of composition does not satisfy a cultivated taste. 
There is something unpleasant in the being thus 
obliged to alternate states of feeling so dissimdar, and 
this too, in a species of writing, the pleasure from 
which is in part derived from the preparation and 
previous expectation of the reader. A portion of that 
awkwardness is felt which hangs upon the introduc- 
tion of songs in our modern comic operas; and to pre- 
vent which the judicious Metastasio (as to whose ex- 
quisite taste there can be no hesitation, whatever 
doubts may be entertained as to his poetic genius) uni- 
formly placed the aria at the end of the scene, at the 
same time that he almost always raises and impas- 
sions the style of the recitative immediately preced- 
ing. Even in real life, the difference is great and 



evident between words used as the arbitrary marks 
of thought, our smooth market-coin of intercourse with 
the image and superscription worn out by currency, 
and those which convey pictures, either borrowed 
from 07ie outward object to enliven and particularize 
some other ; or used allegorically, to body forth the 
inward state of the person speaking ; or such as are 
at least the exponents of his peculiar turn and unu- 
sual extent of faculty. So much so indeed, that in 
the social circles of private life we often find a strik- 
ing use of the latter put a stop to the general flow of 
conversation, and by the excitement arising from con- 
centrated attention, produce a sort of damp and inter- 
ruption for some minutes after. But in the perusal 
of w orks of literary art, we prepare ourselves for such 
language ; and the business of the writer, like that 
of a painter whose subject requires unusual splendor 
and prominence, is so to raise the lower and neutral 
tints that what in a different style would be the ami- 
manding colors, are here used as the means of that 
gentle gradation requisite in order to produce the ef- 
fect of a w;Ao/e. Where this is not achieved in a poem, 
the metre merely reminds the reader of his claims, 
in order to disappoint them; and where this defect 
occurs frequently, his feelings are alternately startled 
by anticlimax and hyperclimax. 

I refer the reader to the exquisite stanzas cited for 
another purpose from the blind Highland Boy ; and 
then annex, as being, in my opinion, instances of this 
disharmony in style, the two following : 

" And one, the rarest, was a shell. 
Which he, poor child, had studied well : 
The shell of a green turtle, thin 
And hollow ; — you misht sit therein, 
It was so wide and deep." 

" Our Highland boy oft visited 
The house which held this prize, and led 
By choice or chance did thither come 
One day, when no one was at home. 
And found the door unbarred." 

Or page 172, vol I. 

" 'Tis gone, forgotten, let vie do 
Ml/ best. There was a smile or two — 
1 can remember them, 1 see 
The smiles worth all the world to me. 
Dear Baby, I must lay thee down : 
Thou troublest me witH strange alarms ! 
Smilee hast thou, sweet ones of thine own ; 
I cannot keep thee in my arms. 
For they confound me : as it is, 
I have forgot those smiles of his !" 

Or page 269, vol. I. 

" Thou hast a nest, for thy love and thy rest, 
And though little troubled with sloth. 
Drunken lark '. thou would'st be loth 
To be such a traveller as I. 
Happy, happy liver, 
JViih a soul as strong as a mountain river, 
Pmiririg out praise to tK' Mmighty Giver. 
Joy and jollity be with us both, 
Hearing thee or else some other, 

As merry a brother : 
I on the earth will go plodding on 
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done." 
The incongruity which I appear to find in this 
passage, is that of the two noble lines in italics with 
the preceding and following. So vol. II. page 30. 
336 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



327 



" Cloee by a pond, upon the further side 
Ho sloud uliinc, a minute's spare I guess, 
1 wutclic'd liiin, he continuing motionless ; 
To the pool's further margin then I drew ; 
He bcinR all the while before me in full view.' 

Compare this with a repetition of the same image, 
in the next stanza but two. 

" Ami still as I drew near with penile pace, 
Bi'side the little pond or moorish Hood, 
Motiiinlciis as a cloud the old man stood ; 
That heareth not the loud winds as they call, 
And niovelh altogether, if it move at all." 

Or last!)', the second of the three following stanzas, 
compared both with the first anrl the third. 

" My former thoughts returned, the fear that kills. 
And hope tlint is unwilling to be fed ; 
Cold, p:ini, and labor and all fleshly ills ; 
And mighty poets in their misery dead. 
But now, perplc^'d by what the old man had said. 
My question eagerly did I renew. 
How is it that you live, and what is it you do ? 

He wilh a smile did then his tale repeat ; 
And said that gathering leeches far and wide 
He travelled : stirring thus about his feet 
The waters of the ponds where they abide. 
" Once I could meet with them on every side, 
" But they have dwindled long by slow decay ; 
" Vet slill I persevere, and find them where I may." 
While he was talking thus, the lonely place. 
The old man's shape, and speech all troubled me : 
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace 
About the weary moors continually. 
Wandering about, alone and silently." 

Indeed this fine poem is e.'!/;caaZ/!/ characteristic of 
the author. There is scarce a defect or excellence 
in his writings of which it would not present a speci- 
men. But it would be unjust not to repeat that this 
defect is only occasional. From a careful reperusal 
of tlie two volumes of poems, I doubt whether the 
objectionable passages would amount in the whole 
to one hundred lines ; not the eighth part of the num- 
ber of pages. In the Excursion, the feeling of in- 
congruity is seldom excited by the diction of any pas- 
sage considered in itself, but by the sudden stiperiority 
of some other passage forming the context. 

The second defect I could generalize with tolera- 
ble accuracy, if the reader will pardon an uncouth 
and new-coined word. There is, I should say, not 
seldom a matler-rf-faclness in certain poems. This 
may he divided into, ^rs^ a laborious minuteness and 
fidelity in the representation of objects, and their po- 
sitions, as they appeared to the poet himself; second- 
ly, the insertion of accidental circumstances, in order 
to the full explanation of his living characters, their 
dispositions and actions ; which circumstances might 
be neces.sary to establish the probability of a state- 
ment in real life, where nothing is taken for granted 
by the hearer, but appears 8U))er(luous in poetry, 
where the reader is willing to believe for his own 
sake. To this accidenlality I object, as contravening 
the essence of poetry, which Aristotle pronounces to 
be i-rrnhaioTaTov Koi <j)t\oio<piKu>TaTov ytid;, the most in- 
tense, weighty, and philosophical product of human 
art ; adding, as the reason, that it is the most catholic 
and ab.slract. The following pa.ssago from Daven- 
ant's prefatory letter to Ilobbs, well expresses this 
truth. "When I considered the actions which I 



meant to describe (those inferring the persons) I wad 
again |>ersuaded rather to choose those of a former 
age, than ttie present ; and in a century so far removed 
as might preserve me from their improper examina- 
tions, who know not the requisites of a poem, nor 
how much ])leasure they lose (and even the pleasures 
of heroic poesy are not unprofitable) who take away 
the liberty of a |ioet, and fetter his feet in the shac- 
kles of an historian. For why should a poet doubt 
in story to mend the intrigues of ibrlune by more de- 
lightful conveyances of probable fictions, because 
austere historians have entered into bond to truth ? 
An obligation which were in poets as foolish and un- 
necessary, as is the bondage of false martyrs, who lie 
in chains for a mistaken opinion. But by this I would 
imply, that truth, narrative andpast, is the idol of his- 
torians (who worship a dead thing) and truth operative, 
and by effects continually alive, is the mistress of poets, 
who hath not her existence in matter, but in reason." 

For this minute accuracy in the painting of local 
imagery, the lines in the E.vcuusiox, p. 96, 97, and 
98, may be taken, if not as a striking instance, yet as 
an illustration of my meaning. It must be some 
strong motive (as, for instance, that the description 
was necessary to the intelligtbility of the tale) which 
could induce me to describe in a number of verses 
what a draftsman could present to tiie eye with in- 
comparably greater satisfiiction by half a dozen strokes 
of his pencil, or the painter wilh as many touches of 
his brush. Such descriptions too often occasion in the 
minds of a reader, who is determined to understand 
his author, a feeling of labor, not very dissimilar to 
that with which he would construct a diagram, line 
by line, for a long geometrical proixjsition. It seems 
to be like taking the pieces of a dissected map out of 
its box. We first look at one part, and then at an 
other, then join and dove-tail them ; and when the 
successive acts of attention have been completed, 
there is a retrogressive eflbrt of mind to behold it as 
a whole. The Poet should paint to the imagination, 
not to the fancy ; and I know no happier case to ex- 
emplify the distinction between these two faculties. 
Master-pieces of the former mode of poetic painting 
abound in the wrifiiigs of Milton, ex. gr. 

"The fi? tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd, 

" But .such, as at this day to Indians known 

" In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms 

" nrancbin? so broad and long, that in the ground 

" The bended twigs take root, and dnuglUcrs grow 

" Jibout the mother-tree, a, pillar' d sliade 

" Hish over-arched, and echoing wall:x between : 

" There oft the Indian Herdsman, shunning heat, 

" Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 

"At loop holes cut through thicket shade." 

Milton, P. L. 9, 1100. 
This is creation rather than painting ; or if paint- 
ing, yet such, and with such co-presence of the whole 
picttire flashed at once upon the eye, as the sun 
paints in a camera obscura. But the poet must like- 
wise understand and command what Bacon calls the 
vestigia communia of the senses, the latency of all in 
each, and more especially, as by a magical pena du- 
plex, the excitement of vision by .sound, and the ex- 
ponents of sound : thus, "The eciioi.ng walks bk- 
TWEEN," may be almost said to reverse the fable iq 
337 



328 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tradition of the head of Memnon. in the Egyptian 
statue. Such may be deservedly entitled the crea- 
tive words in the world of imagination. 

The second division respects an apparent minute 
adherence to matte r-of -fact in character and inci- 
dents; a biographical attention to probability, and an 
anxieti/ of explanation and retrospect. Under this 
liead, 1 shall deliver with no feigned diffidence, the 
results of my best reflection on the great point of con- 
troversy between Mr. Wordsworth, and his objec- 
tors ; namely, on the choice of his characters. I 
have already declared, and, I trust, justified, my utter 
dissent fi-om the mode of argument which his critics 
nave hitherto employed. To their question, why did 
you choose such a character, or a character from such 
a rank of life ? the Poet might, in my opinion, fairly 
retort: why, with the conception of my character, did 
you make wilful choice of mean or ludicrous associ- 
ations not furnished by me, but supplied from your 
own sickly and fastidious feelings? How was it, in- 
deed, probable, that such arguments could have any 
weight with an author, whose plan, whose guiding 
principle and main object it was, to attack and sub- 
due that state of association, which leads us lo place 
the chief value on those things in which man dif- 
fers from man, and to forget or disregard the high 
dignities which belong to human nature, the sense 
and the feeling which mai/ be, and ought to be found 
in all ranks ? The feelings with which, as Christians, 
we contemplate a mixed congregation rising or kneel- 
ing before their common Maker, Mr. Wordsworth 
would have us entertain at all times as men, and as 
readers; and by the excitement of this lofty, yet 
prideless impartiality in poetry, he might hope to have 
encouraged its continuance in real-life. The praise 
of good men be his ! In real life, and I trust, even in 
my imagination, I honor a virtuous and wise man 
without reference to the presence or absence of arti- 
ficial advantages. Whether in the person of an 
armed baron, a laurel'd bard, &c. or of an old pedlar 
or still older leech-gatherer, the same qualities of head 
and heart must claim the same reverence. And even 
in poetry I am not conscious that I have ever suffered 
my feelings to be disturbed or offended by any 
thoughts or images which the poet himself has not 
presented. 

But yet I object, nevertheless, and for the follow- 
ing reasons : Firet, because the object in view, as an 
immediate oliject, belongs to the moral philosopher, 
and would be pursued, not only more appropriately, 
but in my opinion, with far greater probability of suc- 
cess, in sermons or moral essays, than in an elevated 
poem. It seems indeed, to destroy the main funda- 
mental distinction, not only between a poem and 
prose, but even between philosophy and works of 
fiction, inasmuch as it proposes truth for its immediate 
object, instead oi pleasure. Now, till the blessed time 
shall come, when truth itself shall be pleasure, and 
both shall be so united as to be distinguishable in 
words only, not in feeling, it will remain the poet's 
office to proceed upon that state of association which 
actually exists as general, instead of attempting first 
to malie it v..aat it ought to be, and then to let the 



pleasure follow. But here is, unfortunately, a small 
Hysleron-Proteron. For the communication of plea- 
sure is the introductory means by which alone the 
poet must expect to moralize his readers. Secondly: 
though I were to admit, for a moment, this argument 
to be groundless, yet how is the moral effect to be pro- 
duced, by merely attaching the name of some low 
profession to powers which are kast likely, and to 
qualities which are assuredly not more likely, to be 
found in it? The poet, speaking in his own person, 
may at once delight and improve us by sentiments 
which teach us the independence of goodness, of wis- 
dom, and even of genius, on the favors of fortune. 
And having made a due reverence before the throne 
of Antonine, he may bow with equal awe before 
Epictetus among his fellow-slaves — 

and rejoice 



In the plain presence of his dignity." 

Who is not at once delighted and improved, when 
the POET Wordsworth himself exclaims, 

" O many are the poets that are sown 
By Nature ; men endowed with highest gifts. 
The vision sent, the faculty divine. 
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, 
Not having e'er, as life advanced, been led 
By circumstance to talte unto the height 
The measure of themselves, these favour'd beings 
All but a scatler'd few, live out their time 
Hupbanding that which they possess within. 
And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds 
Are often those of whom the noisy world 
Hears least." 

Excursion, S. 1. 

To use a colloquial phrase, such sentiments in such 
language, do one's heart good ; though I, for my part, 
have not the fullest faith in the truth of the observa- 
tion. On the contrary, I believe the instances to be 
exceedingly rare ; and should feel almost as strong 
an objection to introduce such a character in a poetic 
fiction, as a pair of black swans on a lake in a fancy 
landscape. When I think how many and how much 
better books than Homer, or even than Herodotus, 
Pindar, or Eschylus, could have read, are in the 
power of almost every man, in a country where 
almost every man is instructed to read and write; 
and how restless, how difficultly hidden, the powers 
of genius are ; and yet find even in situations the 
most favorable, according to Mr. Wordsworth, for the 
fbrmationof a pureand poetic language ; in situations 
which ensure familiarity wilh the grandest objects of 
the imagination ; hut o7ie Burns among the shepherds 
of Scodand, and not a single poet of humble life 
among those of English lakes and mountains; I con- 
clude, that Poetic Gemus is not only a very delicate 
but a very rare plant. 
But be this as it may, the feelings with which 

" T think of Chattertov, the marvellous boy, 
The sleepless soul, that pciifh'd in his pride: 
Of Burns, that walk'd in glory and in joy 
Behind his plough upon the mountain-side" — 

are widely diflferent from those with which I should 
read a poem, where the author, having occasion for 
the character of a poet and a philosopher in the fable 
of his narration, had chosen to make him a chimney- 
338 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



329 



rweeper ; and then, in order lo remove all doubts on 
the subject, had inveiiUd an account of iiis birth, pa- 
rentage, and education, with all the strange and (br- 
tunute aeeidents whitli had concurred in making liim 
ul once (M)et, pliilosopher, and sweep! jS'othing but 
biography can justify this. If it be admissible even 
in a A'ori7, it must be one in the manner of Do Foe's, 
that were meant to pass (or histories, not in the man- 
ner of Fielding's ; in tiie life of Moll I'landers, or 
Colonel Jack, not in a Tom Jones, or even a Josejih 
Andrews. Much less, then, can it be legitimately 
introduced in a poem, the characters of which, amid 
the strcJngest individualization, must still remain re- 
presentative. The precepts of Horace, on this point, 
are grounded on the nature both of poetry and of the 
human mind. They are not more peremptory than 
wise and prudent. For, in the (irst place, a deviation 
from them perplexes the reader's feelings, and all the 
circumstances which are feigned, in order to make 
such accidents less improbable, divide and disquiet 
his faith, rather than aid and support it. Spite of all 
attempts, the fiction tvill appear, and, unfortunately, 
not as ficlilious, but as false. The reader not only 
knows that the sentiments and language arc the poet's 
own, and his own too, in his artificial character as 
poet ; but, by the fruitless endeavors to make him 
think the contrary, he is not even suffered to forget 
it. The effect is similar to that produced by an epic 
poet, when the fable and the characters are derived 
from Scripture history, as in the Messiah of Klop- 
stock, or in Cumberland's Calvary ; and not merely 
suggested by it, as in the Paradise Lost of Milton. 
That illusion, contradistinguished from delusiori, that 
negative faith which simply permits the images pre- 
sented to work by their own force, without either 
denial or affirmation of their real existence by the 
judgment, is rendered impo.=sibIe by their immediate 
neighborhood to words and facts of known and ab- 
solute truth. A faith which transcends even historic 
belief, must absolutely put out this mere poetic Ana- 
lagon of faith, as the summer sun is said to extin- 
guish our household fires when it shines full upon 
them. What would otherwise have been yielded to 
as pleasing fiction, is repelled as revolting falsehood. 
The effect produced in this latter case by the solemn 
belief of the reader, is in a less degree brought about, 
in the instances to which I have been objecting, by 
the baffled attempts of the author to make him be- 
lieve. 

Add to all the foregoing, the seeming uselessness 
both of the project and of the anecdotes from which 
it is to derive support. Is there one word, for in- 
stance, attributed to the pedlar in the K.\cursio\, 
characteristic of a pedlar ? One sentiment that might 
not more plausibly, even without the aid of any pre- 
vious explanation, have proceeded from any wise and 
beneficent old man, of a rank or profession in which 
the language of learning and refinement are natural, 
and to be expected ? Need the rank have been at 
all particularized, where nothing fijilows which the 
knowledge of that rank is to explain or illustrate? 
When, on the contrary, this information renders the 
man s language, feelings, sentiments, and informa- 
44 



tion, a riddle which must itself be solved by episodes 
of anecdote ? Finally, when this, and this alone, 
could have induced a genuine poet lo inweave in a 
poem of the loftiest style, and on subjects the loftiest 
and of most univei-sal interest, such minute mat- 
ters of fact, (not unlike those furnished lor the obitu- 
ary of a magazine by the friends of some obscure 
ornament of society lately deceased in some obscure 
town,) as, 

" Among the liille of Atliol ho was born. 
Tlicro, on a email licroditary farm, 
All unproiluclive slip of rugged ground, 
Ilia father dwell, and died, in poverty ; 
While he, whose lowly lortune I retrace. 
The youni;c8t of three sons, was yet a babe, 
A lililu one — unconscious of their loss. 
But ero he had outgrown bis infant days, 
Ilis widow'd mother, for a second male. 
Espoused the teacher of the Village School; 
Who on her offspring zealously bestowed 
Needful instruction." 

" From his sixth year, the boy of whom 1 epeak, 
In summer, tended cattle on the hills ; 
Bui ibrough the inclement and the perilous days 
Of long-continuing winter, he repaired 
To his step-father's school." — &c. 

For all the admirable passages interposed in this 
narration might, with trifling alterations, have been 
far more appropriately, and with far greater veri- 
similitude, told of a |X)et in the character of a poet; 
and without incurring another defect which I shall 
now mention, and a sufficient illustration of which 
will have been here anticipated. 

Third: an undue predilection for the dramatic 
form in certain poems, from which one or other of 
two evils results. Either the thoughts and diction are 
different from that of the poet, and then there arises 
an incongruity of style ; or they are the same and 
indistinguishable, and then it presents a species of 
ventriloquism, where two are represented as talking, 
while, in truth, one man only speaks. 

The fourth class of defects is closely connected 
with the former; but yet are such as arise likewise 
from an intensity of feeling disproportionate to stick 
knowledge and value of the objects described, as can 
be fairly anticipated of men in general, even of the 
most cultivated classes; and with which, therefore, 
few only, and those few particularly circumstanced, 
can be supposed to sympathise. In this class I com- 
prise occasional prolixity, repetition, and an eddying 
instead of progression of thought. As instances, see 
pages 27, 28, and C2, of the Poems, Vol. I., and the 
first eighty lines of the Sixth Book of the Excursion. 

Fifth, and last: thoughts and images too great for 
the snliject. This is an approximation to what might 
bo called mental bombast, as distinguished from ver- 
bal ; for, as in the latter, there is a disproportion of 
the expressions to the thoughts, so, in this, there is a 
disproportion of thought to the circumstance and oc- 
casion. This, by-the-by, is a fault of which none but 
a man of genius is capable. It is the awkwardness 
and strength of Hercules, with the distaff'of Omphale. 

It is a well-known fact, that bright colors in motion 
both make and leave the strongest impressions on the 
eye. Nothing is more likely, too, than that a vivid 
339 



330 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



image, or visual spectrum, thus originated, may be- 
come the hnk of association in recalling the feelings 
and images that had accompanied the original im- 
pression. But, if we describe this in such lines as 

" They flash upon that inward eye, 
Wliich is the bliss of solitude !" 

in what words shall we describe the joy of retro- 
spection, when the nnages and virtuous actions of a 
whole well-spent life, pass before that conscience 
which is, indeed, the inward eye ; which is, indeed, 
the "lUss of solitude ?" Assuredly we seem to sink 
most abruplly, not to say burlesquely, and almost as 
in a medley from this couplet to — 

" And then my heart with pleasure fills. 
And dances with the daffodils.^' Vol. i. p. 320. 

The second instance is from Vol. II., page 12, 
where the poet, having gone out for a day's tour of 
pleasure, meets, early in the morning, with a knot 
of gi/psies, who had pitched their blanket tents and 
straw-beds, together with their children and asses, in 
some field by the road-side. At the close of the day, 
on his return, our tourist found them in the same 
place. "Twelve hours," says he, 

" Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone while I 
Have been a traveller under open sky, 
Much witnessing of change and cheer. 
Yet as I left I find them here !" 

Whereat the poet, without seeming to reflect that the 
poor tawny wanderers might probably have been 
tramping, for weeks together, through road, lane, 
over moor and mountain, and, consequently, must 
have been right glad to rest themselves, their chil- 
dren, and cattle, for one whole day ; and overlooking 
the obvious truth, that such repose might be quite as 
necessary for Ihein as a walk of the same continuance 
was pleasing or healthful for the more fortunate 
poet; expresses his indignation in a series of lines, the 
diction and imagery of which wotild have been rather 
above than below the mark, had they been applied 
to the immense empire of China, improgressive for 
thirty centuries: 

"The weary Sun betook himself to rest, 
Then issued Vcspci- from the fulgent west, 
Oulshinins, like a visible God, 
The glorious paih in which he trod ! 
And now ascrnding, after one dark hour. 
And one night's diminution of ber power. 
Behold the mighty J)[oon! this way 
She looks, as if at them — but they 
I?egard ndt her — Oh, better wrong and strife, 
Better vain deeds or evil, than such life ! 
The silent JJcavejts have goings on : 
The Stars have tasks — but these have none 1" 

The last instance of this defect, (for I know no 
other than these already cited,) is from the Ode, page 
351, Vol. II., where, speaking of a child, "a six year's 
dfirling of a pigmy size," he thus addresses him : 

" Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage 1 Thou eye among the blind. 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep. 
Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind — 
Mighty Prophet I Seer blest ! 
On whom thofe truths do rest. 



Which we are toiling all our lives to find ! 
Thou, over whom thy immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er the slave ; 
A presence that is not to be put by !" 

Kow here, not to stop at the daring spirit of meta- 
phor which connects the epithets " deaf and silent," 
with the apostrophized eye ; or (if we are to refer it 
to the preceding word, philosopher,) the faulty and 
equivocal syntax of the passage ; and without ex- 
amining the propriety of making a " master brood 
o'er a slave," or the day brood at all ; we will mere- 
ly ask, what does all this mean ? In what sense is a 
child of that age a philosopher ? In what sense does 
he read! "the eternal deep?" In what sense is he 
declared to be "for ever haunted by the Supreme 
Being?"or so inspired as to deserve the titles of a 
mighty prophet, a Uessed seer ? By reflection ? by 
knowledge? by conscious intuition? or by o?iy form 
or modification of consciousness ? These would be 
tidings indeed ; but such as wxmld pre-suppose an 
immediate revelation to the inspired communicator, 
and require miracles to authenticate his inspiration. 
Children, at this age, give us no such information of 
themselves; and at what time were we dipt in the 
Lethe, which has produced such utter oblivion of a 
state so godlike ? There are many of us that still 
possess some remembrances, more or less distinct, 
respecting themselves at six years old ; pity that the 
worthless straws only should float, while treasures, 
compared with which all the mines of Golconda and 
Mexico were but straws, should be absorbed by some 
unknown gulf into some unknown abyss. 

But if this be too wild and exorbitant to be sus- 
pected as having been the poet's meaning ; if these 
mysterious gifts, faculties, and operations, are not 
accompanied with consciousness, who else is con- 
scious of them ? or how can it be called the child, if it 
be no part of the child's conscious being ? For aught 
1 know, the thinking Spirit within me may be sub- 
stantially one with the principle of life, and of vital 
operation. For aught I know, it may be employed 
as a secondary agent in the marvellous organization 
and organic movements of my body. But surely, it 
would be strange language to say, that / construct 
my heart ! or that / propel the finer influences 
through my nerves! or that / compress my brain, and 
draw the curtains of sleep round my own eyes! Spi- 
noza and Behmen were, on different systems, both 
Pantheists; and among the ancients there were philo- 
sophers, teachers of the EN KAI IIAN, who not only 
taught that God was All, but that this All constituted 
God. Yet not even these would confound the part, 
as a part with the whole, as the whole. Nay, in no 
system is the distinction between the individual and 
God, between the Modification and the one only Sub- 
stance, more sharply drawn, than in that of Splnoz.v 
Jacobi, indeed, relates of Les.sing, that after a con- 
versation with him at the house of the poet Gleim, 
(the Tyrtffius and Anacreon of the German Parnas- 
sus,) in which conversation L. had avowed privately 
to Jacobi his reluctance to admit any personal exist- 
ence of the Supreme Being, or the possibility of per- 
sonality except in a finite Intellect ; and while they 
340 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



331 



were silting nt table, a showel of rain came on unex- 
pectedly. Gleim expressed his regret at the circum- 
siance, because they had meant to drink their wine 
in tiie garilen," upon which Lessing, in one of his 
half-earnest, half-joking moods, nodded to Jacobi.and 
SLiid, •' It is /, [lerhaps, that am doing thai," i. e. rain- 
ing ! and J. answered, "or perhaps I." CMeim con- 
tented himself with staring at them both, without 
asking for any explanation. 

So wi;h regard to this passage. In what sense can 
the magnificent attributes, above quoted, be appro- 
priated to a child, which would not make them 
equally suitable to a hce, or a dog, or a field of corn ? 
or even to a ship, or to the wind and waves that pro- 
pel it ? The omnipresent Spirit worlcs equally in 
Ihein, as in the child ; and the child is equally uncon- 
scious of it as they. It cannot surely be, that the 
four lines, immediately following, are to contain the 
explanation 1 

" To whom the grave 
Is but a lonely bed without the sense or eight 

Of day, or the warm light ; 
A place of thought where we in waiting lie." 

Surely, it cannot be that this wonder-rousing apos- 
trophe is but a comment on the little poem of " We 
ore Seven ?" that the whole moaning of the passage 
is reducible to the assertion, that a child, who, by the 
bye, at six years old would have been belter instruct- 
ed in most Christian families, has no other notion of 
death than that of lying in a dark, cold place ? And 
still, I hope, not as in a place of (houghtl not the 
frightful notion of lying awake in his grave! The 
analogy between death and sleep is too simple, too 
natural, to render so horrid a belief possible f()r diil- 
dren; even had they not been in the habit, as all 
Christian children are, of hearing the latter term 
used to express the former. But if the child's belief 
be only, that " he is not dead, but sleepeth ;" wherein 
does it differ from that of his father and mother, or any 
other adult and instructed person ? To form an idea of 
a thing's becoming nothing, or of nothing becoming a 
thing, is impossible to all finite beings alike, of what- 
ever age, and however educated or uneducated. 
Thus it is with splendid paradoxes in general. If the 
words are taken in the common sense, they convey 
an absurdity ; and if, in contempt of dictionaries and 
custom, they are so interpreted as to avoid the absurd- 
ity, the meaning dwindles into some bald truism. 
Thus you must at once understand the words con- 
trary to their common import, in order to arrive at any 
sense; and according to their common import, if you 
are to receive from them any feeling of sublimity or 
admiration. 

Though the instances of this defect in Mr. Words- 
worth's )X)ems are so few, that for themselves it 
would have been scarcely just to attract the reader's 
attenlion toward them; yet I have dwelt on it, and 
perha|)s the more for this very reason. For being so 
very few, they cannot sensibly detract from the re- 
putation of an author, who is even characlerized by 
the number of profound truths in his writings, which 
will stand the severest analysis; and yet, few as they 
are, they are exactly those passages which his blind 
£e 



admirers would be most likely, and best able, to imi- 
tate. But Wordsworth, where he is indeed Words- 
worth, may bo mimicked by copyists, he may be plun- 
dered by plagiarists; but he cannot be imitated, 
except by those who are not born to be imitators. 
For without his depth of feeling and liis imaginative 
power, his senfe would want its vital warmth and 
peculiarity; and without his strong sense, his mysti- 
cism would become sickly — mere fog and dimness ! 

To these defects, which, as appears by the extracts, 
are only occasional, I may oppose, with far less fear 
of encountering the dissent of any candid and intelli- 
gent reader, the following (for the most part corres- 
pondent) excellences. First, an austere purity of lan- 
guage, both grammalically and logically ; in short, a 
perfef t appropriateness of the words to the mean- 
ing. Of how high value I deem this, and how par- 
ticularly estimable I hold the example at the present 
day, has been already staled ; and in part, too, the rea- 
sons on which I ground both the moral and intellec- 
tual importance of habituating ourselves to a strict 
accuracy of expression. It is noticeable, how limited 
an acquaintance with the masterpieces of art will 
suffice to form a correct, and even a sensitive taste, 
where none but masterpieces have been seen and 
admired ; while, on the other hand, the most correct 
notions, and the widest acquaintance with the works 
of excellence of all ages and countries, will not per- 
fectly secure us against the contagious familiarity 
with the far more numerous offspring of tastelessness 
or of a perverted taste. If thi.'? be the case, as it no- 
toriously is, with the arts of music and painting, much 
more difficult will it be to avoid the infection of mul- 
tiplied and daily examples in the practice of an art, 
which uses words, and words only, as its instruments. 
In poetry, in which every line, every phrase, may 
pass the ordeal of deliberation and deliberate choice, 
it is possible, and barely possible, to attain that ulti- 
matum which I have ventured to prop<jse as the in- 
fallible test of a blameless style: namely, its unlrans- 
lalableness in words of the same language, without 
injury to the meaning. Be it observed, however, that 
I include in the meaning of a word, not only its cor- 
respondent object alone, but likewise all the associa- 
tions which it recalls. For language is framed to con- 
vey not the object alone, but likewise the character, 
mood, and intentions of the person who is represent- 
ing it. In poetry it is practicable to preserve the dic- 
tion, uncorrupted by the aflectations and misappro- 
priations, which promiscuous authorship, and reading 
not promiscuous, only because it is disproportionally 
most conversant with the compositions of the day, 
have rendered general. Yet, even to the poet, com- 
posing in his own province, it is an arduous work; 
and as the result and pledge of a watchful good 
sense, of fine and luminous distinction, and of com- 
plete self-iwssession, may justly claim all the honor 
which belongs to an attainment equally difTicult and 
valuable, and the more valuable fiir being rare. It 
is at all times the proper food of the understanding ; 
but, in an age of corrupt eloquence, it is both food 
and antidote. 

In prose, I doubt whether it be even possible to 
341 



332 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



preserve our style, wholly unalloyed by the vicious 
phraseology which meets us every where, from the ser- 
mon to the newspaper, from the harangue of the legis- 
lator to the speech from the convivial chair, announ- 
cing a toast or sentiment. Our chains rattle, even while 
we are complaining of them. The poems of Boetius 
rise high in our estimation when we compare them with 
those of his contemporaries, as Sidonius, ApoUinaris, 
&c. They might even be referred to a purer age, but 
that the prose in which they are set, as jewels in a 
crown of lead or iron, betrays the true age of the wri- 
ter. Much, however, may be effected by education. I 
believe, not only from grounds of reason, but from 
having, in great measure, assured myself of the fact 
by actual though limited experience, that, to a youth, 
led from his first boyhood to investigate the meaning 
of every word, and the reason of its choice and po- 
eition, logic presents itself as an old acquaintance 
under new names. 

On some future occasion more especially demand- 
ing such disquisition, I shall attempt to prove the 
close connection between veracity and habits of 
mental accuracy ; the beneficial after-eflfects of ver- 
bal precision in the preclusion of fanaticism, which 
masters the feelings more especially by indistinct 
watch-words ; and to display the advantages which 
language alone, at least which language with inctim- 
parably greater ease and certainty than any other 
means, presents to the instructor of impressing modes 
of intellectual energy so constantly, so imperceptibly, 
and, as it were, by such elements and atoms as to se- 
cure in due time the formation of a second nature. 
When we reflect, that the cultivation of the judg- 
ment is a positive command of the moral law, since 
the reason can give the principle alone, and the con- 
science bears witness only to the motive, while the 
application and effects must depend on the judgment ; 
when we consider, that the greater part of our suc- 
cess and comfort in life depends on distinguishing the 
similar from the same, that which is peculiar in each 
thing from that which it has in common with others, 
so as still to select the most probable, instead of the 
merely possible or positively unfit, we shall learn to 
value earnestly, and with a practical seriousness, a 
mean already prepared for us by nature and society, 
of teaching the young mind to think well and wisely 
by the same unremembered process, and with the 
same never forgotten results, as those by which it is 
taught to speak and converse. Now, how much 
warmer the interest, how much more genial the feel- 
ings of reality and practicability, and thence how 
much stronger the impulses to imitation are, which a 
contemporary writer, and especially a contemporary 
poet, excites in youth and commencing manhood, has 
been treated of in the earlier pages of these sketches. 
I have only to add, that all the praise which is due to 
the exertion of such influence for a purpose so impor- 
tant, joined with that which must be claimed for the 
infrequency of the same excellence in the same per- 
fection, belongs in full right to Mr. Wordsworth. 
am far, however, from denying that we have poets 
wtiose general style possesses the same excellence, as 
Mr. Moore, Lord Byron, Mr. Bowles, and, in all his 



later and more important works, our laurel-honoring 
Laureate. But there are none, in whose works I do 
not appear to myself to find 7nore exceptions than in 
those of Wordsworth. Quotations or specimens 
would here be wholly out of place, and must be left 
for the critic who doubts and would invalidate the 
justice of this eulogy so applied. 

The second characteristic excellence of Mr. W.'s 
works is, a correspondent weight and sanity of the 
thoughts and sentiments — won, not from books, but 
from the poet's own meditative observation. They 
are frcs/i, and have the dew upon them. His muse, 
at least when in her strength of wing, and when she 
hovers aloft in lier proper element, 

Makes audible a linked lay of truth, 

Of truth profound a sweet continaoug lay. 

Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes ! 

S. T. C. 

Even throughout his smaller poems there is scarcely 
one which is not rendered valuable by some just and 
original reflection. 

See page 26, vol 2d ; or the two following passages 
in one of his humblest compositions : 

" O Reader I had you in your mind 
Such stores as silent thought can bring, 
O gentle Reader ! you would find 
A tale in every thing." 

and 

" I have heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 
With coldness still returning : 
Alas! the gratitude of men 
Has oftener left mc mourning." 

or in a still higher strain the six beautiful quotations, 
page 134 : 

"Thus fares it still in our decay: 
And yet the wiser mind 
Mourns less for what age takes away 
Than what it leaves behind. 

The Blackbird in the summer trees. 
The lark upon the hill. 
Let loose their carols when they please; 
Are quiet when they will. 

With nature never do then wage 
A foolish strife ; they see 
A happy youth, and their old age 
Is beautiful and free ! 

But we are pressed by heavy laws ; 
And often, glad no more, 
We wear a face of joy, becauso 
We have been glad of yore. 

If there is one who need bemoan 

His kindred laid in earth. 

The household hearts that were his own. 

It is the man of mirth. 

Jly days, my Friend, are almost gone. 
My life has been approved. 
And many love me ; but by none 
Am 1 enough beloved." 

or the sonnet on Bonaparte, page 202, vol. 2; or 
finally, (for a volume would scarce suffice to exhaust 
the instances,) the last stanza of the poem on the 
withered Celandine, vol. 2, p. 212. 

342 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



333 



To be a prodigal's fuvoritt' — then, woreo truth, 
A miser's pensioner — beliold mir lot! 
Oh man ! that from thy fair and ehining youth 
Age might but take the tilings youth needed not." 

Both in rcspectof iliisaniiof the former excellence, 
Mr. Wordsworth strikingly resembles Samuel Daniel, 
one of the golden writers of our golden Klirabethian 
nee, now most causelessly neglected ; Samuel Daniel, 
whose diction bears no mark of time, no distinction 
of age, which has been, and, as long as our language 
shall last, will be, so far the language of to-day and 
for ever, as that it is more intelligible to us than the 
transitory fashions of our own particular age. A simi- 
lar praise is due to his sentiments. No frequency of 
(lerusal can deprive them of their freshness. For 
tliough they are brought into the full day-light of 
every reader's comprehension, yet are they drawn 
up froin depths which few in any age are privileged 
to visit, into which few in any age have courage or 
inclination to descend. If Mr. Wordsworth is not 
equally with Daniel, alike intelligible to all readers 
of average understanding in all pas.sagesof his works, 
the comparative difficulty does not arise from the 
greater impurity of the ore, but from the nature and 
uses of the metal. A poem is not necessarily ob- 
srure. because it does not aim to be popular. It is 
enough, if a work be perspicuous to those for whom 
it is written, and 

" Fit audience find, though few." 

To the "Ode on the intimation of immortality, from 
recollections of early childhood," the poet might have 
prefixed the lines which Dante addresses to one of his 
own Canzoni — 

" Panzon, io credo, che saranno radi 

Che tua ragione intendan bene : 

Tanto lor sei faticoso ed alto." 
" O lyric son;.', there will bo few, think I, 

Who may thy import understand aright : 

Thou art for them so arduous and so high I" 

But the ode was intended for such readers only as 
had been accustomed to watch the flux and reflux of 
their inmost nature, to venture at times into the twi- 
light realms of consciousness, and to feel a deep in- 
terest in modes of inmost being, to which they know 
that the attributes of time and space are inapplicable 
and alien, but which yet cannot be conveyed, save in 
symbols of time and space. For such readers the 
sense is sufficiently plain, and they will be as little 
disposed to charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing 
the platonic pre-existence in the ordinary interpreta- 
tion of the words, as I am to believe that Plato him- 
self ever meant or taught it. 

IToXAa 01 iitt' ayKW- 

"Ev^ov tvTi <pa()iTpai 
^lavavTa iwCTolstv cs 
At rd nav tpnr)viij>i 
Xarl^ct. To(pos & jroX- 
\a C160S <pva. 
Ma&dvTCi ic, Xd^poi 
nayyXuj5('a, xSpaKeg S>! 
"AKpavTa yapvcTov 
Atis Trpbi opvt^a &ttov. 



Third : (and wherein he soars far above Daniel,) 
the sinewy strength and originality of single lines 
and paragraphs: the frequent curiosa lelicitas of his 
diction, of w Inch I need not here give specimens, 
having anticipated them in a preceding page. This 
beauty, and as eminently characteristic of Words- 
worth's poetry, his rudest assailants have felt them- 
selves compelled to acknowledge and admire. 

Fourth: the perfect truth of nature in his images 
and descriptions, as taken immediately from nature, 
and pn)ving a long and genial intimacy with the very 
spirit which gives the physiognomic expression to all 
the works of nature. Like a green field rcllecled in 
a calm and perfectly transparent lake, the image is 
distinguished from the reality only by its greater soft- 
ness and lustre. Like the moisture or the polish on 
a pebble, genius neither distorts nor false-colors its 
objects; but, on the contrary, brings out many a vein 
and many a tint, which escape the eye of common 
observation, thus raising to the rank of gems what 
had been often kicked away by the hurrying foot of 
the traveller on the dusty high road of custom. 

Let me refer to the whole description of skating, 
vol. I. page 42 to 47, especially to the lines, 

" So through the darkness and the cold we flew. 
And not a voice was idle ; with the din 
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud ; 
The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tinkled like iron ; while the distant hills 
Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars 
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 
The orange sky of evening died away." 

Or to the poem on the green linnet, vol. I. p. 244. 
What can be more accurate, yet more lively, than 
the two concluding stanzas? 

" Upon yon tuf^ of hazel trees. 
That twinkle to the gusty breeze. 
Behold him perched in ecstasies. 

Yet seeming still to hover ; 
There ! where the flutter of his wings 
Upon his back and body flings 
Shadows and sunny glimmerings 

That cover him all over. 
While thus before my eyes he gleams, 
A brother of the leaves he seems ; 
When in a moment forth he teems 

His little song in gushes: 
As if it pleased him to disdain 
And mock the form when he did feign 
While he was dancing with the train 

Of leaves among the bushes." 

Or the description of the blue cap, and of the noon- 
tide silence, p. 284; or the poem to the cuckoo, p. 
299; or, lastly, though 1 might multiply the references 
to ten times the number, to the poem so completely 
Wordsworth's, commencing 

" Three years she grew in sun and shower," &c. 

Fifth : a meditative pathos, a union of deep and 
subtle thought with sensibility ; a sympathy with man 
as man ; the sympathy indeed of a conteniplator. 
rather than a fellow sufferer or co-mate, (sprcl:itor 
baud particeps,) but of a contemplator, from whose 
view no difference of rank conceals the sameness of 
the nature ; no injuries of wind or weather, of toil, 
343 



334 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face 
divine. The superscription and the image of the 
Creator still remain legible to him under the dark 
lines with which guilt or calamity had cancelled or 
cross-barred it. Here the man and the poet lose and 
find themselves in each other, the one as glorified, 
the latter as substantiated. In this mild and philo- 
sophic pathos, Wordsworth appears to me without a 
compeer. Such he is: so he writes. See vol I., 
page 134 to 136, or that most affecting composition, 

the " Affliction of Margaret of ," page 

1C5 to 168, which no mother, and, if I may judge by 
my own experience, no parent can read without a 
tear. Or turn to that genuine lyric, in the former 
edition, entitled, the " Mad Mother," page 174 to 178, 
of which I cannot refrain from quoting two of the 
stanzas, both of them for their pathos, and the former 
for the fine transition in the two concluding lines of 
the stanza, so expressive of that deranged state in 
which, from the increased sensibility, the sufferer's 
attention is abruptly drawn off by every trifle, and in 
the same instant plucked back again by the one des- 
potic thought, and bringing home with it, by the 
blending fusing power of Imagination and Passion, 
the alien object to which it had been so abruptly di- 
verted, no longer an alien, but an ally and an inmate. 

"Suck, little babe, oh suck again! 
It cools my blood ; it cools my brain : 
Thy lips, I feel them, baby ! they 
Draw from my heart the pain away. 
Oh ! press me with thy httle hand ; 
It loosens something at my chest; 
About that tight and deadly band 
I feel thy little fingers presl. 
The breeze, I see, is in the tree ; 
It comes to cool my babe and me." 

"Thy father cares not for my breast, 
'T is thine, sweet baby, there to rest, 
'T is all thine own ! — and if its hue 
Be changed, that was so fair to view, 
'Tis fair enough for thee, my dove! 
My beauty, little child, is flown ; 
But thou wilt live with me in love ; 
And what if my poor cheek be brown 7 
'Tis well for me thou can'st not see 
How pale and wan it else would be." 

Last, and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet 
the gift of Imagination in the highest and strictest 
sense of the word. In the play of Fancy, Words- 
worth, to my feelings, is not always graceful, and 
sometimes recondite. The liJ:eness is occasionally too 
strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, or 
is such as appears the creature of predetermined re- 
search, rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed, 
his fancy seldom displays itself, as mere and unmodi- 
fied fancy. But in imaginative power, he stands 
nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare and 
Milton: and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and 
his own. To employ his own words, which are at 
jnce an instance and an illustration, he does indeed 
jO all thoughts and to all objects — 

-add the gleam, 



The light that never was on sea or land. 
The consecration, and the poet's dream." 

I shall select a few examples as most obviously 
manifesting this faculty ; but if I should ever be for- 



tunate enough to render my analysis of imagination, 
its origin and characters, thoroughly intelligible to the 
reader, he will scarcely open on a page of this poet's 
works, without recognising, more or less, the presence 
and the influences of this faculty. 

From the poem on the Yew Trees, vol. I., pages 
303, 304. 

" But worthier still of note 
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale, 
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove : 
Huge trunks 1 — and each particular trunk a growth 

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine 
TTp oolling, and inveterately convolved — 
Not uninformed with phantasy, and looks 
That threaten the profane ; — a pillared shade. 
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
By sheddinKs from the pinal umbrage tinged 
Perennially — beneath whose sable roof 
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked 
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes 
May meet at noontide — Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight— Death, the skeleton, 
And Time, the shadow — there to celebrate. 
As in a natural temple scattered o'er 
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone. 
United worship ; or in mute repose 
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood 
Murmuring from Glanamara's inmost caves." 

The effect of the old man's figure in the poem of 
Resignation and Independence, vol. II , page 33. 

"While he was talking thus, the lonely place, 
The old man's shape, and speech, all troubled me ; 
In my mind's eye 1 seemed to see him pace 
About the weary moors continually, 
Wandering about alone and silently." 

Or the 8th, 9th, 19th, 26th, 31st and 33d, in the col- 
lection of miscellaneous sonnets — the sonnet on the 
subjugation of Switzerland, page 210, or the last ode 
from which I especially select the two following 
stanzas or paragraphs, page 349 to 350. 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star. 
Hath had elsewhere its setting. 

And comoth from afar. 
Not in entire forgetfulness. 
And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy ; 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows ; 

He sees it in his joy 1 
The youth who daily further from the east 
Must travel, still is nature's priest. 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day." 

And page 352 to 354 of the same ode. 

" O joy that in our embers 
Is something that doth live. 
That nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive! 

The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest — 
Delight and liberty the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest. 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: — 
Not for these I raise 
The song of thanks and praise , 

344 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



335 



But for tlioso obsiinalo questionings 

Uf sense ami outward tilings, 

Fallings from us, vunisliingb ; 

Blank misgivings of a creature 

Moving about in worlds not renlir.ed. 

High instincts, bcrurc which our mortal nature 

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised '. 

But for those lirst atleclinns. 

Those sbadiiwy rocollt^ctions, 

Which, be Ihey whnt they may. 

Arc yet the fountain li^ht uf all our day, 

Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 

Uphold us — cherish — and have power to make 

Our noisy years seem moments in the being 

Of the eternal silence ; trutlis tliat wake 

To perish never : 
Which neither listlcssness, nor mad endeavor. 
Nor man nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can ulteily abolish or destroy ! 
Hence, in a season of calm weather. 
Though inland far we bo. 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither. 
Can in a moment travel thither — 
And see the children sport upon the shore. 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." 

And since it would be unfair to conclude with an 
extract, which, though highly characteristic, must 
yet, from the nature of the tlioughls and the subject, 
be interesting, or perhaps inteUigible, to but a limited 
number of readers, I will add from the poet's last 
published work a passage e(|iially Wordsworthian ; 
of tlie beauty of which, and of the imaginative power 
displayed therein, there can be but one opinion and 
one feeling. See \Vhite Doe, page 5. 

" Fast the church-yard fills ; anon 
Look again and they are gone ; 
The cluster round the porch, and the folk 
Who sate in the shade of the prior's oak ! 
And scarcely have they disappear'd 
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard : — 
With one consent the people rejoice. 
Filling the church with a lofty voice ! 
Tliey sing a service which they feel. 
For 't is the sun-rise of their zeal. 
And faith and hope are in their prime 
In great Eliza's golden time." 
A moment ends the fervent din. 
And all is hushed without and within ; 
For though the priest more tranquilly 
Recites the holy liturgy, 
The only voice which you can hear 
Is the river murmuring near. 
When soft I — the dusky trees between. 
And down the path through the open green, 
Where is no living thing to be seen ; 
And through yon gateway, where is found. 
Beneath the arch with ivy bound. 
Free entrance to the church-yard ground. 
And rieht across the verdant sod 
Towards the very house of God ; 
Comes gliding in with lovely gleam. 
Comes gliding in serene and slow. 
Soft and silent as a dream, 
A solitary doe I 
White she is as lily of June, 
And beauteous as the silver moon 
When out of sight the clouds are driven. 
And she is left alone in heaven ! 
Or like a ship some gentle day 
In sunshine sailing far away — 
A glittering ship that hiith the plain 
Of ocean for her own domain. 



23 



EeS 



What harmonious pensive chaoges 
Wait upon her as she ranges 
Round and round this pile of state, 
Overihrown and desolate ! 
Now a step or two her way 
Is through space of open day, 
W^hero the enamoured sunny light 
Hrighlens htr that was so bright : 
Now doth a delicate shadow fall. 
Falls upon her like a breath 
From some lofty arch or wall, 
As she passes underneiitli. 

The following analogy will, I am approJicnsive, 
appear dim and faiilaslic, but in reading JJarlrnm's 
Travels, I could not help transcribing the following 
lines as a sort of allegory, or connected similo and 
metaphorof Wordsworth's intellect and genius. •• The 
soil is a deep, rich, dark mould, on a deep stratum of 
tenacious clay; and tliat on a foundation of rocks, 
which often break through l)oth strata, lifting their 
back above the surface. The trees which chiefly 
grow here are the gigantic black oak ; magnolia niag- 
niflora; fraximus excelsior; plalane; and a few 
stately tulip trees." What Mr. Wordsworth will pro- 
duce, it is not for me to prophesy ; but I could pro- 
nounce with the liveliest convictions what he is 
capable of producing. It is the First Genuine Phi- 
losophic Poem. 

The preceding criticism will not, I am aware, avail 
to overcome the prejudices of those who have made 
it a business to attack and ridicule Mr. Wordsworth's 
compositions. 

Truth and prudence might be imagined as concen- 
tric circles. The poet may perhaps have passed be- 
yond the latter, but he has confined himself far 
within the bounds of the former, in designating these 
critics as too petulant to be pa.ssive to a genuine poet, 
and too feeble to grapple with him ; — " men of palsied 
imaginations, in whose minds all healthy action is lan- 
guid ; who, therefore, feel as the many direct them, or 
with the many are greedy after vicious provocatives." 

Let not Mr. Wordsworth be charged with having 
expressed himself too indignantly, till the wanton- 
ness and the systematic and malignant perseverance 
of the aggressions have been taken into fair conside- 
ration. I myself heard the commander in cliief of 
this unmanly warfare make a boast of his private ad- 
miration of Wordsworth's genius. I have heard him 
declare, that whoever came into his room would pro- 
bably find the Lyrical Ballads lying open on his 
table, and that (speaking exclusively of those written 
by Mr. Wordsworth himself) he could nearly repeat 
the whole of them by heart. But a Review, in order 
to be a saleable article, must be personal, sharp, and 
pointed; and, since then, the Poet has made himself, 
and with himself all who were, or were supposed to 
be, his friends and admirers, the object of the critic's 
revenge — how ? by having spoken of a work so con- 
ducted in the terms which it deserved ! I once heard 
a clergyman in boots and buckskin avow, that he 
would cheat his own father in a horse. A moral sys- 
tem of a similar nature seems to have been adopted 
by too many anonymous critics. As we used lo say 
at school, in reviewing, they make being rogues : and 
he, who complains, is to be laughed at for his igno 
3-15 



336 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ance of the game. With the pen out of their hand 
they are honorable men. They exert, indeed, jwwer 
(which is to that of the injured party who should 
attempt to expose their glaring perversions and mis- 
statements, as twenty to one) to write down, and 
(where the author's circumstances permit) to inipove- 
Tish the man, whose learning and genius they them- 
selves in private have repeatedly admitted. They 
knowingly strive to make it impossible for the man 
even to publish* any future work, without exposing 
himself to all the wretchedness of debt and embar- 
rassment But this is all in their vocation, and, 
bating what they do in their vocation, " who can say 
that black is the white of their eye ?" 

So much for the detractors from Mr. Wordsworth's 
merits. On the other hand, much as I might wish 
for their fuller sympathy, I dare not flatter myself, 
that the freedom with which I have declared my 
opinions concerning both his theory and his defects, 
most of which are more or less connected with his 
theory either as cause or effect, will be satisfactory 
or pleasing to all the poet's admirers and advocates. 
More indiscriminating than mine their admiration 
may be ; deeper and more sincere it cannot be. But 
I have advanced no opinion either for praise or cen- 
sure, other than as texts introductory to the reasons 
which compel me to form it. Above all, I was fully 
convinced that such a criticism was not only wanted, 
but that, if executed with adequate ability, it must 
conduce in no mean degree to Mr. Wordsworth's 
reputation. His fame belongs to another age, and 
can neither be accelerated or retarded. How small 

* Not many months ago, an eminent bookseller was asked 

what he thought of ■? The answer was, " I have 

heard his powers very highly spoken of by some of our first- 
rate men ; but I would not have a work of his if any one 
would give it me : for he is spoken but slightly of, or not at 
all, in the Quarterly Review ; and the Edinburgh, you know, 
is decided to cut him up !" 



the proportion of the defects are to the beauties, I 
have repeatedly declared ; and that no one of them 
originates in deficiency of poetic genius. Had they 
been more and greater, I should still, as a friend to 
his literary character in the present age, consider an 
analytic display of them as pure gain ; if only it 
removed, as surely to all reflecting minds even the 
foregoing analysis must have removed, the strange 
mistake so slightly grounded, yet so widely and in- 
dustriously propagated, of Mr. Wordsworth's turn 
for SIMPLICITY ! I am not half as much irritated by 
hearing his enemies abuse him for vulgarity of style, 
subject, and conception, as I am disgusted with the 
gilded side of the same meaning, as displayed by 
some affected admirers, with whom he is, forsooth, 
a sweet, simple poet ! and so natural, that little master 
Charles, and his younger sister, are so charmed with 
them, that they play at " Goody Blake, or at " John- 
ny and Betty Foy !" 

Were the collection of poems published with these 
biographical sketches important enough, (which I am 
not vain enough to believe,) to deserve such a dis- 
tinction : EVE.\ AS I HAVE DONE, SO WGITLD I BE 
DONE UNTO. 

For more than eighteen months have the volume 
of Poems, entitled Sibylline Leaves, and the pre- 
sent volumes up to this page been printed, and ready 
for publication. But ere I speak of myself in the 
tones which are alone natural to me under the cir- 
cumstances of late years, I would fain present my- 
self to the reader as I was in the first dawn of my 
literary life : 

When Hope grew round me, like the climbing vine. 
And fruits and foliage not my own seem'd mine ! 

For this purpose, I have selected from the letters 
which I wrote home from Germany, those which 
appeared likely to be the most interesting, and at the 
same time most pertinent to the title of this work. 



Satfirawt'gi ILtiitxu. 



LETTER \. 

On Sunday morning, September 16, 1798, the Ham- 
burg Pacquet set sail from Yarmouth : and I, for the 
first time in my life, beheld my native land retiring 
from me. At the moment of its disappearance — in 
all the kirks, churches, chapels, and meeting-houses, 
in which the greater number, I hope, of my country- 
men were at that time assembled, I will dare ques- 
tion whether there was one more ardent prayer offer- 
ed up to heaven than that which I then preferred for 
my country. Now, then, (said I to a gentleman who 
was standing near me,) we are out of our country. 
Not yet, not yet ! he replied, and pointed to the sea ; 
• This, too, is a Briton's country." This bon mot gave 
a fillip to my spirits, I rose and looked round on my 



fellow-passengers, who were all on the deck. We 
were eighteen in number, videlicit, five Englishmen, 
an English lady, a French gentleman and his servant, 
an Hanoverian and his servant, a Prussian, a Swede, 
two Danes, and a Mulatto boy, a German tailor and 
his wife, (the smallest couple I ever beheld) and a 
Jew. We were all on the deck; but in a short time 
I observed marks of dismay. The lady retired to the 
cabin in some confusion, and many of the faces round 
me assumed a very doleful and frog-colored appear- 
ance ; and within an hour the number of those on 
deck was lessened by one half I was giddy, but not 
sick, and the giddiness soon went away, but left a 
feverishness and want of appetite, which I attributed 
in great measure, to the soeva mephitis of the bilge- 
water ,• and it was certainly not decreased by the ex 
346 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



337 



portations from the cabin. However, I was well 
enougn to join the able-botlied passengers, one of 
whom observcil, not inaptly, that Momus might have 
discovered an easier way to see a man's inside than 
by placing a window in his breast. lie needed only 
have taken a salt-water trip in a pacqnet-boat. 

I am inclined to believe, that a pacqiiet is fiir supe- 
rior to a stage-coach, as a means of making men open 
out to each other. In the latter, the uniformity of 
posture dis|X)ses to dozing, and the delinileness of the 
period at which the company will separate makes 
each individual think more of those to whom he is 
going, than of those with whom he is going. But at 
sea, more curiosity is excited, if only on this account, 
that the pleasant or unpleasant qualities of your com- 
panions are of greater importance to you, from the 
uncertainty how long you may be obliged to house 
with them. Besides, if you are countrymen, that now 
begins to form a distinction and a bond of brother- 
hood ; and, if of different countries, there are new in- 
citements of conversation, more to ask and more to 
communicate. I found that I had interested the 
Danes in no common degree. I had crept into the 
boat on the deck and fallen asleep; but was awaked 
by one of them about three o'clock in the afternoon, 
who told me that they had been seeking mo in every 
hole and corner, and insisted that I should join their 
party and drink with them. He talked English with 
such fluency, as left me wholly unable to account for 
the singular and even ludicrous incorrectness w-ith 
which he spoke it. I went, and found some excel- 
lent wines and a dessert of grapes with a pine-apple. 
The Danes had christened me Doctor Theology, and 
dressed as I was all in black, with large shoes and 
black worsted stockings, I might certainly have pass- 
ed very well for a Methodist missionary. However, 
I disclaimed my title. What then may you be ? A 
man of fortune ? No ! — A merchant ? No ! — A mer- 
chant's traveller? No!— A clerk? No!— Un Phi- 
losophe, perhaps ? It was at that time in my life, in 
which, of all possible names and characters, I had 
the greatest disgust to that of " un Philosopho." But 
I was weary of being questioned, and rather than be 
nothing, or at best, only the abstract idea of a man, I 
submitted by a bow, even to the aspersion implied in 
the word " un Philosophe." The Dane then inform- 
ed me, that all in the present party were philosophers 
likewise. Certes w-e were not of the stoic school. 
For we drank and talked and sung, till we talked 
and sung altogether; and then we rose, and danced 
on the deck a set of dances, which, in one sense of 
the word at least, were very intelligibly and appro- 
priately entitled reels. The passengers who lay in 
the cabin below, in all the agonies of sea-sickness, 
must have found our bacchanalian merriment 



Harsh and of dissonant mood for their complaint. 
I thought so at the time ; and (by way, I suppose, 
of supporting my newly-assumed philosophical cha- 
racter) I thought, too, how closely the greater number 
of our virtues are connected with the fear of death, 
and how little sympathy we bestow on pain, where 
there is no danger. 

45 



! The two Danes were brothers. The one was a 
man with a clear white complexion, white hair, and 
white eye-brows, looked silly, and nothing that he ut- 
tered gave the lie to his looks. The other, whom, by 
way of eminence, I have called tiik D.we, had like- 
wise white hair, but was much shorter than his bro- 
ther, with slender liml)s, and a very thin face slight- 
ly pock-fretten. This man convinced me of the jus- 
tice of an old remark, that many a faithful portrait in 
our novels and firces has been rashly censured for 
an outrageous caricature, or perhaps nonenity. I had 
retired to my station in the boat ; he came and seat- 
ed himself by my side, and appeared not a little ti]> 
sy. He commenced the conversation in the most 
magnific style, and as a sort of pioneering to his own 
vanity, he flattered me with such grossness ! The 
parasites of the old comedy were modest in the com- 
parison. His language and accentuation were so ex- 
ceedingly singular, that I determined, for once in my 
life, to take notes of a conversation. Here it follows, 
somewhat abridged indeed, but in all other respecta 
as accurately as my memory permitted. 

The D.iNE. Vat imagination ! vat language ! vat 
vast science ! and vat eyes ! vat a milk-vite forehead ! 
— O my heafen ! vy you 're a Got ! 

Answer. You do me too much honor, sir. 

The Dane. O me ! if you should dink I is flatter- 
ing you ! — No, no, no! I haf ten tousand a year! Veil 
— and vat is dat ? a more trifle ! I 'ouldnt gif my sin- 
cere heart for ten times dhe money. — Yes, you 're a 
Got! I a mere man! But, my dear friend! dhink of 
me as a man ! Is, is — I mean to ask you now my dear 
friend — is I not very eloquent? Is I not speak Eng- 
lish very fine ? 

An.svv. Most admirably ! Believe me, sir! I have 
seldom heard even a native talk so fixicntly. 

The Dane, {squeezing my hand with great vehe- 
mence.) My dear friend ! vat an affection and fidelity 
we have for each odher! But tell me, do tell me — Is 
I not, now and den, speak some fault ? Is I not in 
some wrong ? 

Answ. Why, sir, perhaps it might be observed by 
nice critics in the English language, that yo-i occa- 
sionally use the viord " is" instead of " am." In our 
best companies, v^^e generally say I am, and not I is, 
or Ise. Excuse me, sir! It is a mere trifle. 

The Dane. O! is, is, am, am, am. Yes, yes — I 
know, I know. 

A NSW. I am, thou art, he is, we are, ye are, they are. 

The Dane. Yes, yes — I know, I know — Am, am 
am, is de presens, and is, is do perlectum — yes, yes 
— and are, is dhe plusquam perfectum. 

Answ. And " art," sir, is 

The Dane. My dear friend! it is dhe plusquam 
perfectum, no, no — dhat is a great lie. " Are" is the 
plusquam perfectum — and "art" is dhe plusquam 
plueperfectum — {then swingitig my hand to and fro, 
and cocking his little bright hazel eys at me that 
danced with vanity and wine.) You see, my dear 
friend ! that I too have some lehming. 

Answ. Learning, sir? Who dares suspect it? 
Who can listen to you for a minute; who can even 
look at you, without perceiving the extent of ir? 
347 



338 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



The Dane. My dear friend ! — {then with a wmild- 
be humble look, and in a tone of voice, as if he was 
reasoning) — I could not talk so of presens and imper- 
fectum, and futurum and plusquamplue perfectum, 
and all dhat, my dear friend I without some lehm- 
ing? 

Answ. Sir! a man like you cannot talk on any 
subject without discovering the depth of his informa- 
tion. 

The Dane. Dhe grammatic Greek, my friend! 
ha! ha! ha! {laughing, and swinging my hand to and 
fro, — then, with a sudden transition to great solemni- 
ty.) JVow I will tell you, my dear friend ! Dhere 
did happen about me vat de whole historia of Den- 
mark record no instance about nobody else. Dhe 
bishop did ask me all dhe questions about all dhe re- 
ligion in dhe Latin grammar. 

Answ. The grammar, sir ? The language I pre- 
sume — 

The Dane. {A little offended.) Grammar is lan- 
guage, and language is grammar — 

Answ. Ten thousand pardons! 

The Dane. Veil, and I was only fourteen years — 

Answ. Only fourteen years old ? 

The Dane. No more. I was fourteen years old 
— and he asked me all questions, religion and philos- 
ophy, and all in dhe Latin language — and I answered 
him all every one, my dear friend ! all in dhe Latin 
language. 

Answ. A prodigy! an absolute prodigy! 

The Dane. No, no, no I he was a bishop, a great 
Buperintendant. 

Ans. Yes ! a bishop. 

The Dane. A bishop — not a mere predicant, not 
a prediger. 

Ans. My dear Sir, we have misunderstood each 
other. I said that your answering in Latin at so 
early an age, was a prodigy, that is, a thing that is 
wonderful, that does not often happen. 

The Dane. Often ! Dhere is not von instance 
recorded in dhe whole historia of Denmark. 

Ans. And since then. Sir ? 

The Dane. I was sent ofer to dhe Vest Indies — 
to our island, and dhere I had no more to do vid 
books. No ! no ! I put my genius another way — 
and I haf made ten tousand pound a year. Is not 
dhat ghenitts, my dear friend >. — But vat is money ? 
I dhink the poorest man alive my equal. Yes, my 
dear friend ! my little fortune is pleasant to my gen- 
erous heart, because I can do good — no man with so 
little a fortune ever did so much generosity — no per- 
son, no man person, no woman person ever denies it. 
But we are all Got's children. 

Here the Hanoverian interrupted him, and the 
other Dane, the Swede, and the Prussian, joined us, 
together with a young Englishman who spoke the 
German fluently, and interpreted to me many of the 
Prussian's jokes. The Prussian was a travelling 
merchant, turned of ihrc-e score, a hale man, tall, 
strong, and stout, full of stories, gesticulations, and 
buffoonery, with the soul as well as the look, of a 
mountebank, who, while he is making you laugh, 
picks your pocket. Amid all his droll looks and 



droll gestures, there remained one look untouched by 
laughter ; and that one look was the true face, the 
others were but its mask. The Hanoverian was a 
pale, fat, bloated young man, whose father had made 
a large fortune in Loudon, as an army contractor. 
He seemed to emulate the manners of young En- 
glishmen of fortune. He was a good-natured fellow, 
not without information or literature, but a most 
egregious coxcomb. He had been in the habit of 
attending the House of Commons, and had once 
spoken, as he informed me, with great applause in a 
debating society. For this he appeared to have quali- 
fied himself wilh laudable industry, for he was per 
feet in Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, and with 
an accent which forcibly reminded me of the Scotch- 
man in Roderic Random, who professed to teach the 
English pronunciation, he was constantly deferring 
to my superior judgment, whether or no I had pro- 
nounced this or that word with propriety, or " the 
true delicacy." When he spoke, though it were 
only half a dozen sentences, he always rose ; for 
which I could detect no other motive than his par- 
tiality to that elegant phrase so liberally introduced 
in the orations of our British legislators, " While I 
am on my legs." The Swede, whom for reasons 
that wilL soon appear, I shall distinguish by the name 
of " Nobility," was a strong-featured, scurvy-faced 
man, his complexion resembling, in color, a red-hot 
poker beginning to cool. He appeared miserably 
dependent on the Dane, but was, however, incom- 
parably, the best informed, and most rational of the 
party. Indeed, his manners and conversation dis- 
covered him to be both a man of the world and a 
gentleman. The Jew was in the hold ; the French 
gentleman was lying on the deck, so ill that I could 
observe nothing concerning him, except the affection- 
ate attentions of his servant to him. The poor fellow 
was very sick himself, and every now and then ran 
to the side of the vessel, still keeping his eye on his 
master but returned in a moment and seated himself 
again by him, now supporting his head, now wiping 
his forehead, and talking to him all the while, in the 
most soothing tones. There had been a matrimonial 
squabble of a very ludicrous kind in the cabin, be- 
tween the little German tailor and his little wife. 
He had secured two beds, one for himself, and one 
for her. This had struck the little woman as a very 
cruel action ; she insisted upon their having but one, 
and assured the mate, in the most piteous tones, that 
she was his lawful wife. The mate and the cabin 
boy decided in her favor, abused the little man for 
his want of tenderness with much humor, and hoist- 
ed him into the same compartment wilh his sea-sick 
wife. This quarrel was interesting to me, as it pro- 
cured me a bed which I otherwise should not have 
had. 

In the evening, at seven o'clock, the sea rolled 
higher, and the Dane, by means of the greater agi- 
tation, eliminated enough of what he had been 
swallowing to make room ibr a great deal more. 
His favorite potation was sugar and brandy, i. e. a 
very little warm water with a large quantity of bran- 
dy, sugar, and nutmeg. His servant boy, a black- 
348 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



339 



eyod Mulatto, had a good-natured round face, exactly 
tlie color of the skin of the wahuit-kernel. The 
Dane and I were again seated Icte-a-tele in the ship's 
boat. The ronvorsation, whicii was now, indeed, 
rattier an oration tlian a dialoj^uo, became extravagant 
beyond all that I ever heard, lie told me that he 
had made a large fortune in tlie island of Santa 
C'rnz, and was now returning to Deimiark to enjoy 
it. lie expatiated on the style in which he meant 
to live, and the great undertakings which he pro- 
posed to himself to commence, till the brandy, aiding 
his vanity, and his vanity and garrulity aiding the 
brandy, he talked like a madman — entreated me to 
aecomjiany him to Denmark — there I should see his 
influence with the government, and he would intro- 
duce me to the king, &c. Arc. Thus he went on 
dreaming aloud, and then passing with a very lyrical 
transition to the subject of general politics, he de- 
claimed, like a member of the Corresponding Society, 
ahoul, (not concerning) the Rights of Man, and as- 
sured me that notwithstanding his fortune, he thought 
the yioorest man alive his equal. " All are equal, my 
dear friend ! all are equal ! Ve are all Got's children. 
The poorest man haf the same rights with me. Jack! 
Jack! some more sugar and brandy. Dhere is dhat 
fellow now I He is a mulatto — but he is my equal. 
That's right. Jack! (taking the sugar and brandy.) 
Here you Sir I shake hands with dhis gentleman! 
Shake hands with me, you dog! Dhere, dhere I — 
We are all eijual, my dear friend ! Do I not speak 
like Socrates, and Plato, and Cato — they were all 
philosophers, my dear philosophe ! all very great 
men ! — and so was Homer and Virgil — but Ihey were 
poets, yes, yes! I know all about it ! — But what can 
any body say more than this ? we are all equal, all 
Got's children. I haf ten tousand a year, but I am 
no more than the meanest man alive. I haf no pride ; 
and yet, my dear friend ! I can say do ! and it is done. 
Ha ! ha ! ha ! my dear friend ! Now dhere is dhat 
gentleman, (pointing to " Nobility,") he is a Swedish 
baron — you shall see. Ho ! (calling to the Swede) get 
me, will you, a bottle of wine from the cabin. 
Sw(de. — Here Jack ! go and get your master a bottle 
of wine from the cabin ! Dane. No, no, no ! do you 
go now — you go yourself— you go now ! Swede. 
Pah I — Dane. Now go! Go I pray you. And the 

SWEDE W'ENT. 

After this, the Dane commenced an harangue on 
religion, and mistaking me for " un philosophe" in 
the continental sense of the word, he talked of Deity 
in a declamatory style, very much resembling the 
devotional rants of that rude blunderer, Mr. Thomas 
Paine, in his Age of Reason, and whispered in my 
ear, what damned hypocrium all Jesus Christ's busi- 
ness was. I dare aver, that few men have less rea- 
son to charge themselves with indulging in persiflage 
thnn mj-self I should hate it if it were only that it 
u a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in avoiding 
it because our own language is too honest to have a 
word to express it. But in this instance, the tempta- 
tii)ri had been too powerful, and I have placed it on 
the list of my offences. Pericles answered one of his 
dearest friends, who had solicited him on a case of 



life and death, to take an Equivocal oath for his pre- 
servation : Di'beo amiris opilidari, sed tisi/iie ad Dcos.* 
Friendship herself must place her last and boldest 
step on this side the altar. What Pericles would not 
do to save a friend's life, you may be assured 1 would 
not hazard, merely to mill the chocolate-pot of a 
drunken fool's vanity till it frothed over. Assuming 
a serious look, I professed myself a believer, and sunk 
at once an hundred fathoms in his good graces. He 
retired to his cabin, and I wrapped myself up in ray 
great-co.at and looked at the water. A beautiful 
white cloud of fi)am at momentary intervals coursed 
by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars 
of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it : and 
every now and then, light detachments of this white 
cloud-like foam darted offfrom the vessel's side, each 
with its own small constellation, over the sea, and 
scoured out of sight, like a Tartar troop over a wil- 
derness. 

It was cold, the cabin was at open war with my 
olfiictories, and I found reason to rejoice in my great- 
coat, a weighty, high-caped, respectable rug, the col- 
lar of which turned over, and played the part of a 
nightcap very pa.ssably. In looking up at two or three 
bright stars, w'hich oscillated with the motion of the 
sails, I fell asleep, but was awakened at one o'clock, 
Monday morning, by a shower of rain. I found my- 
self compelled to go down into the cabin, where I 
slept very soundly, and awoke with a very good ap- 
petite, at breakfast time, my nostrils, the most placa- 
ble of all the senses, reconciled to, or, indeed, insen- 
sible of the mephitis. 

Monday, September 17lh, I had a long conversa- 
tion with the Swede, who spoke with the most poig- 
nant contempt of the Dane, whom he described as a 
fool, purse-mad ; but he confirmed the boasts of the 
Dane respecting the largeness of his fortune, which 
he had acquired in the first instance as an advocate, 
and afterwards as a planter. From the Dane, and 
from himself, I collected, that he was indeed a Swe- 
dish nobleman, who had squandered a fortune that 
was never very large, and had made over his pro- 
perty to the Dane, on whom he was now utterly de- 
pendent. He seemed to suffer very lillle iiain from 
the Dane's insolence. He was in a high degree hu- 
mane and attentive to the English lady, who suffered 
most fearfully; and for whom he performed many 
little offices with a tenderness and delicacy which 
seemed to prove real goodness of heart. Indeed his 
general manners and conversation were not only 
pleasing, but even interesting; and I struggled to 
believe his insensibility, respecting the Dane, philo- 
sophical fortitude. For, though the Dane was now 
quite sober, his character oozed out of him at every 
pore. And after dinner, when he was again flushed 
with wine, every (iiiarler of an hour, or perhaps 
oflener, ho would shout out to the Swede, "Ho! 
Nobility, go — do such a thing! Mr. Nobility! tell 
the gentlemen such a story, and so forth," with an 
insolence which must have excited disgust and de- 



• TVanslation.—It behooves mc to Bide with my TrieDds, 

but only as far :is ihe goda. 

319 



340 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



testation, if his vulgar rants on the sacred rights of 
equality, joined to this wild havoc of general gram- 
mar, no less than of the English language, had not 
rendered it so irresistibly laughable. 

At four o'clock, I observed a wild duck swimming 
on the waves, a single solitary wild duck. It is not 
easy to conceive, how interesting a thing it looked in 
that round, objectless desert of waters. I had asso- 
ciated such a feeling of immensity with the ocean, 
that I felt exceedingly disappointed, when I was out 
of sight of all land, at the narrowness and nearness, 
as it were, of the circle of the horizon. So little are 
images capable of satisfying the obscure feelings con- 
nected with words. In the evening the sails were 
lowered, lest we should run foul of the land, which 
can be seen only at a small distance. At four 
o'clock, on Tuesday morning, I was awakened by the 
cry of land! land! It was an ugly island rock, at a 
distance on our left, called Heiligeland, well known 
to many passengers from Yarmouth to Hamburg, 
who have been obliged, by stormy weather, to pass 
weeks and weeks in weary captivity on it, stripped 
of all their money by the exorbitant demands of the 
wretches who inhabit it. So, at least, the sailors in- 
formed me. About nine o'clock we saw the main 
land, which seemed scarcely able to hold its head 
above water, low, flat, and dreary, with light-houses 
and land-marks, which seemed to give a character 
and language to the dreariness. We entered the 
mouth of the Elbe, passing Neuwerk ; though as yet, 
the right bank only of the river was visible to us. 
On this I saw a church, and thanked God for my safe 
voyage, not without affectionate thoughts of those I 
had left in England. At eleven o'clock on the same 
morning, we arrived at Cuxhaven, the ship dropped 
anchor, and the boat was hoisted out to carry the 
Hanoverian and a few others on shore. The captain 
agree to take us, who remained, to Hamburg for ten 
guineas, to which the Dane contributed so largely, 
that the other passengers paid but half a guinea each. 
Accordingly, we hauled anchor, and passed gently 
up the river. At Cuxhaven both sides of the river 
may be seen in clear weather; we could now see the 
right bank only. We passed a multitude of English 
traders that had been waiting many weeks for a 
wind. In a short time both banks became visible, 
both flat, and evidencing the labour of human hands, 
by their extreme neatness. On the left bank I saw a 
church or two in the distance ; on the right bank we 
passed by steeple and windmill, and cottage, and 
windmill and single house, windmill and windmill, 
and neat single house, and steeple. These were the 
objects, and in the succession. The shores were very 
green, and planted with trees not inelegantly. Thir- 
ty-five miles from Cuxhaven, the night came on us, 
and as the navigation of the Elbe is perilous, we 
dropped anchor. 

Over what place, thought I, does the moon hang to 
your eye, my dearest friend ? To me it hung over 
the left bank of the Elbe. Close above the moon 
was a huge volume of deep black cloud, while a very 
thin fillet crossed the middle of the orb, as narrow, 
and thin, and black as a ribbon of crape. The long 



trembling road of moonlight, which lay on the water, 
and reached to the stern of our vessel, glimmered 
dimly and obscurely. We saw two or three lights 
from the right bank, probably from bed-rooms. I felt 
the striking contrast between the silence of this ma- 
jestic stream, whose banks are populous with men 
and women and children, and flocks and herds — be- 
tween the silence by night of this peopled river, and 
the ceaseless noise and uproar, and loud agitations of 
the desolate solitude of the ocean. The passengers 
below had all retired to their beds ; and I felt the 
interest of this quiet scene the more deeply, from the 
circumstance of having just quitted them. For the 
Prussian had, during the whole of the evening, dis- 
played all his talents to captivate the Dane, who had 
admitted him into the train of his dependants. The 
young Englishman continued to interpret the Prus- 
sian's jokes to me. They were all, without excep- 
tion, profane and abominable, but some sufficiently 
witty, and a few incidents, which he related in his 
own person, were valuable as illustrating the man- 
ners of the countries in which they had taken place. 
Five o'clock on Wednesday morning we hauled 
the anchor, but were soon obliged to drop it again in 
consequence of a thick fog, which our captain feared 
would continue the whole day; but about nine it 
cleared off; and we sailed slowly along, close by the 
shore of a very beautiful island, forty miles from Cux- 
haven, the wind continuing slack. This holme or 
island is about a mile and a half in length, wedge- 
shaped, well wooded, with glades of the liveliest 
green, and rendered more interesting by the remark- 
ably neat farm-house on it. It seemed made for re- 
tirement without solitude — a place that would allure 
one's friends while it precluded the impertinent calls 
of mere visiters. The shores of the Elbe now became 
more beautiful, with rich meadows and trees running 
like a low wall along the river's edge ; and peering 
over them, neat houses and (especially on the right 
bank) a profusion of steeple-spires, v\iiite, black or 
red. An instinctive taste teaches men to build their 
churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which 
as they cannot be referred to any other object, point 
as with a silent finger to the sky and stars, and some- 
times when they reflect the brazen light of a rich 
though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame 
burning heavenward. I remember once, and once 
only, to have seen a spire in a narrow valley of a 
mountainous country. The effect was not only mean 
but ludicrous, and reminded me, against my will, of 
an extinguisher ; the close neighborhood of the high 
mountain at the foot of which it stood, had so com- 
pletely dwarfed it, and deprived it of all connection 
with the sky or clouds. Forty-six English miles from 
Cuxhaven, and sixteen from Hamburg, the Danish 
village Veder, ornaments the left bank with its black 
steeple, and close by it the wild and pastoral hamlet 
of Schulau. Hitherto, both the right and left bank, 
green to the very brink, and level with the river, re 
sembled the shores of a park canal. The trees and 
houses were alike low ; sometimes the low trees over 
topping the yet lower houses; sometimes the low 
houses rising above the yet lower trees. But a\ 
350 



BIOGRAPIIIA LITERARIA. 



841 



Schulaii, llie left bank rises ai once forty or fifty feet, 
and stares on tlie river wiili its perpendicular farade 
of siind, thinly patched with lulls of green. Tlie Elbe 
continued to )iresent a more and more hvely spoclacle 
from ilie multitude of fishing-boats and the Hocks of 
sea gulls wheeling round them, the clamorous rivals 
and com|)anions of the fishermen; till we came to 
BlankaiU'ss, a most interesting village scattered amid 
scattered trees, over three hills in three divisions. 
Each of the three hills stares upon the river, with 
faces of bare sand with which the boats, with their 
bare poles, standing in files along the banks, made a 
/ort of limtastic harmony. Between each facade 
lies a green and woody dell, each deeper than the 
Other. In short, it is a large village made up of indi- 
vidual cottages, each cottage in the centre of its own 
little wood or orchard, and each with its own sepa- 
rate path; a village with a labyrinth of paths, or ra- 
ther a neighborhood of houses! It is inhabited by 
fishermen and boat-makers, the Blankane.se boats 
being in great request through the whole navigation 
of the Elbe. Here first we saw- the spires of Ham- 
burg, and from hence as far as Altona, the left bank 
of the Elbe is uncommonly pleasing, considered as the 
vicinity of an industrious and republican city ; in that 
style of beauty, or rather prettiness, that might tempt 
the citizen into the country, and yet gratify the taste 
which he had acquired in the town. Summer houses 
and Chinese show-work are every where scattered 
along the high and green banks ; the boards of the 
farm-houses left unplastered and gaily painted with 
green and yellow; and scarcely a tree not cut into 
shapes, and made to remind the human being of his 
own power and intelligence instead of the wisdom of 
nature. Still, however, these are links of connection 
between town and country, and far belter than the 
affectation of tastes and enjoyments for which men's 
habits have disqualified them. Pass them by on Sat- 
urdays and Sundays with the burghers of Hamburg 
smoking their pipes, the women and children feast- 
ing in the alcoves of box and yew, and it becomes a 
nature of its own. On Wednesday, four o'clock, we 
left the vessel, and passing with trouble through the 
huge masses of shipping that seemed to choke the 
wide Elbe from Altona upward, we were at length 
landed at the Boom House, Hamburg. 



LETTER n. (TO A LADY.) 

Ratzeburg. 
Meine liebe Freundin, 

See how natural the German comes from me, though 
I have not yet been six weeks in the country! — al- 
most as fluently as English from my neighbor the 
Amptschreiber, (or public secretary,) who, as often as 
we meet, though it should be half a dozen times in 
the same day, never fails to greet me with — "** 
<iham your ploot unt eyes, my dearest Englander ! 
vhee goes it ?" — which is certainly a proof of great 
generosity on his part, these words being his whole 



stock of English. I had, however, a better reason 
than the desire of displaying my proficiency ; for I 
wished to put you in good humor with a language, 
from the acquirement of which 1 have promised my- 
self much edification, and the means, too, of commu- 
nicating a new pleasure to you and your sister, during 
our winter readings. And how can 1 do this better 
than by (wintingout its gallant attention to the ladies? 
Our English allix, ess, is, I believe, confined either to 
words derived from the Latin, as actress, dircclrcss. 
&c. or from the French, as inislress, duchess, and the 
like. But the German, in, enables us to designate 
the sex in every possible relation of life. Thus the 
Amptman's lady is the Frau Amptman^VI — the secre- 
tary's wife (by-the-by the handsomest woman I have 
yet seen in Germany) is Die allerliebste Fran Ampt- 
schreiberin — the colonel's lady. Die Frau Obristin or 
coloneh'n — and even the pastor's wife, Die Fran pas- 
tor(7i. But I am especially pleased with iheir freiind- 
/?(, which, unlike the arnica of the Romans, is seldom 
used but in its best and purest sense. A'ovv, I know 
it will be said, that a friend is already something more 
than a friend, when a man feels an anxiety to express 
to himself that this friend is a female; but ihio I 
deny — in that sense, at least, in which the objection 
will be made. I would hazard the impeachment of 
heresy, rather than abandon my belief that there is a 
sex in our souls as well as in their perishable gar- 
ments ; and he who does not feel it, never truly loved 
a sister — nay, is not capable even of loving a wife as 
she deserves to be loved, if she indeed be worthy of 
that holy name. 

Now, I know, my gentle friend, what you are mur- 
muring to yourself^-" This is so like him! running 
away after the first bubble that chance has blown off 
from the surface of his fancy, when one is anxious to 
learn where he is, and what he has seen." Well, 
then! that I am settled at Ratzeburg, with my mo- 
tives and the particularsof my journey hither, 

will inform you. My first letter to him, with which, 
doubtless, he has edified your whole fireside, left me 
safely landed at Hamburg, on the Elbe Stairs, at the 
Boom House. While standing on the stairs, I was 
amused by the contents of the passage boat which 
crosses the river once or twice a day from Hamburg 
to Haarburg. It was stowed close with all the pei> 
pie of all nations, in all sorts of dresses; the men all 
W'ith pipes in their mouths, and these pipes of all 
shapes and fiincies — straight and wreathed, simple 
and complex, long and short, cane, clay, porcelain, 
wood, tin, silver, and ivory; most of them with silver 
chains and silver bole-covers. Pipes and boots are 
the first universal characteristic of the male Ham- 
burgers that would strike the eye of a raw traveller. 
But I forget my promise of journalizing as much as 
possible. Therefore — Septcmhcr 19lh, n/lvrnoon —My 
companion, who, you recollect, speaks the French 
language with unusual propriety, had formed a kind 
of confidential acquaintance with the emigrant, who 
appeared to be a man of sense, and whose manners 
were those of a perfect gentleman. He seemed 
about fifty, or rather more. Whatever is unpleasant 
in French manners from excess in the degree, had 
351 



342 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



been softened down by age or affliction ; and all that 
is delightful in the kind, alacrity and delicacy in 
little attentions, &e. remained, and without bustle, 
gesticulation, or disproportionate eagerness. His 
demeanor exhibited the minute philanthropy of a 
polished Frenchman, tempered by the sobriety of the 
English character, disunited from its reverse. There 
js something strangely attractive in the character of 
a gentleman when you apply the word emphatically, 
and yet in that sense of the term which it is more 
easy to feel than to define. It neither includes tlie 
possession of high moral excellence, nor of necessity 
even the ornamental graces of manner. I have now 
in my mind's eye, a person whose life would scarcely 
stand scrutiny, even in the court of honor, much less 
in that of conscience ; and his manners, if nicely ob- 
served, would, of the two, excite an idea of awkward- 
ness rather than of elegance ; and yet, every one who 
conversed with him felt and acknowledged the gen- 
tleman. The secret of the matter, I believe to be 
this — we feel the gentlemanly character present to 
us whenever, under all the circumstances of social 
intercourse, the trivial not less than the important, 
through the whole detail of his manners and deport- 
ment, and with the ease of a habit, a person shows 
respect to others in such a way, as at the same time 
implies, in his own feelings, an habitual and assured 
anticipation of reciprocal respect from them to him- 
self In short, the gentlemanly character arises out 
of the feeling of equality, acting as a habit, yet flex- 
ible to the varieties of rank, and modified without 
being disturbed or superseded by them. This de- 
scription will, perhaps, explain to you the ground of 
one of your own remarks, as I was Englishing to you 
the interesting dialogue concerning the causes of the 
corruption of eloquence. " What perfect gentlemen 
these old Romans must have been ! I was impressed, 
I remember, with the same feeling at the time I was 
reading a translation of Cicero's philosophical dia- 
logues, and of his epistolary correspondence: while 
in Pliny's Letters I seemed to have a different feel- 
ing — he gave me the notion of a very fine gentle- 
man." You uttered the words as if you had felt that 
the adjunct had injured the substance, and the in- 
creased degree altered the kind. Pliny was the 
courtier of an absolute monarch — Cicero, an aristo- 
cratic republican. For this reason the character of 
gentleman, in the sense to which I have confined it, 
is frequent in England, rare in France, and found, 
■where it is found, in age, or at the latest period of 
manhood ; while in Germany the character is almost 
unknown. But the proper antipode of a gentleman 
is to be sought for among the Anglo-American demo- 
crats. 

I owe this digression, as an act of justice, to this 
amiable Frenchman, and of humiliation for myself 
For in a little controversy between us on the subject 
of French poetry, he made me feel my own ill be- 
havior by the silent reproof of contrast; and when 
I afterwards apologized to him for the warmth of my 
language, he answered me with a cheerful expression 
of surprise, and an immediate compliment, which a 
gentleman might both make with dignity, and receive 



with pleasure. I was pleased, therefore, to find it 
agreed on, that we should, if jxjssible, take up our 
quarters in the same house. My friend went with 
him in search of a hotel, and I to deliver my letters 
of recommendation. 

I walked onward at a brisk pace, enlivened not so 
much by any thing I actually saw, as by the confused 
sense that 1 was for the first time in my life on the 
contmeni of our planet. I seemed to myself like a 
liberated bird that had been hatched in an aviary, 
who now after his first soar of freedom poises him- 
self in the upper air. Very naturally I began to 
wonder at all things, some for being so like and some 
for being so unlike the things in England — Dutch 
women with large umbrella hats shooting out half a 
yard before them, with a prodigal plumpness of petti- 
coat behind — the women of Hamburg with raps 
plated on the caul with silver or gold, or both, bor- 
dered round with stiffened lace, which stood out be- 
fore their eyes, but not lower, so that the eyes spar- 
kled through it — the Hanoverian women with the 
fore part of the head bare, then a stiff lace standing 
up like a wall perpendicular on the cap, and the cap 
behind tailed with an enormous quantity of ribbon, 
which lies or tosses on the back : 

"Thrir visnomies seem'd like a goodly banner. 
Spread in defiance of all enemies." Spenser. 

The ladies all in English dresses, all rouged, and 

all with bad teeth: which you notice instantly from 
their contrast to the almost animal, too glossy mother- 
of-pearl whiteness, and the regularity of the teeth 
of the laughing, loud-talking country women and 
servant girls, who, with their clean white stockings, 
and with slippere without heel-quartere, tripped along 
the dirty streets as if they were secured by a charm 
from the dirt; with a lightness, too, which surprised 
me, who had always considered it as one of the an- 
noyances of sleeping in an Inn, that I had to clatter 
up stairs in a pair of them. The streets narrow ; to 
my English nose sufficiently offensive, and explain- 
ing at first sight the universal use of boots ; wiiiiout 
any appropriate path for the foot-passengers; the 
gable ends of the houses all towards the street, some 
in the ordinary triangular form, and entire, as the 
botanists say, but the greater number notched and 
scolloped with more than Chinese grolesqueness.. 
Above all, I was struck with the profusion of win- 
dows, so large and so many that the houses look all 
glass. Mr. Pitt's window tax, with its pretty little 
additionals sprouting out from it, like young toad- 
lets on the back of a Surinam toad, would certainly 
improve the appearance of the Hamburg houses, 
which have a slight summer look, not in Jcceping 
with their size, incongruous with the climate, and 
precluding that feeling of retirement and self-content, 
which one wishes to associate with a house in a noisy 
city. But a conflagration would, I fear, be the pre- 
vious requisite to the production of any archilectural 
beauty in Hamburg: for verily it is a filthy town. I 
moved on and crossed a multitude of ugly bridges, 
with huge black deformities of water wheels close 
by them. The water intersects the city every where, 
352 



^^M 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



343 



ond would have furnished to flie penius of Italy the 
capabilities of all that is most beautiful and magniti- 
rent in archiieciure. It might have been the rival 
of \enire, and it is huddle and ugliness, stench and 
stagnation. The Jungfer Stieg, (i. e. young ladies' 
walk.) to which my letters directed mo, made an ex- 
ception. It is a walk or promenade planted with 
treble rows of elm trees, which, being yearly pruned 
nnd cropped, remain slim and dwarf-like. This walk 
occupies one side of a S()uare piece of water, with 
many swans on it perfectly tame ; and, moving among 
the swans, showy pleasure boats with ladies in them, 
rowed by their husbands or lovers. ***** 

{Some paragrajjhs have been here omitted.) 
ih'js embarrassed by sad and solemn politeness, still 
more than by broken English, it sounded like the 
voice of an old friend when I heard the emigrant's 
servant inquiring after me. He had come for the 
purpose of guiding me to our hotel. Through streets 
and streets I ])ressed on as happy as a child, and, I 
doubt not, with a childish expression of wonderment 
in my busy eyes, amused by the wicker wagons with 
moveable benches across them, one behind the other ; 
(these were the hackney coaches ;) amused by the 
sign-lx)ards of the shops, on which all the articles 
sold within are painted, and that, too, very exactly, 
though in a grotesque confusion ; (a useful substitute 
fijr language in this great mart of nations ;) amused 
with the incessant tinkling of the shop and house 
door bells, the bell hanging over each door, and 
struck with a small iron rod at every entrance and 
exit; and finally, amused by looking in at the win- 
dows as I pa.ssed along: the ladies and gentlemen 
drinking coffee or playing cards, and the gentlemen 
all smoking. I wished myself a painter, that I might 
have sent you a sketch of one of the card parties. 
The long pipe of one gentleman rested on the table, 
its bole half a yard from his mouth, fuming like a cen- 
ser by the fish pool ; the other gentleman, who was 
dealing the cards, and, and of course had both hands 
employed, held his pipe in his teeth, which, hanging 
down between his knees, smoked beside his ancles. 
Hogarth himself never drew a more ludicrous distor- 
tion lx)ih of attitude and physiognomy, than this efTort 
occasioned ; nor was there wanting beside it one of 
tho.se beautiful female faces which the same Hogarth, 
in whom the satirist never extinguished that love of 
beauty which belonged to him as a poet, so often and 
so gladly introduces as the central figure in a crowd 
of deformities, which figure (such is the power of 
true genius!) neither acts, nor is meant to act, as a 
contrast; but diffuses through all, and over each of 
the group, a spirit of reconciliation and human kind- 
ticss ; and even when the attention is no longer con- 
sciously directed to the cause of this feeling, still 
blends its tenderneps w^ith our laughter; and thus 
prevents the instructive merriment at the whims of 
nature, or the foibles or humors of our fellow men, 
from degenerating into the heart-poison of contempt 
or hatred. 

Our hotel die wit.de m.w, (the sign of which was 
no bad likeness of the landlord, who had engrafted 
on a very grim face a restless grin, that was at every 
Ff 



man's service, and which indeed, like an actor re- 
hearsing to himself, he kept playing in expectation of 
an occasion fi)r it,) neitiier our hotel, I say, nor its 
landlord, were of the gcnteelest class. But it has one 
great advant;ige lor a stranger, by being in the mar- 
ket place, and the next neighbor of the huge church 
of St. Nicholas ; a church with shops and houses 
built up against it, out of which uens and warts its 
high massy steeple rises, necklaced near the top with 
a round of large gilt balls. A better pole-star could 
scarcely be desired. Long shall I retain the impres- 
sion made on my mind by the awful echo, so loud 
and long and tremulous, of the dec|>-loned clock 
within this church, which awoke mc at two in the 
morning from a distrcssfiil dream, occasioned, I be- 
lieve, by the feather bed, which is used here instead 
of bed clothes. I will rather carry my blanket about 
w'ith me like a wild Indian, than submit to this abo- 
minable custom. Our emigrant acquaintance was, 
we found, an intimate friend of the celebrated Abbe 
de Lisle ; and from the large fortune which he pos- 
sessed under the monarchy, had rescued siiflicient 
not only for independence, but for respectability. He 
had offended some of his fellow emigrants in Lon- 
don, whom he had obliged with considerable sums, 
by a refusal to make further advances, and in conse- 
quence of their intrigues, had received an order to 
quit the kingdom. I thought it one proof of his in- 
nocence, that he attached no blame either to the alien 
act, or to the minister who had e.xerted it against 
him ; and a still greater, that he spoke of London 
with rapture, and of his favorite niece, who had mar- 
ried and settled in England, with all the fervor and 
all the pride of a fond parent. A man sent by force 
out of a country, obliged to sell out of the stocks at a 
great loss, and exiled from those pleasures and that 
style of society which habit had rendered essential 
to his happiness, whose predominant feelings were 
yet all of a private nature, resentment for friendship 
outraged, and anguish for domestic affections inter- 
rupted — such a man, I think, I could dare warrant 
guiltless of espionaffe in any service, most ol all in 
that of the present French Directory. He spoke with 
ecstasy of Paris under the monarchy : and yet the 
[Xirticular facts, which made up his description, lefl 
as deep a conviction on my mind, of French worth- 
liness, as his own tale had done of emigrant ingrati- 
tude. Since my arrival in Germany, I have not met 
a single person, even among those who abhor the re- 
volution, that spoke with favor, or even charity, of 
the French emigrants. Though the belief of their 
influence in the origination of this disastrous war, 
(from the horrors of which North (Jcrinany deems 
itself only reprieved, not secured,) may have some 
share in the general aversion with which they are 
regarded ; yet I am deeply (iprsuaded that the far 
greater part is owing to their ow n profligacy, to their 
treachery and hard-hearteduess to each other, and 
the domestic misery or corrupt prmciples which so 
many of them have carried into tlie families of their 
protectors. My heart dilated with honest pride, as I 
recalled to mind the stern yet amiable characters of 
the English patriots, who sought reitige on the Con 
353 



544 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tinent at the restoration ! O let not our civil war 
under the first Charles, be paralleled with the French 
revolution ! In the former, the chalice overflowed from 
excess of principle; in the latter, from the fermenta- 
tion of the dregs ! The former was a civil war be- 
tween the virtues and virtuous prejudices of the two 
parties : the latter between the vices. The Venitian 
glass of the French monarchy shivered and flew 
asunder with the working of a double poison. 

Sept. 20th. I was introduced to Mr. Klopstock, the 
brother of the poet, who again introduced me to pro- 
fessor Ebeling, an intelligent and lively man, though 
deaf: so deaf, indeed, that it was a painful effort to 
talk with him, as we were obliged to drop all our 
pearls into a huge ear-trumpet. From this courteous 
and kind-hearted man of letters, (I hope the German 
literati in general may resemble this first specimen,) 
I heard a tolerable Italian pun, and an interesting 
anecdote. When Bonaparte was in Italy, having 
been irritated by some instance of perfidy, he said in 
a loud and vehement tone, in a public company — 
" 'Tis a true proverb, gli Ilaliani tutti ladroni;" — (i. 
e. Ike Italians all plunderers.) A lady had the cou- 
rage to reply — " JNon tutti, ma buona parte ;" — {not 
all, but a good part, or Bonaparte.) This, I confess, 
sounded to imj ears as one of the many good things 
that might have been said. The anecdote is more 
valuable, for it instances the ways and means of 
French insinualion. Hoche had received much in- 
formation concerning the face of the country, from a 
map of unusual fullness and accuracy, the maker of 
W'hich, he heard, resided at Dusseldorf. At the 
storming of Dusseldorf by the French army, Hoche 
previously ordered that the house and property of this 
man should be preserved, and entrusted the perform- 
ance of the order to an officer on whose troop he 
could rely. Finding afterwards that the man had es- 
caped before the storming commenced, Hoche ex- 
claimed, "He had no reason to flee! it is /or such 
men, and not against ihcm, that the French nation 
makes war, and consents to shed the blood of its chil- 
dren." You remember Milton's sonnet — 

" The groal Eniiitbian conqueror bid ppare 
The lioiise of Pindiiriis, wlien loniple and tower 
Went lo the ground" 

Now, though the Dusseldorf map-maker may stand 
m the same relation to the Theban bard, as the snail 
that makes its path by lines of film on the wall it 
creeps over, to the eagle that soars sunward, and 
beats the tempest with its wings; it does not there- 
fore follow, that the Jacobin of France may not be as 
valiant a general and as good a politician as the mad- 
man of Macedon. 

From Professor Ebeling's, Mr. Klopstock accom- 
panied my friend and me to his own house, where I 
saw a fine bust of his brother. There was a solemn 
and heavy greatness in his countenance, which cor- 
responded to my preconceptions of his style and 
genius. I saw there, likewise, a very fine portrait of 
Lessing, whose works are at present the chief object 
of my admiration. His eyes were uncommonly like 
eniae ; if any thing, rather larger and more promi- 



nent. But the lower part of his face and his nose — 
O what an exquisite expression of elegance and sen- 
sibility ! — There appeared no depth, weight, or com- 
prehensiveness, in the forehead. The whole face 
seemed to lay, that Lessing was a man of quick and 
voluptuous feelings ; of an active, but light fancy ; 
acute ; yet acute not in the observation of actual life, 
but in the arrangements and management of the ideal 
world, i. e. in taste and in metaphysics. I assure 
you, that I wrote these very words in my memoran- 
dum book, with the portrait before my eyes, and 
when I knew nothing of Lessing but his name, and 
that he was a German writer of eminence. 

We consumed two hours and more over a bad din- 
ner, at the table d'Hote. " Patience at a German 
ordinary, smiling at time." The Germans are the 
worst cooks in Europe. There is placed for every 
two persons a bottle of common wine, Rhenish and 
Claret alternately ; but in the houses of the opulent, 
during the many and long intervals of the dinner, 
the servants hand round glasses of richer wines. At 
the Lord of Culpin's they came in this order : Bur- 
gundy — Madeira — Port — Fronliniac — Pacchiaretti — 
Old Hock — Mountain — Champagne — Hock again — 
Bishop, and lastly. Punch. A tolerable quantum, 
methinks ! The last dish at the ordinar)% viz. slices 
of roast pork, (for all the larger dishes are brought 
in, cut up, and first handed round, and then set on 
the table,) with stewed prunes and other sweet fruits, 
and this followed by cheese and butter, with plates 
of apples, remindsd me of Shakspeare;* and Shak- 
speare put it in my head to go to the French comedy 
******* 

Bless me ! Why it is worse than our modern En- 
glish plays ! The first act informed me, that a court 
martial is to be held on a Count Vatron, who had 
drawn his sword on the Colonel, his brother-in-law. 
The officers plead in his behalf— in vain! His wife, 
the Colonel's sister, pleads with most tempestuous 
agonies — in vain ! She falls into hysterics and faints 
away, to the dropping of the inner curtain ! In the 
second act sentence of death is passed on the Count 
— his wife as frantic and hysterical as before ; more 
so (good industrious creature !) she could not be. The 
third and last act, the wife still frantic, very frantic 
indeed! the soldiers just about to fire, the handker- 
chief actually dropped, when reprieve! reprieve! is 
heard from behind the scents: and in conies Prince 
somebody, pardons the Count, and the wife is still 
fi-antic, only with joy ; that was all ! 

O dear lady! this is one of the cases in which 
laughter is followed by melancholy.- for such is the 
kind of drama which is now substituted every where 
for Shakspeare and Racine. You well know that I 
offer violence to my own feelings in joining these 
names. But, however meanly I may think of the 
French serious drama, even in its most perfect speci- 
mens; and with whatever right I may complain of 



* " Slaider. I bruised my shin with playing with sword 
and dagger for a dish of stewed prunes, and by r>iy troth I 
cannot abide the snnell of hot meal since." So aeain : 
Evans. " I will malsc an end of my dinner ; there's pippins 
and cheese yet to come " 

354 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



345 



ts perpetual falsificalion of the language, and of the 
connexions and transitions of thought, which Nature 
has appropriated to slates of pa.-sion ; still, hov%'evor, 
the French tragedies arc consistent works of art, and 
the ollspring of great intellectual jx)wer. Preserving 
a fitness in the parts, and a harmony in the whole, 
they form a nature of their own, though a false 
nature. Siill they excite the minds of the spectators 
to active thought, to a striving after ideal excellence. 
The soul is not stupified into mere sensations by n 
worthless sympathy with our own ordinary sufferings, 
or an empty curiosity for the surprising, undignified 
by the language or the situations which awe and 
delight the imagination. What, (I woulil ask of 
tlie crowd, that press forward to the jiantomimic 
tragedies and weeping comedies of Koizcbue and 
his imitators,) what are you seeking ? Is it comedy ? 
But in the comedy of Shakspcare and Moliere, the 
more accurate my knowledge, and the more profound- 
ly I think, the greater is the satisfaction that mingles 
with my laughter. For though the qualities which 
these writers fwurtray are ludicrous indeed, either 
from the kind or the excess, and exquisitely ludicrous, 
yet are tiiey the natural gmwth of the human mind, 
and such as, with more op less change in the drnpery, 
I can apply to my own heart, or, at least, to whole 
classes of my fellow creatures. IIow' often are not 
the moralist and the metaphvsician obliged for the 
happiest illustrations of general truths, and the subor- 
dinate laws of human thouglit and action, to quota- 
tions not only from the tragic characters, but equally 
from the Jacques, Falstaff, and even from the fools 
and clowns of Shakspcare, or from the Miser, Ilypo- 
chondriast, and Hypocrite, of Jloliere ! Say not, that 
I am recommending abstractions : for these class- 
characteristics, which constitute the inslruciivcness 
of a character, are so modified and particularized in 
each person of the Shaksperian Drama, that life itself 
does not excite more distinctly that sense of indi- 
viduality which belongs to real existence. Paradox- 
ical as it may sound, one of the essential properties 
of geometry is not less es.seniial to dramatic excel- 
lence, and (if I may mention his name without 
pedantry to a lady) .\ristotle has accordingly required 
of the poet an involution of the universal in the 
individual. The chief differences are, that in geome- 
try it is the universal truth itself, vihich is uppermost 
in the consciousness; in pwetry, the individual f()rm 
in which the truth is clothed. With the ancients, 
and not less with the elder dramatists of England and 
France, both comedy and tragedy were considered as 
kinds of poelry. They neither sought in comedy to 
make us laugh merely, much less to make us laugh 
by wry faces, accidents of jargon, slang phrases for 
the day, or the clothing of common-place morals in 
metaphors, drawn from the shops or mechanic occu- 
pations of their characters; nor did they condescend 
in tragedy to wheedle away the applause of the 
spectators, by representing before them fac-similes 
of their own mean selves in all their existing mean- 
ness, or to work on their sluggish sympathies by a 
pathos not a whit more respectable than the maudlin 
tears of drunkenness. Their tragic scenes were 
46 



meant to aflfect us indeed, but within the bounds of 
pleasure, and in union with the activity both of our 
understanding and imagination. They wi.'^hed to 
transjwrt the mind to a sense of its possible greatness, 
and to implant the germs of that greatness during 
the temporary oblivion of the worthless " thing we 
are," and of the peculiar slate in which each man 
happens to be; suspending our individual recol- 
lections, and lulling them to sleep amid the music 
of nobler thoughts. 

Hold! (inethinks I hear the spokesman of the 
crowd reply, and we will listen to him. I am the 
plamiifr, and be he the defendant.) 

Defendant. Hold ! are not our modem senti- 
mental plays filled with the best Christian morality ? 

Plaintiff. Yes ! just as much of it, and just that 
part of it which you can exercise without a single 
Christian virtue — without a single sacrifice that is 
really painful to you I— just as much as /a»ers you, 
sends you away pleased with your own hearts, and 
quite reconciled to your vices, which can never be 
thought very ill of, when they keep such good com- 
pany, and walk hand in hand with so much compas- 
sion and generosity; adulation so loathsome, that j'ou 
would spit in the man's face who dared offer it to 
you in a private company, unless you interpreted it 
as insulting irony, you appropriate with infinite satis- 
faction, w hen you share the garbage with the whole 
stye, and gobble it out of a common trough. No 
Ca;sar must pace your boards — no Antony, no royal 
Dane, no Orestes, no Andromache ! 

D. No : or as few of them as possible. What 
has a plain citizen of London or Hamburg to do with 
your kings and queens, and your school-lx)y Pagan 
heroes ? Besides, every body knows the stories , 
and what curiosity can we feel 

P. What, Sir, not for the maimer ? not for the de 
lightful language of the poet ? not for the situations 
the action and re-action of the passions ? 

D. You are hasty. Sir ! the only curiosity we feel 
is the story ; and how can we be anxious concerning 
the end of a play, or be surprised by it, when we 
know how it will turn out? 

P. Your pardon for having interrupted you ! we 
now understand each other. You seek, then, in a 
tragedy, which wise men of old held for the highest 
effort of human genius, the same gratification as that 
you receive from a new novel, the last (ierman ro- 
mance, and other dainties of the day, which can be 
enjoyed but once. If you carry these feelings to the 
sister art of Painting, Michael Angelo's Sestine 
Chapel, and the Scripture Gallery of Raphael, can 
expect no favor from you. You know all. about them 
beforehand ; and arc, doubtless, more ffimiliar with 
the subjects of those paintings than with the tragic 
tales of the historic or heroic ages. There is a con- 
sistency, therefore, in your preference of contempo- 
rary writers: for the great men of former times, 
those at least who were deemed great by our ances- 
tors, sought so little to gratify this kind of curiosity, 
that they seem to have regarded the slori/ in a not 
much higher light than the painter regards )iis can- 
vas ; as that on, not bij which they were to display 
355 



346 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



their appropriate excellence. No work, resembling 
a tale or romance, can well show less variety of 
invention in the incidents, or less anxiety in weaving | 
them together, than the Don Quixote of Cervan- i 
TES. Its admirers feel the disposition to go back and 
re-peruse some preceding chapter, at least ten times 
for once that they find any eagerness to hurry for- 
wards : or open the book on those parts which they 
best recollect, even as we visit those friends often- 
est whom we love most, and with whose characters 
and actions we are the most intimately acquainted. 
In the divine Ariosto, (as his countrymen call tiiis, 
their darling poet,) I question whether there be a 
single tale of his own invention, or the elements of 
which were not familiar to the readers of " old ro- 
mance." I will pass by the ancient Greeks, who 
thought it even necessary to the fable of a tragedy, 
that its substance should be previously known. That 
there had been at least fifty tragedies with the same 
title, would be one of the motives which determined 
Sophocles and Euripides, in the choice of Electra as 
a subject. But Milion 

D. Ay, Milion, indeed ! but do not Dr. Johnson, 
and other great men tell us, that nobody now reads 
Milton but as a task ? 

P. So much the worse fir them, of whom this can 
be truly said ! But why then do you pretend to ad- 
mire Shakspeare ? The greater part, if not all, of Ajs 
dramas were, as far as the names and the main inci- 
dents are concerned, already stock plays. All the 
stories, at least, on which they are built, pre-existed 
in the chronicles, ballads, or translations of contem- 
porary or preceding English writers. Why, I repeat, 
do you pretend to admire Shakspeare ? Is it, perhaps, 
that you only pretend to admire him ? However, as 
once for all you have dismissed the well known 
events and personnges of history, or the epic muse, 
what have you taken in their stead ? Whom has 
your tragic muse armed with her bowl and dagger? 
the sentimental muse, I should have said, whom you 
have seated in the throne of tragedy ? What heroes 
has she reared on her buskins ? 

D. O! our good frienils and next door neighbors — 
honest tradesmen, valiant tars, high-spirited half-pay 
officers, philanthropic Jews, virtuous courtezans, ten- 
der-hearted braziers, and sentimental rat-catchers! (a 
little bluff or so, but all our very generous, tender- 
hearted characters are a little rude or misanthropic, 
and all our misanthropes very tender-hearted.) 

p. But I pray you, friend, in what actions, great or 
interesiing, can such men be engaged ? 

D. They give away a great deal of money ; find 
rich dowries for yoiuig men and maidens, who have 
all other good qualities; they browbeat lords, baro- 
nets, and justices of the peace, (for they are as bold 
as Hector!) they rescue stage-coaches at the instant 
they are falling down precipices ; carry away infants 
in the sight of opposing armies ; and some of our per- 
formers act a muscular able-bodied man to such per- 
fection, that our dramatic poet.s, who always have 
the actors in their eye, seldom fail to make their fa- 
vorite male character as strong as Samson. And 
.hen they take such prodigious leaps ! And what is 



done on the stage, is more striking even than what i3 
acted. I once remember such a deafening explosion 
that I could not hear a word of the play for half an 
act after it; and a little real gunpowder being set fire 
to at the same time, and smelt by all the spectators, 
the naturalness of the scene was quite astonishing! 

P. But how can you connect with such men and 
such actions that dependence of thousands on the fate 
of one, which gives so lofty an interest to the person- 
ages of Shakspeare, and the Greek tragedians? How 
can you connect with them that sublimest of all feel- 
ings, the power of destiny and the controlling might 
of heaven, which seems to elevate the characters 
which sink beneath his irresistible blow? 

D. O, mere fancies! We seek and find on the 
present stage, our own wants and passions, our own 
vexations, losses, and embarrassments. 

P. It is your poor own pettifogging nature, then, 
which you desire to have represented before you, not 
human nature in its height and vigor? But surely 
you might find the former, with all its joys and sor- 
rows, more conveniently in your own houses and 
parishes. 

D. True! but here comes a difference. Fortune 
is blind, but the poet has his eyes open, and is besides 
as complaisant as fortune is capricious. Ke makes 
every thing turn out exactly as we would wish it. 
He gratifies us by representing those as hateful or 
contemjrtible whom we hate and wish to despise. 

P. (aside) That is, he gratifies your envy by libel- 
ling your superiors. 

D. He makes all those precise moralists, who affect 
to be better than their neighbors, turn out at last ab- 
ject hypocrites, traitors, and hard-hearted villains; 
and your men of spirit, who take their girl and their 
glass with equal freedom, prove the true men of 
honour, and (that no part of the audience may remain 
unsatisfied) reform in the last scene, and leave no 
doubt on the minds of the ladies, that they will make 
most faithful and excellent husbands; though it does 
seem a pity, that they should be obliged to get rid of 
qualities which had made them so interesting! Be- 
sides, the poor become rich all at once; and, in the 
final matrimonial choice, the opulent and high-born 
themselves are made to confess, that virtue is the 

OXLY TRUE NORILITV, AND THAT A LOVELY WOMAN 
IS A DOWRY OF herself! 

P. Excellent! but you have forgotten those bril- 
liant flashes of loyalty, those patriotic praises of the 
king and old England, which, especially if conveyed 
in a metaphor from the ship or the shop, so often soli- 
cit, and so unfailingly receive the public plaudit ! I 
give your prudence credit for the omission. For the 
whole system of your drama is a moral and intellec- 
lectual Jacobinism of the most dangerous kind, and 
those common-place rants of loyalty are no better 
than hypocrisy in ynur play-wrights, and your own 
sympathy with them a gross selfdelusion. For the 
whole secret of dramatic popularity consists, with 
yon, in the confusion and subversion of the natural 
order of things, their causes and their effects ; in the 
excitement of surprise, by representing the qualities 
of liberality, refined feeling, and a nice sense of ho- 
356 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



347 



n"r flhose things, rather, which pass among you for 
•iiioh) in persons and in c'las.ses of life where experi- 
ence teaches us least to expect them; ami in reward- 
ing with till the sympathies thai are the dues of vir- 
tue, those criminnls whom law, reason, and religion, 
have excommunicated from our esteem ! 

And now, good night ! Truly ! I might have writ- 
ten this last sheet without having gone to (iermany, 
but I fancied myself talking to you by your own fire- 
side, and can you think it a small ])lcasure to me to 
forget, now and then, that I am not there ? Besides, 
you and my other gooil friends have made up your 
minds to me as I am, and from whatever place I 
write, you will expect that [xtrt of my " Travels" will 
consist of the excursions in my own mind. 



LETTER III. 



Ratzeburg. 



No little fish thrown back again into the water, no 
fly unimprisoned from a child's hand, could more 
buoyantly enjoy its element, than I this clean and 
peaceful house, with this lovely view of the town, 
groves, and lake of Ratzeburg, irom the window at 
which I am writing. My spirits, certainly, and my 
health I fancied, were beginning to sink under the 
noise, dirt, and unwholesome air of our Hamburg ho- 
tel. I left it on Sunday, Sept. 23d, with a letter of 
i;iiro<luction from the poet Klopslock, to the Ainpt- 
man of Ratzeburg. The Amptman received me with 
kindness, and introduced me to the vvortiiy pastor, 
who agreed to board and lodge me for any length of 
time not less than a month. The vehicle, in which I 
took my place, was considerably larger than an Eng- 
lish stage-coach, to which it bore mucii the same pro- 
portion and rude resemblance, that an elephant's ear 
does lr) the human. Its top was composed of naked 
hoards of diflTerent colors, and seeming to have been 
parts of diflerent wainscots. Instead of windows, 
there were leathern curtains with a little eye of glass 
in each ; they perfectly answ-ered the purpose of keep- 
ing out the prospect, and letting in the cold. I could 
observe little, therelbre, but the inns and farm-houses 
at which we slopped. They were all alike, except 
in size: one great room, like a barn, with a hay-loft 
over it, the straw and hay dangling in tufts through 
the boards which formed the ceiling of the room, and 
the floor of the loft. From this room, which is paved 
like a street, sometimes one, sometimes two smaller 
ones, are enclosed at one end. These are commonly 
floored. In the large room, the cattle, pigs, poulirv, 
men, women and children, live in amicable commu- 
nity ; yet there was an appearance of cleanliness and 
rustic comfort. One of these houses I measured. It 
was an hundred feet in length. The apartments 
were taken otT from one corner; between these and 
the stalls there was a small interspace, and here the 
breadth was forty-eight feet, but thirty-two where the 
stalls were; of course, the stalls were on each side 
eight feet in depth. The faces of the cows, &c. were 
Ff2 



turned towards the room ; indeed, they were in it, so 
that they had at least the comfort of seeing each 
other's fiices. Stall feeding is universal in this part 
of (iermany, a practice concerning which the agricul- 
turist and the poet arc likely to entertain opposite 
opinions, or at least to have verj' difTcrcnt ftciings. 
The wood work of these buildings on the outside is 
left unplastered, as in old houses among us, and be- 
ing painted red and green, it cuts and tcs.sellates 
the buildings very gayly. From within three miles 
of Hamburg almost to MoUn, which is thirty miles 
from it, the country, as far as I could see it, was a 
dead flat, only varied by woods. At IVIolIn it became 
more beautiful. I observed a small lake nearly sur- 
rounded with groves, and a palace in view, belong- 
ing to the king of Great Britain, and inhabited by the 
Inspector of the Forests. We were nearly the same 
time in travelling the thirty-five miles from Hamburg 
to Ratzeburg, as we had been in going from London 
to Yarmouth, one hundred and twenty-six miles. 

The lake of Ratzeburg runs from south to north, 
about nine miles in length, and varying in breadth 
from three miles to half a mile. About a mile from 
the southcrrnnost point it is divided into two, of course 
very unequal parts, by an island, which being con- 
nected by a bridge and a narrow slip of land with the 
one shore, and by another bridge of immense length 
with the other shore, forms a complete isthmus. On 
this island the town of Ratzeburg is built. The pas- 
tor's house or vicarage, together with the Amptman's, 
Amptschreiber's, and the church, stands near the sum- 
mit of a hill, which slopes down to the slip of land and 
the little bridge, from which, through a superb mili- 
tary gate, you step into the island-town of Ratzeburg. 
This again is itself a little hill, by ascending and de- 
scending which you arrive at the Ions bridge, and so 
to the other shore. The water to the .south of the 
town is called the Little Lake, which, however, al- 
most engrosses the beauties of the whole : the shores 
being just often enough green and bare to give the 
proper efl!ect to the magnificent groves which occupy 
the greater part of their circumference. From the 
turnings, windings, and indentations of the shore, the 
views vary almost every ten steps, and the whole has 
a sort of majestic beauty, a feminine grandeur. At 
the north of the Great Lake, and peeping over it, I 
see the seven church towers of Lubec, at the distance 
of twelve or thirteen miles, yet as distinctly as if they 
were not three. The only defect in the view- is, that 
Ratzeburg is built entirely of red bricks, and all the 
houses roofed with red tiles. To the eye, therefore, 
it presents a clump of brick-dust red. Yet this even- 
ing, Oct. 10th, twenty minutes past five, I saw the 
town perfectly beautiful, and the whole softened 
down into complete keeping, if I may irorrow' a term 
from the painters. The sky over Ratzeburg and all 
the east, was a pure evening blue, while over the 
west it was covered with light sandy clouds. Hence, 
a deep red light spread over the whole prospect, in 
undisturbed harmony with the red town, the brown- 
red woods, and the yellow-red reeds on the skirts of 
the lake. Two or three boats, with single persons 
paddling them, floated up and down in the rich light. 
357 



348 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



which not only was itself in harmony with all, but 
brought all into harmony. 

I should have told you that I went back to Ham- 
burg on Thursday, (Sept. 27th,) to take leave of my 
friend, who travels southward, and returned hither 
on the Monday following. From Empfelde, a vil- 
lage halfway from Ratzeburg, I walked from Ham- 
burg through deep sandy roads, and a dreary flat: 
the soil every where white, hungry, and excessively 
pulverized ; but the approach to ihe city is pleasing. 
Light cool country houses, which you can look 
through and see the gardens behind them, with ar- 
bors and trellis work, and thick vegetable walls, and 
trees in cloisters and piazzas, each house with neat 
rails heCore it, and green seats within the rails. Every 
ohject, whether the growth of nature or the work of 
man, was neat and artificial. It pleased me far bet^ 
ter than if the houses and gardens and pleasure-fields 
had been in a nobler taste ; for this nobler taste would 
have been mere apery. The busy, anxious, money- 
loving merchant of Hamburg could only have adopt- 
ed, he could not have enjoijed the simplicity of na- 
ture. The mind begins to love nature by imitating 
human conveniences in nature ; but this is a step in 
intellect, though a low one — and were it not so, yet 
all around me spoke of innocent enjoyment and sen- 
sitive comforts, and I entered with unscrupulous sym- 
pathy into the enjoyments and comforts even of the 
busy, anxious, and money-loving merchants of Ham- 
burg. In this charitable and Catholic mood I reached 
the vast ramparts of the city. These are huge green 
cushions, one rising above the other, with trees grow- 
ing in the interspaces, pledgesand symbols of a long 
peace. Of my return I have nothing worth commu- 
nicating, except that I took extra post, which answers 
to posting in England. These north German post- 
chaises are uncovered wicker carts. An English 
dust-cart is a piece of finery, a chef d'oeuvre of me- 
chanism, compared with them ; and the horses I — a 
savage might use their ribs instead of his fingers lor 
a numeration table. Wherever we stopped, the pos- 
tilion fed his cattle with the brown rye bread of 
which he eat himself, all breakfasting together, only 
the horses had no gin to their water, and the postilion 
no water to his gin. Now and henceiorward for sub- 
jects of more interest to you, and to the objects in 
search of which I left you: namely, the literati and 
literature of Germany. 

Believe me, I walked with an impression of awe 

on my spirits, as W and myself accompanied 

Mr. Klopstock to the house of his brother, the poet, 
which stands about a quarter of a mile from the city 
gate. It is one of a row of little common-place sum- 
mer houses, (for so they looked,) with four or five 
rows of young meagre elm trees before the windows, 
beyond which is a green, and then a dead flat, inter- 
sected with several roads. Whatever beauty (thought 
I) may be before the poet's eyes at present, it must 
certainly be purely of his own creation. We waited 
a few minutes in a neat little parlor, ornamented 
with the figures of two of the muses, and with prints, 
the subjects of w^iich were from Klopstock's odes. 
The poet entered ; I was much disappointed in his 



countenance, and recognized in it no likeness to the 
bust. There was no comprehension in the forehead, 
no weight over the eye-brows, no expression of pecu- 
liarity, moral or intellectual, on the eyes, no massive- 
ness in the general countenance. He is, if any thing, 
rather below the middle size. He wore very large 
hall-boots, which his legs filled, so fearfully were 

they svioln. However, though neither W nor 

myself could discover any indications of sublimity or 
enthusiasm in his physiognomy, we were both equally 
impressed with his liveliness, and his kind and ready 
courtesy. He talked in French with my friend, and 
with difficulty spoke a few sentences to me in Eif- 
glish. His enunciation was not in the least aflfected 
by the entire want of his upper teeth. The conver- 
sation began on his part by the expression of his rap- 
ture at the surrender of the detachment of French 
troops under General Humbert. Their proceedings 
in Ireland with regard to the committee which they 
had appointed, with the rest of their organizing sys- 
tem, seemed to have given the poet great entertain- 
ment. He then declared his sanguine belief in Nel- 
son's victory, and anticipated its confirmation with a 
keen and triumphant pleasure. His words, tones, 
looks, implied the most vehement Anti-Gallicanism. 
The subject changed to literature, and I inquired in 
Latin concerning the history of German Poetry, and 
the elder German Poets. To my great astonishment, 
he confessed that he knew very little on the subject. 
He had indeed occasionally read one or two of their 
elder writers, but not so as to enable him to speak of 
their merits. Professor Ebeling, he said, would pro- 
bably give me every information of this kind : the 
subject had not particularly excited his curiosity. He 
then talked of Milton and Glover, and thought Glo- 
ver's blank ver.se superior to Milton's. VV^ and 

myself expressed our surprise ; and my friend gave 
his definition and notion of harmonious verse, that it 
consisted (the English iambic blank verse above all) 
in the apt arrangement of pauses and cadences, and 
the sweep of whole paragraphs, 

" with many a winding bout 

Of linked sweelness long drawn out," 

and not the even flow, much less in the prominence 
or antithetic vigor of single lines, which were indeed 
injurious to the total effect, except where they were 
introduced for some specific purpose. Klopstock as- 
sented, and said that he meant to confine Glover's 
superiority to single lines. He told us that he had 
read Milton, in a prose translation, when he was 
fourteen. * I understood him thus myself, and 

W interpreted Klopstock's French as I had 

already construed it. He appeared to know very 
little of Milton, or indeed of our poets in general. 
He spoke with great indignation of the English 
prose translation of his Messiah. All the translations 
had been bad, very bad — but the English was 710 



* This was accidentally confirmed to me by an old German 
gentleman at HelmstadI, who had been Klopstock's school 
and bed-fellow. -Among other boyish anecdotes, he related 
that the young poet set a particular value on a translation of 
the Paradise Lost, and always slept with it under his pillow. 
3f)8 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



319 



translation ; there were pages on pages not in the 
original — and lialf the original was not to bo found 

in the tauislalion. W told him that I intended 

to translaie a few of his odes as specimens of Ger- 
man lyrics ; he then said to me in Eiighsh, " 1 wish 
you wouhl render into English some select passages 
of the Messiah, and revenue me of your coiuitry- 
nien I" It was the liveliest thing which he produced 
in the whole conversation, lie told us ihat his first 
ode was fifty years older than his last. I looked at 
him with much emotion — 1 considered him as the 
venerable father of German poetry ; as a good man ; 
as a Christian ; sevenly-four years old ; with legs 
enormously swohi, yet active, lively, cheerful, and 
kind, and communicative. My eyes lelt as if a tear 
were swelling into them. In the portrait of Lessing, 
there was a toupee periwig, which enormously in- 
jured the effect of his physiognomy; Klopstock wore 
the same, powdered and frizzled. 15y-the-bye, old 
men ought never to wear powder — the contrast be- 
tween a large snow-white wig and the color of an old 
man's skin is disgusting, and wrinkles in such a neigh- 
borhood appear only channels for dirt. It is an honor 
to poets and great men that you think of them as 
parts of nature ; and anything of trick and fashion 
wounds you in them as much as when you see vene- 
rable yews clipped into miserable peacocks. The au- 
ttior of the Messiah should have worn his own grey 
hair. His powder and periwig were to the eye, 
what Mr. Virgil would be to the ear. 

Klopstock dwelt much on the superior power 
which the German language possessed of concentrat- 
ing meaning. He said he had often translated parts 
of Homer and Virgil, line by line, and a German 
line proved always sufficient for a Greek or Latin 
one. In English you cannot do this. I answered, 
that in English we could commonly render one Greek 
heroic line in a line and a half of our common he- 
roic metre, and I conjectured that this line and a half 
would be found to contain no more syllables than one 
German or Greek hexameter. He did not under- 
stand me ;* and I, who wished to hear his opinions, 
not to correct them, was glad that he did not. 

* Klopstock's observation was parlly true and partly errone- 
ous. In the literal sense of hig words, and if we confine the 
comparison to the average of space required for tlie expres- 
sion of tlie same thoupht in the two languages, it is errone- 
ous. I have translated some German hexameters into Eng- 
lish hexameters, and find, that on the average, three lines 
English will express four lines German. The reason ia evi- 
dent: our language abounds in monosyllables and dissyllables. 
The German, not less than the Greek, is a polysyllable lan- 
guage. But in another point of view the remark was not 
without foundation. For the German, possessing the same 
unlimited privilege of forming compounds, both with pre- 
positions, and with epithets as the Greek, it can express the 
richest single Greek word in a single German one, and is 
thus freed from the necessity of weak or unsraceful para- 
phrases. I will content myself with one example at present, 
viz. the use of the prefixed particles, rer, zer, ent, and weg: 
thus, reissen to rend, verreissen to rend away, zerreissen to 
rend to pieces, enlreisscn to rend off or out of a thine, in 
the active sense : cr scbmclzen to mell — ver, zer, ent, schmel- 
7.en — and in like manner through all the verbs neuter and 
active. If you consider only how much wo should feel the 
loss of iho prefix be, as in bedropt, besprinkle, besot, espe- 
cially in our poetical language, and then think Ihat this same 
mode of composition is carried through all their simple and 



We now took our leave. At the beginning of the 
French Revolution, Klopstock wrote odes of coiijm- 
tulation. He received some honorary presents from 
the French Republic, (a golden crown, I believe,) 
and, like our Priestley, was invited to a seat in the 
legislature, which he declined. But when French 
liberty metamorphosed herself into a furj", he sent 
back these present-s with a palinodia, declaring his 
abhorrence of their proceedings; and since then he 
has been perhajis more than enough an Anli-Gal- 
lican. I mean, that in his just contempt and detes- 
tation of the crimes and follies of the Revolutionists, 
he sulTers himself to forget that the revolution itself 
is a process of the Divine Providence; and that as 
the folly of men is the wisdom of God, so are their 
iniquities instruments of his goodness. From Klop- 
stock's house we walked to the ramparts, di!^co^lrsing 
together on the poet and his conversation, till our at- 
tention was diverted to the beauty and singularity of 
the sunset, and its effects on the objects round us. 
There were woods in the distance. A rich sandy 
light (nay, of a much deeper color than sandy) lay 
over these woods that blackened in the blaze. Over 
that part of the woods which lay immediately under 
the intenser light, a brassy mist floated. The trees 
on the ramparts, and the people moving to and fro 
between them, were cut or divided into equal seg- 
ments of deep shade and brassy light. Had the trees, 
and the bodies of the men and women, been divided 
into equal segments by a rule or pair of compasses, 
the portions could not have been more regular. All 
else was obscure. It was a fairy scene! and to in- 
crease its romantic character, among the moving ob- 
jects thus divided into alternate shade and bright- 
ness, was a beautiful child, dressed with the elegant 
simplicity of an English child, riding on a stately 
goat, the saddle, bridle, and other accoutrements of 
which were in a high degree costly and splendid. 
Before I quit the subject of Hamburg, let me say, 
that 1 remained a day or two longer than 1 otherwise 
should have done, in order to be present at the feast 
of St. Michael, the patron saint of Hamburg, expect- 
ing to see the civic pomp of this commercial Repub- 
lic. I was, however, disappointed. There were no 
processions ; two or three sermons were preached to 

compound prepositions, and many of their adverbs ; and 
that with most of these the Germans have the same privilege 
as we have of dividing them from the verb and placing them 
at the end of the sentence; you will have no difficulty in 
comprehending the reality and the cause of this superior 
power in the German of condensing meaning, in which its 
great poet exulted. It is impossible to read half a dozen 
pages of Wieland without perceiving thnt in this respect the 
German has no rival but the Greek. And yet I seem to feel, 
that concentration or condensation is not the liappiest mode 
of expressing this excellence, which seems to consist not so 
much in the less time required for conveying an impression, 
as in the unity and simultaneousness with which the impres- 
sion is conveyed. It tends to make their language more 
picturesque : it depictures images better. We have obtain- 
ed this power in part by our compound verbs derivfd from 
the Latin ; and the sense of its great effect no doubt induced 
our Milton both to the use and the abuse of Latin derivatives. 
But still these prefixed particles, conveying no separate or 
separable meaning to the mere Knglish reader, cannot pos- 
sibly act on the mind with the force or liveliness of an original 
and homogeneous language such as the German is, and bq 
sides are confined to certain words. 



350 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



two or three old women in two or three churches, 
and St. Michael and his patronage wished elsewhere 
by the higher classes, all places of entertainment, 
theatre, &'c. being shut up on this day. In Hamburg, 
there seems to be no religion at all : in Lubec it is 
confined to the women. The men seem determined 
to be divorced from their wives in the other world, 
if they cannot in this. You will not easily conceive 
a more singular sight than is presented by the vast 
aisle of the principal church at Lubec, seen from the 
organ-loft; for being filled with female servants, and 
persons in the same class of life, and all their caps 
having gold and silver cauls, it appears like a rich 
pavement of gold and silver. 

I will conclude this letter with the mere transcrip- 
tion of notes, which my friend W made of his 

conversations with Klopstock, during the interviews 
that took place after my departure. On these I shall 
make but one remark at present, and that will appear 
a presumptuous one, namely, that Klopstock's re- 
marks on the venerable sage of Koenigsburg are, to 
my own knowledge, injurious and mistaken ; and so 
far is it from being true that his system is now given 
up, that throughout the Universities of Germany there 
is not a single professor who is not either a Kantean, 
or a disciple of Fichte, whose system is built on the 
Kantean, and pre-supposes its truth ; or lastly, who, 
though an antagonist of Kant as to his theoretical 
work, has not embraced wholly or in part his moral 
system, and adopted part of his nomenclature. " Klop- 
stock having wished to see the Calvary of Cumber- 
innd, and asked what was thought of it in England, 
1 went to Remnant's, (the English bookseller,) where 
I procured the Analytical Review, in which is con- 
tained the review of Cumberland's Calvary. I re- 
membered to have read there some specimens of a 
blank verse translation of the Messiah. I had men- 
tioned this to Klopstock, and he had a great desire to 
see them. I walked over to his house and put the 
book itito his hands. On adverting to his own poem, 
he told me he began the Messiah when he was 
seventeen ; he devoted three entire years to the plan, 
without composing a single line. He was greatly at 
a loss in what manner to execute his work. There 
were no successful specimens of versification in the 
German language before this time. The first three 
cantos he wrote in a species of measured or numerous 
prose. This, though done with much labor and 
<;ome success, was far from satisfying him. He had 
composed hexameters both Latin and Greek as a 

chool exercise, and there had been also in the Ger- 
man language attempts in that style of versification. 
These were only of very moderate merit. One day 
he was struck with the idea of what could be done 
m this way ; he kept his room a whole day, even 
went without his dinner, and found that in the even- 
ing he had written twenty-three hexameters, versify- 
ing a part of what he had before written in prose. 
From that time, pleased with his efforts, he composed 
no more in prose. To-day he informed me that he 
had finished his plan before he read Milton. He 
was enchanted to see an author who before him had 
trod the same path. This is a contradiction of what 



he said before. He did not wish to speak of his poem 
to any one till it was finished ; but some of his friends 
who had seen what he had finished, tormented hira 
till he had consented to publish a few books in a 
journal. He was then, I believe, very young, about 
twenty-five. The rest was printed at different pe- 
riods, four books at a time. The reception given to 
the first specimens was highly flattering. He was 
nearly thirty years in finishing the whole poem, but 
of these thirty years not more than two were em- 
ployed in the composition. He only composed in fa- 
vorable moments; besides, he had other occupations. 
He values himself upon the plan of his odes, and ac- 
cuses the modern lyrical writers of gross deficiency 
in this respect. I laid the same accusation against 
Horace: he would not hear of it — but waived the 
discussion. He called Rousseau's Ode to Fortune a 
moral dissertation in stanzas. I spoke of Dryden's 
St. Cecilia; but he did not seem familiar with our 
writers. He wished to know the distinctions between 
our dramatic and epic blank verse. He recommended 
me to read his Herman before I read eiiher the Mes- 
siah or the odes. He flattered himself that some 
time or other his dramatic poems would be known in 
England. He had not heard of Covvper. He thought 
that Voss, in his translation of the Iliad, had done 
violence to the idiom of the Germans, and had sa- 
crificed it to the Greek, not remembering sufficiently 
that each language has its particular spirit and ge- 
nius. He said Lessing was the first of their dramatic 
writers. I complained of Nathan as tedious. He 
said there was not enough of action in it, but that 
Lessing was the most chaste of their writers. He 
spoke favorably of Goethe ; but said that his " Sor- 
rows of Werter" was his best work, better than any 
of his dramas ; he preferred the first written to the 
rest of Goethe's dramas. Schiller's " Robbers" he 
found so extravagant that he could not read it. I 
spoke of the scene of the setting sun. He did not 
know it. He said Schiller could not live. He 
thought Don Carlos the best of his dramas ; but said 
that the plot was inextricable. It w-as evident he 
knew little of Schiller's works; indeed, he said he 
could not read them. Burgher, he said, was a true 
poet, and would live ; that Schiller, on the contrary, 
must soon be forgotten; that he gave himself up to 
the imitation of Shakspeare, who often was extrava- 
gant, but that Schiller was ten thousand times more 
so. He spoke very slightingly of Kotzebue, as an 
immoral author in the first place, and next, as defi- 
cient in power. At Vienna, said he, they are trans- 
ported with him ; but we do not reckon the people of 
Vienna either the wisest or the wittiest people of 
Germany. He said Wieland was a charming author, 
and a sovereign master of his own language ; that in 
this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, 
or, indeed, could anybody else. He said that his fault 
was to be fertile to exuberance. I told him the Obe- 
ron had just been translated into English. He asked 
me if I was not delighted with the poem. I an- 
swered, that I thought the story began to flag about 
the seventh or eighth book, and observed, that it was 
unworthy of a man of genius to make the interest of 
3G0 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



351 



Q long iioem turn entirely upon animal gratification. 
He seemed at first tlisixjsed to excuse this by saying, 
that there are different subjects for [wetry. and that 
p<iels are not \villin|» to be restricted in their choice. 
1 answered, that 1 thousrht the jiasgion of love as will 
suited to the pur(X)ses of i)oetry as any other p:ission ; 
but lliat it was a cheaj) way of pleasing, to fix the 
attention of the reader through a long yxtem on the 
mere appetite. Well, but, said he, you see that such 
poems please everybody. I answered, that it was 
the province of a great poet to raise peojile up to his 
own level, not to descend to theirs, lie agreed, and 
coniijssed, that on no account whatsoever would he 
have written a work like the Oheron. He s|K)ke in 
raptures of Wieland's style, and pointed out the pas- 
sage where Retzia is delivered of her child, as ex- 
quisitely beautiful. I said that I did not perceive 
any very striking passages; but that I made allow- 
ance for the imperfections of a translation. Of the 
thefts of Wieland, he said, they were so exquisitely 
managed, that the greatest writers might be proud to 
steal as he did. He considered the books and fables 
of old romance writers in the light of the ancient 
mythology, as a sort of common property, from which 
a man was free to take whatever he could make a 
good use of An Englishman had presented him 
with the odes of Collins, which he had read with 
pleasure. He knew little or nothing of Gray, except 
his Essay in the churchyard. He complained of the 
Fool in Lear. I observed, that he seemed to give a 
terrible wildness to the distress; but still he com- 
plained. He asked whether it was not allowed, that 
Pope had written rhyme poetry with more skill than 
any of our writers. I said I preferred Dryden, be- 
cause his couplets had greater variety in their move- 
ment. He thought my reason a good one ; but asked 
w hether the rhyme of Pope were not more exact. 
This question I understood as applying to the final 
terminations, and observed to him that 1 believed it 
was the case, but that I thought it was easy to excuse 
some inaccuracy in the final sounds, if the general 
sweep of the verse was superior. I told him that 
we were not so exact with regard to the final endings 
of lines as the French. He did not seem to know 
that we made no distinction between masculine and 
feminine (i. e. single or double) rhymes ; at least, he 
put inquiries to me on this subject. He seemed to 
think that no language could ever be so far formed 
as that it might not be enriched by idioms borrowed 
from another tongue. I said this was a very danger- 
ous practice; and added, that I thought Milton had 
often injured both his prose and verse by taking this 
liberty too frequently. I recommended to him the 
prose works of Dryden as models of pure and native 
English. 1 was treading upon tender ground, as I 
have reason to suppose that he has himself liberally 
indulged in the practice. 

The same day I dined at Mr. Klopstock's, where I 
had the pleasure of a third interview with the poet. 
We talked principally about indifferent things. I 
asked him what he thought of Kant. He said that 
his reputation was much on the decline in Germany. 
That for his own part he was not surprised to find it 
24 



so, as the works of Kant were to him utterly inconv 
prehensible; that he had often been pestered by the 
Kanleans, but wa.s rarely in the practice of arguing 
with them. His custom was to produce the boc'-, 
open it, and (loint to a passage, and beg they wo\,'d 
explain it. This they ordinarily attempted to do, by 
substituling their own ideas. 1 do not want, 1 say, an 
exjilanation of your own ideas, but of the pa.ssnge 
which is before us. In this way I generally bring the 
dispute to an immediate conclusion. He spoke of 
Wolfe as the first metaphysician ihey had in Germany. 
\\'olfe had followers, but they could hardly be called 
a sect; and luckily till the apjiearance of Kant, about 
fifteen years ago, Germany had not been pestered by 
any sect of philosophers whatsoever, but that each 
man had separately pursued his inquiries uncontrolled 
by the dogmas of a Master. Kant had appeared am- 
bitious to be the founder of a sect — that he had suc- 
ceeded, but that the (Jermans were now coming to 
their senses again. That IVicolai and Engel had in 
different ways contributed to disenchant the nation; 
but, above all, the incomprehensibility of the philoso- 
pher and his philosophy. He seemed pleased to hear, 
that as yet Kant's doctrines had not met v\ilh any ad- 
mirers in England — did not doubt but that we had 
loo much wisdom to be duped by a writer, who set at 
defiance the common sense and common understand- 
ings of men. We talked of tragedy. He seemed to 
rate highly the power of exciting tears. I said that 
nothing was more easy than to deluge an audience; 
that it was done everj' day by the meanest writers." 
I must remind you, my friend, first, that these notes, 
&c. are not intended as specimens of Klopstock's in- 
tellectual power, or even " colloquial prowess," to 
judge of which, by an accidental conversation, and 
this with strangers, and those too foreigners, would 
be not only unreasonable, but calumnious. Secondly, 
I attribute little other interest to the remarks, than 
what is derived from the celebrity of the person who 
made them. Lastly, if you ask me whether I have 
read the Messiah, and what I think of it? I answer, 
as yet the first four books only; and as to my opinion, 
(the reasons of which hereafter,) you may giie.ss it, 
from what I could not help muttering to myself, when 
the good pastor this morning told me that Klopstock 
was the German Milton — " a very German Milton 
indeed ! !!" — Heaven preserve you, and 

S. T. Coleridge. 



CHAPTER XXin. 

Quid, quod prtcfalione prsmunierim libelliim, qua Conor 
omnem orfendiculi onsatn prircidere ? Neque quicquiim 
addabito, quin ea candidis omnibus fiiciat palis. Quid 
autem facias islis, qui vel ob ingenii periinuciam sibi salis- 
fieri nolent, vol stupidiores sint quam ut satisfaclionem 
intcllipant ? Nam qucm nd modum Simonidps dixit, Thes- 
salos hebeliores cseo quam ut possint a 3C decipi, ita quos- 
dam videas slupidiores quam ut placari queant. Adhiec, 
non mirum est, invcnire qund culumnietur qui nihil aliud 
qux'rit nisi quod calumiiietur. 

Erasmus, ad Dorpium Tcologum. 

I.N the rifacciamento of The Friend, I have in- 
serted extracts from the Conciones ad Populum, 
361 



352 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



printed, though scarcely published, in the year 1795, 
in the very heat and height of my antiministerial en- 
thusiasm : these in proof that my principles of politics 
have sustained no change. In the present chapter, I 
have annexed to my Letters from Germany, with 
particular reference to that which contains a disqiii- 
sitioa on the modern drama, a critique on the Trage- 
dy of Bertram, written within the last twelve months: 
in proof, that I have been as falsely charged with any 
fickleness in my principles of fasle. The letter was 
written to a friend ; and the apparent abruptness with 
which it begins, is owing to the omission of the intro- 
ductory sentences. 

You remember, my dear Sir, that Mr. Whitbread, 
shortly before his death, proposed to the assembly 
subscribers of Drury-Lane Theatre, that the concern 
should be farmed to some responsible individual, 
under certain conditions and limitations ; and that his 
proposal was rejected, not without indignation, as 
subversive of the main object, for the attainment of 
which, the enlightened and patriotic assemblage of 
philo-drama lists had been induced to risk their sub- 
scriptions. Now, this object was avowed to be no 
less than the redemption of the British stage, not only 
Irom horses, dogs, elephants, and the like zoological 
rarities, but also from the more pernicious barbarisms 
and Kotzebuisms in morals and taste. Drury-Lane 
was to be restored to its former classical renown ; 
Shakspeare, Johnson, and Otway, with the expur- 
gated muses of Vanburgh, Congreve and Wycherly, 
were to be re-inaugurated in their rightful dominion 
over British audiences ; and the Herculean process 
was to commence by exterminating the speaking 
monsters imported from the banks of the Danube, 
compared with which their mute relations, the emi- 
grants from Exeter 'Change, and Polito (late Pid- 
cock's) show-carts, were tame and inoffensive. Could 
an heroic project, at once so refined and so arduous, 
be consistently entrusted to, could its success be ra- 
tionally expected from a mercenary manager, at 
whose critical quarantine the lucri bonus ordo would 
conciliate a bill of health to the plague in person ? 
No! As the work proposed, such must be the work 
masters. Rank, fortune, liberal education, and (their 
natural accompaniments or consequences) critical dis- 
cernment, delicate tact, disinterestedness, unsuspected 
morals, notorious patriotism, and tried Mecajnaship, 
these were the recommendations that influenced the 
votes of (he proprietary subscribers of Drury-Lane 
Theatre, these the motives that occasioned the elec- 
tion of its Supreme Committee of Management. 
This circumstance alone would have excited a strong 
interest in the public mind, respecting the first pro- 
duction of the Tragic Muse which had been an- 
nounced under such auspices and had passed the 
ordeal of such judgments; and the Tragedy, on 
which you have requested my judgment, was the 
work on which the great expectations, justified by so 
many causes, were doomed at length to settle. 

But before I enter on the examination of Bertram, 
or the Castle of St. Aldobrand, I shall interpose a few 
words on the phrase German Drama, which I hold to 
be altogether a misnomer. At the time of Lessing, 



the German Stage, such as it was, appears to have 
been a flat and servile copy of the French. It was 
Lessing who first introduced the name and the works 
of Shakspeare to the admiration of the Germans 
and I should not, perhaps, go too far, if I add, that it 
was Lessing who first proved to all thinking men, 
even to Shakspeare's own countrymen, the true na- 
ture of his apparent irregularities. These, he de- 
monstrated were deviations only from the Acndeiit^ 
of the Greek Tragedy ; and from such accidents as 
hung a heavy weight on the wings of the Greek 
Poeis, and narrowed their flight within the limits of 
what we may call the Heroic Opera. He proved, 
that in all the essentials of art, no less than in the 
truth of nature, the plays of Shakspeare were in- 
comparably more coincident with the principles of 
Aristotle, than the productions of Corneille and 
Racine, notwithstanding the boasted regularily of 
the latter. Under these convictions, were Lessing's 
own dramatic works composed. Their deficiency ia 
in depth and in imagination; their excellence is in 
the construction of the plot, the good sense of the 
sentiments, the sobriety of the morals, and the high 
polish of the diction and dialogue. In short, his 
dramas are the very antipodes of all those which it 
has been the fashion, of late years, at once to abuse 
and to enjoy under the name of the German Drama. 
Of this latter, Schiller's Robbers was the earliest spe- 
cimen ; the first fruits of his youth, (I had almost 
said of his boyhood) and, as such, the pledge and 
promise of no ordinary genius. Only as such did the 
maturer judgment of the author tolerate the play. 
During his whole life he expressed himself concern- 
ing this production, with more than needful asperity, 
as a monster not less offensive to good taste than to 
sound morals ; and, in his latter years, his indignation 
at the unwonted popularity of the Robbers, seduced 
him into contrary extremes, viz : a studied feebleness 
of interest, (as far as the interest was to be derived 
from incidents and the excitement of curiosity ;) a dic- 
tion elaborately metrical ; the affectation of rhymes ; 
and the pedantry of the chorus. But to understand 
the true character of the Robbers, and of the count- 
less imitations which were its spawn, I must inform 
you, or at least, call to your recollection, that about 
that time, and for some years before it, three of the 
most popular books in the German language, were, 
the translations of Young's Night Thoughts, Hervey's 
Meditations, and Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe. 
Now, we have only to combine the bloated style and 
peculiar rhythm of Hervey, which is poetic only on 
account of its utter unfitness for prose, and might as 
appropriately be called prosaic, from its utter unfit- 
ness for poetry; we have only, I repeat, to combine 
those Herveyisms with the strained thoughts, the 
figurative metaphysics and solemn epigrams of Young 
on the one hand ; and with the loaded sensibility, 
the minute detail, the morbid consciousness of every 
thought and feeling in the whole flux and reflux 
of the mind, in short, the self-involution and dream- 
like continuity of Richardson on the other hand ; and 
then, to add the horrific incidents, and mysterious 
villains — (geniuses of supernatural intellect, if you 
362 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



353 



will take the author's words for it, but on a level 
with the meanest ruffians of the condemned cells, if 
we are to judge by their actions and contrivances) — 
to add the ruined castles, the dungeons, the trap 
doors, the skeletons, the flesh-and-blood ghosts, and 
the perpetual moonshine of a modern author, (lliom- 
Bdves the lilerary brood of the Casllt of Olranio, the 
translations of which, with the imitations and im- 
provements aforesaid, were about that time beginning 
to make as much noise in (Germany as their originals 
were making in England)— and as the compound of 
these ingredients duly mixed, you will recognise the 
so-called German Drama. The Olla Podrida thus 
cooked up, was denounced, by the best critics in 
Germany, as the more cramps of weakness, and or- 
gasms of a sickly imagination, on the part of the 
author, and the lowest provocation of torpid feeling 
on that of the readers. The old blunder, however, 
concerning the irregularity and wildne.ss of Shak- 
speare, in which the Cierman did but echo the 
French, who again were but the echoes of our own 
critics, was still in vogue, and Shakspeare was quoted 
as authority for the most anti-Shakspearean Drama. 
We have, indeed, two poets who wrote as one, near 
the age of Shakspeare, to whom, (as the worst char- 
acteristic of their writings) the Coryphaeus of the 
present Drama may challenge the honor of being a 
poor relation, or impoverished descendant. For if 
we would charitably consent to forget the comic 
humor, the wit, the fehcities of style, in other words, 
all the poetry, and nine-tenths of all the genius of 
Beaumont and Fletcher, that which would remain 
becomes a Kotzebue. 

The so-called German Drama, therefore, is English 
in its origin, English in its materials, and English by 
re-adoption ; and till we can prove that Kotzebue, or 
any of the whole breed of Kotzebues, whether 
dramatists or romantic writers, or writers of romantic 
dramas, were ever admitted to any other shelf in the 
libraries of well-educated Germans than were occu- 
pied by their originals, and apes' apes in their mother 
country, we should submit to carry our own brat on 
our own shoulders; or, rather, consider it as a lack- 
grace returned from transportation with such im- 
provements only in growth and manners as young 
transported convicts usually come home with. 

I know nothing that contributes more to a clear 
insight into the true nature of any literary phenome- 
non, than the comparison of it with some elder pro- 
duction, the likeness of which is striJcing, yet only 
apparent ; while the difference is real. In the present 
case this opportunity is furnished us by the old Span- 
ish play, entitled Antheisla Fulminalo, formerly, and 
perhaps still, acted in the churches and monasteries 
of Spain, and which, under various names, {^Don 
Juan, the Libertine, <^c.) has had its day of favor in 
every country throughout Europe. A popularity so 
extensive, and of a w-ork so grotesque and extrava- 
gant, claims and merits philosophical attention and 
investigation. The first point to be noticed is, that 
the play is throughout imaginative. Nothing of it 
belongs to the real world but the names of the places 
and persons. The comic parts equally with the 
47 



tragic; the living, equally with the defunct charac- 
ters, are creatures of the brain ; as little amenable to 
the rules of ordinary probability as the Satan of 
Paradise Lost, or the Calilian of the Tempest, and, 
therefore, to be understood and judged of as imper- 
sonated abstractions. Rank, fortune, wit, talent, ac- 
quired knowledge, and liberal accomplishments, with 
beauty of person, vigorous health, and constitutional 
hardihood— all these advantages, elevated by the 
habits and sympathies of noble birth and national 
character, are supposed to have combined in Don 
Juan, so as to give him the means of carrying into 
all its practical consequences the doctrine of a god- 
less nature as the sole ground and efficient cause not 
only of all things, events, and appearances, but, like- 
wise, of all our thoughts, sensations, imptilscs, and 
actions. Obedience to nature is the only virtue; the 
gratifications of the passions and appetites her only 
dictate; each individual's self will the sole organ 
through which nature utters her commands, and 

" Self-contradiction is the only wrong ! 
For, by the laws of spirit, in the right 
Is every iiiilividiial character 
That acts in strict consistence with itseff." 

That speculative opinions, however impious and 
daring they may be, are not always followed by cor- 
respondent conduct, is most true, as well as that they 
can scarcely, in any instance, be systematically real- 
ized, on account of their unsuitableness to human 
nature, and to the institutions of society. It can be 
hell, only where it is all hell ; and a separate world of 
devils is necessary for the existence of any one com- 
plete devil. But, on the other hand, it is no less clear, 
nor, with the biography of Carrier and his fellow 
atheists before us, can it be denied, without wilful 
blindness, that the (so called) system of nature, (i. e. 
materialism, with the utter rejection of moral respon- 
sibility, of a present providence and of both a present 
and future retribution) may influence the characters 
and actions of individuals, and even of communities 
to a degree that almost does away the distinction 
between men and devils, and will make the page of 
the future historian resemble the narration of a mad- 
man's dreams. It is not the wickedness of Den Juan, 
therefore, which constitutes the character an abstrac- 
tion, and removes it from the rules of probability ; 
but the rapid succession of the correspondent acts 
and incidents, his intellectual superiority, and the 
splendid accumulation of his gifts and desirable qual- 
ities, as co-existent with entire wickedness in one and 
the same person. But this likewise is the very cir- 
cumstance which gives to this strange play its charm 
and universal interest. Don Juan is, from beginning 
to end, an intelligible character, as much so as the 
Satan of Milton. The poet asks only of the reader 
what as a poet he is privileged to ask, viz., that sort of 
negative faith in the existence of such a being, which 
we willingly give to productions professedly ideal, 
and a disposition to the same state of feeling as that 
with which we contemplate the idealized figures of 
the Apollo Belvidere, and the Farnese Hercules. 
What the Hercules is to the eye in corporeal strength, 
Don Juan is to the mi?id in strength of character. 
363 



354 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



The ideal consists in the happy balance of the gene- 
ric with the individual. The former makes the 
character representative and symbolical, therefore 
instructive ; because, mufalis mutandis, it is applicable 
to whole classes of men. The latter gives its living 
interest ; for nothing lives or is rtal, but as definite and 
individual. To understand this completely, the read- 
er need only recollect the specific stale of his feel- 
ings, when in looking at a picture of the historic 
(more properly of the poetic or lieroic) class, he ob- 
jects to a particular figure as being too much of a 
portrait ; and this interruption of his complacency he 
feels without the least reference to, or the least ac- 
quaintance with, any person in real life whom he 
might recognise in this figure. It is enough that such 
a figure is not ideal ; and therefore, not ideal, because 
one of the two factors or elements of the ideal is in 
excess. A similar and more powerful objection he 
would feel towards a set of figures which were mere 
abstractions, like those of Cipriani, and what have 
been called Greek forms and faces, i. e. outlines 
drawn according to a recipe. These again are not 
ideal, because in these the other element is in excess. 
" Forma for mans per forman formatam transluceiis," 
is the definition and perfection of ideal art. 

This excellence is so happily achieved in the Don 
Juan, that it is capable of interesting without poetry, 
nay, even without words, as in our pantomime of that 
name. We see, clearly, how the character is form- 
ed ; and the very extravagance of the incidents, and 
the super-human entireness of Don Juan's agency, 
prevents the wickedness from shocking our minds to 
any painful degree. (We do not believe it enough for 
this effect ; no, not even w ith that kind of temporary 
and negative belief or acquiescence which I have 
described above.) Meantime the qualities of his cha- 
racter are too desirable, too flattering to our pride and 
our wishes, not to make up on this side as much ad- 
ditional faith as was lost on the other. There is no 
danger (thinks the spectator or reader) of my becom- 
ing such a monster of iniquity as Do7i Juan ! I never 
sliall be an atheist! I shall never disallow all dis- 
tinction between right and wrong ! / have not the 
least inclination to be so outrageous a drawcansir in 
my love affairs! But to possess such a power of cap- 
tivating and enchanting the affections of the other 
sex! to be capable of inspiring in a charming and 
even a virtuous woman, a love so deep, and so entire- 
ly personal to me ! that even my v^'orst vices, (if I 
tuere vicious) even my cruelty and perfidy, (if 1 were 
cruel and perfidious) could not eradicate the passion! 
To be so loved for my oivn self, that even with a dis- 
tinct knowledge of my character, she yet died to save 
me ! this, sir, takes hold of two sides of our nature, 
the better and the worse. For the heroic disinterest- 
edness to which love can transport a woman, cannot 
be contemplated without an honorable emotion of 
reverence towards womanhood ; and on the other 
hand, it is among the miseries, and abides in the dark 
ground-work of our nature, to crave an outward con- 
firmation of that so?ncthing within us, which is our 
very self, that something, not made up of our qualities 
and relations, but itself the supporter and substantial 



basis of all these. Love 7ne, and not my qualities, 
may be a vicious and an insane wish, but it is not a 
wish wholly without a meaning. 

Without power, virtue would be insufficient and 
incapable of revealing its being. It would resemble 
the magic transformation of Tasso's heroine into a 
tree, in which she could only groan and bleed. (Hence 
power is necessarily an object of our desire and of 
our admiration.) But of all power, that of the mind 
is, on every account, the grand desideratum of hu- 
man ambition. We shall be as gods in knowledge, 
was and must have been the frst temptation ; and 
the co-existence of great intellectual lordship with 
guilt has never been adequately represented without 
e,xciting the strongest interest, and for this reason, that 
in this bad and heterogeneous co-ordination we can 
contemplate the intellect of man more exclusively as 
a separate self-subsistence, than in its proper state of 
subordination to his own conscience, or to the will of 
an infinitely superior being. 

This is the sacred charm of Shakspeare's male cha- 
racters in general. They are all cast in the mould 
of Shakspeare's gigantic intellect ; and this is the 
open attraction of his Richard, lago, Edmund, &c. in 
particular. But again : of all intellectual power, that 
of superiority to the fear of the invisible world is the 
most dazzling. Its influence is abundantly proved by 
the one circumstance, that it can bribe us into a vol- 
untary submi.ssion of our better knowledge, into sus- 
pension of all our judgment derived from constant 
experience, and enable us to peruse with the liveliest 
interest, the wildest tales of ghosts, wizards, genii, 
and secret talismans. On this propensity, so deeply 
rooted in our nature, a specific dramatic probability 
may be raised by a true poet, if the whole of his 
work be in harmony ; a dramatic probability, suffi- 
cient for dramatic pleasure, even when the compo- 
nent characters and incidents border on impossibility. 
The poet does not require us to be awake and be- 
lieve ; he solicits us only to yield ourselves to a 
dream ; and this too with our eyes open, and with 
our judgment perdue behind the curtain ready to 
awake us at the first motion of our will ; and mean- 
time, only not to tZu«believe. And in such a state of 
mind, who but must be impressed with the cool in- 
trepidity of Don John on the appearance of his fa- 
ther's ghost : 

" Ghost.— Monsler '. behold these wounds !" 

" D. John. — I do ! They were well meant, and well per- 
formed, I see." 

" Ohost. Repent, repent of all Ihy villanies. 

My clamorous blood to heaven for vengeance cries. 
Heaven will pour out his judgments on you all. 
Hell gapes for you, for you each fiend doth call. 
And hourly waits your unrepenting fall. 
You with eternal horrors they'll torment, 
Except of all your crimes you suddenly repent." 

(Ghost sinks.) 

" D. John. — Farewell, thou art a foolish ghost. Repent, 
quoth he ! what could this mean 7 our senses are all in a, 
mist, sure." 

" D. Antonio. — (one of D. Juan's reprobate companions.) 
They are not ! 'T was a ghost." 

" D. Lopez — (another reprobate.) I ne'er believed thoM 
foolish tales before." 

" JD. JoAn.— Come! 'T is no matter. Let it be what (i 
will, it must be natural." 

364 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



355 



' D. .Int. — Anil nature is tinallcrnble in us too." 
" D. John. — 'T is true ! The nuture of a ghost cannot 
change ours." 

Wlio also can deny a portion of sublimity to the 
tremendous consistency with which he stands out the 
last fearful trial, like a second Prometheus ? 
'•■ Chorus of Devils." 
" .^latui-Ghost. — Will you not rolcnt and foel remorse ?" 
" J), ./olin. — Coulilst ihou liestoiv another heart on me, I 
might. But with this heart I have, I cannot." 
" D. I.Dpez. — These things are prodigious." 
" D. .Inton. — I have a sort of grudging to relent, but 
something holds me back." 
" D. J.np. — If we could, 't is now too late. I will not." 
" D. Ant.— We defy thee ;" 

" Ohost. — Perish ye impious wretches, go and find the pun- 
ishments laid up in store for you !" 

(Thunder and lightning. D. Lop. and D. Ant. are swallow- 
bJ up.) 

" fy/i«>-t to D. John. — Behold their dreadful fates and 
know that thy last moment's come 1" 

"D.John. — Think not to fright me, foolish ghost; I'll 
break your marble body in pieces, and pull down your horse." 
(Thunder and lightning — chorus of devils, &c. 
" n. John. — These things I see with wonder but no fear. 
Were all the elements to be confounded. 
And shutHed all into their former chaos ; 
Were seas of sulphur flaming round about me, 
And all mankind roaring within those fires, 
I could not fear, or feel the least remorse. 
To the last instant I would dare thy power. 
Here I stand firm, and all thy threats condemn. 
Thy murderer (to the ghost of one. whom he had murdered) 
Stands here ! Now do thy worst !' ' 

(He is swallowed up in a cloud of fire.) 

\n fine, the character of Don John consists in the 
union of every thing desirable to human nature as 
means, and which, therefore, by the well-known law 
of association become at length desirable on their own 
account, and in their own dignity they are here dis- 
played, as being employed to ends so i/Hhuman, that 
in the effect they appear almost as means without an 
end. The ingredients too are mixed in the happiest 
proportion, so as to uphold and relieve each other — 
more especially in that constant interpoise of wit, 
gaiety, and social generosity, which prevents the 
criminal, even in his most atrocious moments, from 
sinking into the mere ruffian, as far, at least, as our 
imagination sits in judgment. Above all, the fine 
suffusion through the whole, with the characteristic 
manners and feelings of a highly bred gentleman 
gives life to the drama. Thus having invited the 
slafue g/tosl of the governor whom he had murdered, 
to supper, which invitation the marble ghost accept- 
ed by a nod of the head, Don John has prepared a 
banquet. 

" D. Jjhn — Some wine, sirrah I Here's to Don Pedro's 

ghost — he should have been welcome." 
" D. Lop. — The rascal is afraid of you after death." 

( One knocks hard at the door. 
" D. .Tohn. — (to the servant) — Rise and do your duly." 
" .Srrv.—OU the devil, the devil I" (marble ghost enters.) 
" D. -John. — Ha! 'tis the ghost! Let's rise and receive 

him ! Come Governor you are welcome, sit there ; if we 

had thought you would have come, we would have staid for 

you. 

• ••****» 

Here Governor, your health ! Friends, put it about I Here's 
excellent meat, taste of this ragout. Come I 'II help you, 
come cat, and let old quarrels be forgotten." 

(.The ghost threatens him with vengeance. 
G« 



" r>. John. — We arc too much confirmed — curse on thia 
dry discourse. Come here's to your mistress ; you had one 
when you were living : not forgetting your sweet sister." 
(.Devils enter.) 

" D. .John. — Are these some of your retinue 1 Devils say 
youl I 'm sorry I have no burnt brandy to treat 'em with ; 
that's drink fit for devils," &c. 

Nor is the scene from which we quote interesting 
in dramatic probability alone ; it is susceptible like- 
wise of a sound moral ; of a moral that has more than 
common claims on the notice of a too numerous class, 
who are ready to receive the qualities of gentlemanly 
courage, and scrupulous honor, (in all the recognized 
laws of honor) as the suhstitutes of virtue, instead of 
its ornaments. This, indeed, is the moral value of 
the play at large, and that which pi.ices it at a world's 
distance from the spirit of modern jacobinism. The 
latter introduces to us clumsy copies of these showy 
instrumental qualities, in order to reconcile us to vice 
and want of principle; while the Alheista Fulminato 
presents an exquisite jwrtraittire of the same qualities, 
in all their gloss and glow ; but presents them for the 
sole purpose of displaying their hollowness, and in 
order to put us on our guard by demonstrating their 
utter indifference to vice and virtue, vvhenever these 
and the like accomplishments are contemplated for 
themselves alone. 

Eighteen years ago I observed, that the whole se- 
cret of the modern Jacobinical drama, (which, and 
not the German, is its appropriate designation) and of 
all its popularity, consists in the confusion and sub- 
version of the natural order of things in their causes 
and effects: namely, in the excitement of surprise by 
representing the qualities of liberality, refined feel- 
ing, and a nice sense of honor (those things rather 
which pass amongst us for such) in persons and in 
classes where experience teaches us least to expect 
them; and by rewarding with all the sympathies 
which are the due of virtue, those criminals whom 
law, reason, and religion have excommunicated from 
our esteem. 

This of itself would lead me back to Bertram or 
the Castle of St. Aldobrand ; but, in my own mind, 
this tragedy was brought into connexion with the 
Libertine, (Shadwell's adaptation of the Atheisia Ful- 
minato to the English stage in the reign of Charles 
the Second) by the fact, that our modern drama is 
taken, in the substance of it, from the first scene of 
the third act of the Libertine. But with what palpa- 
ble superiority of judgment in the original! Earth 
and hell, men and spirits, are up in arms against Doji 
John : the two former acts of the Play have not only 
prepared us for the supernatural, but accustomed us 
to the prodigious. It is, lherefi)re, neither more nor 
less than we anticipate, when the captain exclaims, 
" In all the dangers I have been, such horrors I never 
knew. I am quite unmanned ;" and when the hcr- 
mil says, " that he had beheld the ocean in wildest 
rage, yet ne'er before saw a storm so dreadful, such 
horrid flashes of lightning, and such claps of thunder, 
were never in my remembrance." And Don John's 
burst of startling impiety is equally intelligible in its 
motive, as dramatic in its effect. 

But what is there to account for the prodigy of th© 
3G5 



356 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tempest at Bertram's shipwreck ? It is a mere super- 
natural effect without even a hint of any supernatu- 
ral agency ; a prodigy without any circumstance men- 
tioned that is prodigious; and a miracle introduced 
without a ground, and ending without a result. Every 
event and every scene of the play might have taken 
place as well if Bertram and his vessel had been 
driven in by a common hard gale, or from want of 
provisions. The first act would have indeed lost its 
greatest and most sonorous picture : a scene for the 
sake of a scene, without a word spoken ; as such, 
therefore, (a rarity without a precedent) we must 
take it, and be thankful ! In the opinion of not a few, 
it was, in every sense of the word, the best scene in 
the play. I am quite certain it was the most innocent: 
and the steady, quiet uprightness of the flame of the 
wax-candles which the monks held over the roaring 
billows amid the storm of wind and rain, was really 
miraculous. 

The Sicilian sea coast : a convent of monks : night : 
a most portentous, unearthly storm : a vessel is 
wrecked : contrary to all human expectation, one man 
saves himself by his prodigious powers as a swimmer, 
aided by the peculiarity of his destination — 



" All, all did perish- 



Ist Monk. — Change, change those drenched weeds — 
Prior. — I wist not of them — every soul did perish — 

Enter 3d Monk, hastily. 

3d Monk. — No, there was one did battle with the storm 
With careless desperate force ; full many times 
His life was won and lost, as tho' he recked not — 
Xo hand did aid him, and he aided none — 
Alone he breasted the broad wave, alone 
That man was saved." 

Well ! This man is led in by the monks, supposed 
dripping wet, and to very natural inquiries, he either 
remains silent, or gives most brief and surly answers, 
and after three or four of these half-line courtesies, 
" dashing off the monks" who had saved him, he ex- 
claims in the true sublimity of our modern misan- 
thropic heroism — 

' Off ! ye are men — there's poison in your touch 
ButI must yield, for this (wkat ?) hath left me strengthless." 

So end the three first scenes. In the next, (the Cas- 
tle of St. Aklobrand) we find the servants there 
equally frightened with this unearthly storm, though 
wherein it differed from other violent storms we are 
not told, except that Hugo informs us, page 9 — 

Piet. — " Hugo, well met. Does e'en thy age bear 

Memory of so terrible a storm ■? 

Hugo. — They have been frequent lately. 

Piet. — They are ever so in Sicily. 

Hugo. — So it is said. But storms when I was young 

Would still pass o'er like Nature's fitful fevers. 

And rendered all more wholesome. Now their rage 

Sent thus unseasonable and profitless 

Speaks like threats of heaven." 

A most perplexing theory of Sicilian storms is this of 
old Hugo! and what is very remarkable, not apparent- 
ly founded on any great familiarity of his own with 
this troublesome article. For when Pietro asserts the 
'ever more frequency" of tempests in Sicily, the old 
man professes to know nothing more of the fact, but 
by hearsay. "So it is said." — But why he assumed 



this storm to be unseasonable, and on what he ground- 
ed his prophecy, (for the storm is still in full fury) 
that it would be profitless, and without the physical 
powers common to all other violent sea-winds in pu- 
rifying the atmosphere, we are left in the dark ; as 
well concerning the particular points in which he 
knew it (during its continuance) to differ from those 
that he had been acquainted with in his youth. We 
are at length introduced to the Lady Imogine, who, 
we learn, had not rested " through " the night, not on 
account of the tempest, for 

"Long ere the storm arose, her restless gestures 
Forbade all hope to see her blest with sleep." 

Sitting at a table, and looking at a portrait, she in- 
forms us — First, that portrait-painters may make a 
portrait from memory — 

" The limner's art may trace the absent feature." 

For surely these words could never mean, that a 
painter may have a person sit to him, who afterwards 
may leave the room or perhaps the country ? Second, 
that a portrait-painter can enable a mourning lady 
to possess a good likeness of her absent lover, but 
that the portrait-painter cannot, and who shall — 

" Restore the scenes in which they met and parted 7" 

The natural answer would have been — Why the 
scene-painter to be sure ! But this unreasonable lady 
requires, in addition, sundry things to be painted that 
have neither lines nor colors — 

"The thoughts, the recollections sweet and bitter 
Or the Elysian dreams of lovers when they loved." 

Which last sentence must be supposed to mean : tuhen 
they were present and making love to each other. — 
Then, if this portrait could speak, it W'ould " acquit 
the laith of womankind." How? Had she remained 
constant ? No, she has been married to another man, 
whose wife she now is. Huw then ? Why, that in 
spite of her marriage vow, she had continued to 
yearn and crave for her former lover — 

"This has her body, that her mind ; 
Which hi^s the belter bargain V 

The lover, however, was not contented with this 
precious arrangement, as we shall soon find. The 
lady proceeds to inform us, that during the many 
years of their separation, there have happened in the 
different parts of the world, a number of " such 
things ,•" even such as in a course of years always 
have, and, till the millennium, doubtless always will 
happen somewhere or other. Yet this passage, both 
in language and in metre, is, perhaps, among the best 
parts of the Play. The lady's loved companion and 
most esteemed"att«ndant, Clotilda, now enters and 
explains this love and esteem by proving herself a 
most passive and dispassionate listener, as well as a 
brief and lucky querist, who asks by cAance, questions 
that we should have thought made for the very sake 
of the answers. In short, she very much reminds us 
of those puppet-heroines, for whom the showman con- 
trives to dialogue, without any skill in ventriloquism. 
This, notwithstanding, is the best scene in the Play 
and though crowded with solecisms, corrupt diction 
366 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



357 



and offences against metre, would possess merits suf- 
ficient to outweigh them, if we could suspend the 
moral sense during the perusal. It tolls well and 
passionately the preliminarj' circumstances, and thus 
overcomes the main diHicully of most first acts, viz. 
that of retrosjwctivo narration. It tells us of her 
having been honorably addressed by a noble youth, 
of rank and l()rtinie vastly superior to her own : of 
their mutual love, heightened on her part by grati- 
tude; of his loss of his sovereign's iiivor; his dis- 
grace, attainder and flight; that he (thus degraded) 
sunk into a vile ruilian, the chieflaiii of a murderous 
banditti; and that from the habitual indulgence of 
the most reprobate habits and ferocious passions, he 
had become so changed even in his appearance and 
features, 

" That she who bore him had recoiled Trom him. 
Nor known the alien visage of her child ; 
Yet slill she [Imogine] loved him." 
She is compelled by the silent entreaties of a father, 
perishing with " bitter shameful want on the cold 
earth,"' to give her hand, witli a heart tiius irrevoca- 
bly pre-engaged, to Lord Aldobrand, ihe enemy of 
her lover, even to the very man who had baffled his 
ambitious schemes, and was, at the present time, en- 
trusted with the execution of the sentence of death 
which had been passed on Bertram. IS'ow, the proof 
of "woman's love," so industriously held forth for 
the sympathy, if not the esteem of the audience, con- 
sists in this: that though Bertram had become a rob- 
ber and a murderer by trade, a ruffian in manners, 
yea, with form and features at which his own mother 
could not but " recoil," yet she, (Lady Imogine,) " the 
wife of a most noble, honored Lord," estimable as a 
man, exemplary and affectionate as a husband, and 
the fond father of her only child — that she, notwith- 
standing all this, striking her heart, dares to say it — 

"But thou art Bertram's still, and Bertram's ever." 

A monk now enters, and entreats in his Prior's name 
for the wonted hospitality, and " free noble usa^e,'' of 
the Ca.stle of St. Aldobrand, for some wretched sliip 
wreckod souls; and from this we learn, for the first 
time, to our infinite surprise, that notwithstanding the 
supernaturalness of the storm aforesaid, not only Ber- 
tram, but the whole of his gang, had been saved, by 
what means we are left to conjecture, and can only 
conclude that they had all the same desperate swim- 
ming powers, and the same saving dfestiny as the hero, 
Bertram himself So ends the first act, and with it 
the tale of the events, both those with which the Tra- 
gedy begins, and those which had occurred previous 
to the date of it.s commencement. The second dis- 
plays Bertram in disturbed sleep, which the Prior, 
who hangs over him, prefers calling a " starting 
trance," and with a strained voice, that would have 
awakened one of the seven sleepers, observes to the 
audience — 

" flow the lip works ! How the bare teeth do grind ! 
And beaded drops course down iiis writhen brow !"* 

•" The big round tears 



Coursed one another down his innocent nose 
In piteous chase." 



The dramatic effect of which passage we not only 
concede to the admirers of this Tragedy, but acknow- 
ledge the further advantage of" preparing the audi- 
ence for the most surprising series of wry faces, pro- 
flalcd mouths, and lunatic gestures, that were ever 
"launched " on an audience to " sear the sense."i 

Prior. — " I will awake him from this horrid trance ; 

This ie no natural sleep 1 Hoi zraic (Afc, stranger." 

This is rather a whimsical application of the verb 
reflex, we must confess, though we remember a simi- 
lar transfer of the agent to the patient in a manuscript 
Tragedy, in which the Bertram of the piece, pros- 
trating a man with a single blow of his fist, exclaims 
— " Knock me thee down, then ask tliee if thou 
liv'st." Well, the stranger obeys; and whatever his 
sleep might have been, his waking was porieclly 
natural, for lethargy itself could not withstand the 
scolding stcntorship of Mr. Holland, the Prior. We 
next learn from the best authority, his own confession, 
that the misanthropic hero, whose destiny was incom- 
patible with drowning, is Count Bertram, who not 
only reveals his past fortunes, but avows with open 
atrocity, his satanic hatred of Imogine's Lord, and his 
frantic thirst of revenge; and so the raving character 
scolds — and what else? Does not the Prior act? 
Does he send for a posse of constables or thief-takers, 
to handcuff the villain, and take him either to Bed- 
lam or Newgate ? Nothing of the kind ; the author 
preserves the unity of character, and the scolding 
Prior from first to last does nothing but scold, with 
the exception, indeed, of the last scene of the last 
act, in which, with a most surprising revolution, he 
whines, weeps, and kneels to the condemned blas- 
pheming assassin out of pure affection to the high- 
hearted man, the sublimity of whose angel-sin rivals 
the star-bright apostate, (i. e. who was as proud a.s 
Lucifer, and as wicked as the Devil,) and "had 
thrilled him" (Prior Holland aforesaid) with wild 
admiration. 

Accordingly, in the very next scene, we have this 
tragic IMachealh, with his whole gang, in the Castle 
of St. Aldobrand, without any attempt on the Prior's 
part either to prevent him, or to put the mistress and 
servants of the Castle on their guard against their 
new inmates, though he (the Prior) knew, and con- 
fesses that he knew, that Bertram's "fearful mates" 

snys Shakspearc of a wounded stag, hanging his head over a 
stream : naturally, from the position of Ihe head, and most 
beautifully, from the association of the preceding image, of 
the chase, in which " the poor senucster'd stag from the hun- 
ter'e aim had ta'en a hurt." In the supposed position of 
Bertram, the metaphor, if not false, loses all the propriety of 
the original. 

t Among a number of other instances of words chofcn 
without reason, Imogine, in the first act. declares that thun- 
der-storms were not able to intercept her prayers for " the 
desperate man, in desperate ways who dealt" — 

" Yea, when the launched bolt did sear her sense. 
Her soul's deep orisons were breathed for him ;" 

i. e. when a red-hot bolt, launched at her from a thunder- 
cloud, had cauterized her sense — in plain English, burnt her 
eyes out of her head, she kept still praying on. 

" Was not this love ? Yes, thus doth woman iove ! 
367 



358 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



were assassins so habituated and naturalized to guilt, 
that— 

" When their drenched, hold forsook both gold and gear. 
They griped their daggers with a murderer's instinct ;" 

and though he also knew that Bertram was the leader 
of a band whose trade was blood. To the Caslle, 
however, he goes, thus with the holy Prior's consent, 
if not with his assistance; and thither let us follow 
him. 

No sooner is our hero safely housed in the Castle 
of St. Aldobrand, than he attracts the notice of the 
lady and her confidante, by his " wild and terrible 
dark eyes," " muffled form," " fearful form,"* "darkly 
wild," "proudly stern," and the like common place 
indefinites, seasoned by merely verbal antithesis, and, 
at best, copied with very slight change, from the Con- 
RADE of Southey's Joan of Arc. The lady Imogine, 
who has been (as is the case, she tells us, with all 
soft and solemn spirits) worshipping the moon on a 
terrace or rampart within view of the castle, insists 
on having an interview with our hero, and this, too, 
tete-a-tete. Would the reader learn why and where- 
fore the confidante is excluded, who very properly 
remonstrates against such "conference, alone, at 
night, with one who bears such fearful form " — the 
reason follows — " why, tJierefore send him !" I say 
follows, because the next line, " all things of fear 
have lost their power over me," is separated from the 
former by a break or pause, and beside that it is a 
very poor answer to the danger — is no answer at all 
to the gross indelicacy of this wilful exposure. We 
must, therefore, regard it as a mere afterthought, that 
a little softens the rudeness, but adds nothing to the 
weight of that exquisite woman's reason aforesaid. 
And so exit Clotilda, and enter Bertram, who " stands 
without looking at her," that is, with his lower limbs 
forked, his arms akimbo, his side to the lady's front, 
the whole figure resembling an inverted Y. He is 
s(X)n, however, roused from the state surly to the state 
frantic, and then follow raving, yelling, cursing, she 
fiiinting, he relenting, in run's Imogine's child, 
squeaks " mother !" He snatches it up, and with a 
"God bless thee, child! Bertram has kissed thy 
child," — the curtain drops. The third act is short, 
and short be our account of it. It introduces Lord 
St. Aldobrand on his road homeward, and next Imo- 
gine in the convent, confessing the foulness of her 
heart to the Prior, who first indulges his old humor 
with a fit of senseless scolding, then leaves her alone 

* Tills sort of repetition is one of this writer's peculiarities, 
and there is scarce a page which does not furnish one or more 
instances — Ex. gr. in the first page or two. Act I. hne 7ih, 
" and deemed that I might sleep." — Line 10, " Did rock and 
Quiver in the bickering glare." — Lines 14, 15, 16, " But by 
the momently gleams of sheeted blue, Did the pale marbles 
glare bo sternbi on me, I almost deemed they lived." — Line 
37, "The glare of Hell."— Line 35, " O holy Prior, this is 
no earthly storm." — Line 38, " This is no earthly stor/n." — 
Line 42, "Dealing with us."— Line 43, "Deal thus stern- 
ly" — Line 44, " Speak I thou hast something seen!" — A 
fearful sight!"— hine 45, " What hast thou seen ? A pite- 
ous, fearful sight."--L,\ne 48, " quivering gleams." — Line 
50, " In the hollow pauses of the storm." — Line 61, " The 
pauses of the storm," &c. 



with her ruffian paramour, with whom she makes 
at once an infamous appointment, and the curtain 
drops, that it may be carried into act and consumma- 
tion. 

I want words to describe the mingled horror and 
disgust with which I witnessed the opening of the 
fourth act, considering it as a melancholy proof of the 
depravation of the public mind. The shocking spirit 
of jacobinism seemed no longer confined to politics. 
The familiarity with atrocious events and characters 
appeared to have poisoned the taste, even where it 
had not directly disorganized the moral principles, 
and left the feelings callous to all the mild appeals, 
and craving alone for the grossest and most outrage- 
ous stimulants. The very fact then present to onr 
senses, that a British audience could remain passive 
under such an insult to common decency, nay, re- 
ceive with a thunder of applause, a human being 
supposed to have come reeking from the consumma- 
tion of this complex foulness and baseness, these and 
the like reflections so pressed as with the weight of 
lead upon my heart, that actor, author, and tragedy 
would have been forgotten, had it not been for a plain 
elderly man sitting beside me, who, with a very seri- 
ous face, that at once expressed surprise and aver- 
sion, touched my elbow, and, pointing to the actor, 
said to me in a half-whisper — " Do you see that little 
fellow there ? he has just been committing adultery !" 
Somewhat relieved by the laugh which this droll ad- 
dress occasioned, I fijrced back my attention to the 
stage sufficiently to learn that Bertram is recovered 
from a transient fit of remorse, by the information 
that St. Aldobrand was commissioned (to do what 
every honest man must have done without commis- 
sion, if he did his duty) to seize him and deliver him 
to the just vengeance of the law ; an information 
which (as he had long known himself to be an at- 
tainted traitor and proclaimed outlaw, and not only a 
trader in blood himself, but notoriously the Captain 
of a gang of thieves, pirates and assassins) assuredly 
could not have been new to him. It is this, how- 
ever, which alone and instantly restores him to his 
accustomed state of raving, blasphemy, and nonsense. 
Next follows Imogine's constrained interview with 
her injured husband, and his sudden departure again, 
all in love and kindness, in order to attend the feast 
of St. An.selm at the convent. This was, it must be 
owned, a very strange engagement for so tender a 
husband to make within a few minutes after so long 
an absence. But first his lady has told him that she 
has "a vow on her," and wishes "that black perdi- 
tion may gulph her perjured soul," — (Note: she is 
lying at the very time) — if she ascends his bed till 
her penance is accomplished. How, therefore, is the 
poor husband to amuse himself in this interval of her 
penance? But do not be distressed, reader, on ac- 
count of Lord St. Aldobrand's absence! As the au- 
thor has contrived to send him out of the house, 
when a husband would be in his, and the lover's 
way, so he will doubtless not be at a loss to bring 
him back again so soon as he is wanted. Well ! the 
husband gone in on the one side, out pops the lover 
from the other, and for the fiendish purpose of har- 
368 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



359 



rowing up the soul of his wretched accomplice in 
guilt, by annoinicing to her with most brutal and 
blasphemous execrations, his fixed and deliberate re- 
i-olve to assassinate her husband ; all this, too, is for 
no discoverable purjiose, on the part of the author, 
but that of introducing a series of super-tragic slarls, 
jiauscs, screams, struggling, dagger-throwing, falling 
on the ground, starting up again wildly, swearing, 
outcries for help, falling again on the ground, rising 
again, faintly tottering towards the door, and, to end 
the scene, a most convenient fainting fit of our lady's, 
just in time to give Bertram an opiwrtunity of seek- 
ing the object of his hatred, before she alarms the 
house, which indeed she has had full time to have 
done before, but that the author rather chose she 
should amuse hcrseli'and the audience by the above- 
describeil ravings and starlings. She recovers slowly, 
and to her enter Clotilda, the confidante and mother 
confessor; then commences what in theatrical lan- 
guage is called the madness, but which the author 
mure accurately entitles delirium, it appearing in- 
deed a sort of intermittent fever, with fits of light- 
headedness off and on, whenever occasion and stage 
effect happen to call for it. A convenient return of 
the storm (we told the reader belbrehand how it 
would be) had changed 

" The rivulet that bathed the Convent walls. 
Into a roaming flood ; upon its brink 
The Lord and his small train do stand appalled. 
With torch and bull from their high battlements 
The monks do summon to the pats in vain ; 
He must return to-night." — 

Talk of the devil, and his horns appear, says the 
proverb: and sure enough, within fen lines of the 
exit of the messenger sent to stop him, the arrival of 
Lord St. Aldobrand is announced. Bertram's ruffian 
band now enter, and range themselves across the 
stage, giving fresh cause (or Imogine's screams and 
madness. St. Aldobrand having received his mortal 
wound behind the scenes, totters in to welter in his 
blood, and to die at the feet of this double-damned 
adulteress. 

Of her, as far as she is concerned in this 4th act, 
we have tw'o additional points to notice: first, the 
low cunning and Jesuitical trick with which she de- 
ludes her husband into words of forgiveness, which 
he himself does not understand ; and secondly, that 
every where she is made the object of interest and 
sympathy, and it is not the author's fault, if at any 
moment she excites feelings less gentle than those 
we are accustomed to associate with the self accusa- 
tions of a sincere, religious penitent. And did a Bri- 
tish audience endure all this? They received it with 
plaudits, which, but for the rivalry of the carts and 
hackney-coaches, might have disturbed the evening 
prayers of the scanty w-eek-day congregation at St. 
Paul's cathedral, 

Tempera mutantur, nos ct mutamur in illis. 

Of the 5th act, the only thing noticeable (for rant 

and nonsense, though abundant as ever, have, long 

before the last act, become things of course) is the 

profane representation of the high altar in a chapel, 

Gg2 



with all the vessels and other preparations for the 
holy sacrament. A hymn is actually sung on the 
stage by the choirister boys! For the rest, Imogine, 
who now and then lalhs deliriously, but who is al 
ways light-headed, so far as her gown and hair can 
make her so, wanders about in dark woods, with ca- 
vern-rocks and precipices in the back scene; and a 
number of mute dramatis personal move in and out 
continually, for whose presence there is always at 
least this reason, that they aff<)rd something to he 
seen, by that very large part of a Dniry-lane audi- 
ence, who have small chance of hearing n word. 
She had, it appears, taken her child with her; but 
what becomes of the child, whether she murdered it 
or not, nobody can tell, nobody can learn ; it was a 
riddle at the representation, and, after a most atten- 
tive perusal of the play, a riddle it remains. 

" No more I know, T wish I did, 
And I would tell it all to you; 
For what became of this poor child 
There's none that ever know." 

Wordsworth^ s Thorn. 

Our whole information * is derived from the follow- 
ing words — 

" Prior. — Where is thy child ? 

Clotil. — [Pointing to the cavern into which she had look- 
ed] Oh, he lies cold within his cavern tomb ! 

Why dost thou urge her with the horrid theme 1 

Prior.— [Who will not, the reader may observe, be dia- 
appointed of his dose of scolding,] 

It was to make [qiiere wake! one livine cord o' th' heart; 

And I will try, tho' ray own breaks at it. 

Where is thy child ? 

/mug-.— [With a frantic laugh] 

The forest-fiend had snatched hitn— 

He [who ■? the fiend or the child 7] rides the night-mare 
through the wizzard woods." 

Now, these two lines consist in a senseless plagiarism 
from the counterfeited madne.^s of Edgar in Lear, 
who, in imitation of the gipsy incantations, pims on 
the old word Mair, a Hag; and the no less senseless 
adoption of Dryden's forest-ficiid, and the wizzard 
stream by which Milton, in his Lycidas, so finely 
characterizes the spreading Deva, fabulosus Amnis. 
Observe, too, these images stand unique in the 
speeches of Imogene, without the slightest resem- 
blance to .any thing she says before or aflcr. But we 
are weary. The characters in this act frisk about, 
here, there, and everywhere, as feazingly as the Jack- 
o'lanthorn lights which mischievous boys, from across 
a narrow street, throw with a looking-glass on the 
liices of their opposite neighbors. Bertram disarmed, 
outheroding Charles de Moor in the Robbers, befaces 
tho collected knights of St. Ansclm, (;ill in complete 
armor,) and so, by pure dint of black looks, he out- 
dares them into passive poltroons. The sudden revo- 
lution in the Prior's manners we have before noticed, 
and it is mdeed so outre, that a number of the audi- 
ence imagined a great secret was to come out. viz. 
that the Prior was one of the many instances of a 

* The child is an important pcrsonase, for I sec not by 
what possible means the author could have ended the second 
and third acts, hut for its timely appearance. How ungrate 
ful, then, not further to notice its fate I 

3G9 



360 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



youthful sinner metamorphosed into an old scold, and 
that tiiis Bertram \vouid appear at last to be his son. 
Imogine re-appears at the convent, and dies of her 
own accord. Bertram stabs himself, and dies by her 
side ; and that the play may conclude as it began, 
viz. in a superfetation of blasphemy upon nonsense, 
because he had snatched a sword from a despicable 
coward, who retreats in terror when it is pointed to- 
wards him in sport ; this/c7o de se, and thief-captain, 
this loaiJisome and leprous confluence of robber)-, 
adulten,-, munler, and cowardly assassination, this 
monster, whose best deed is, the having saved his 
betters from the degradation of hanging him, by turn- 
ing Jack Ketch to himself, first recommends llie cha- 
ritable Monks and holy Prior to pray for his soul, and 
then has the folly and impudence to exclaim, 

" I died no felon's death, 
A warrior's weapon freed a warrior's soul I" 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

It sometimes happens that we are punished for our 
faults by incidents, in the causation of which these 
faults had no share; and this I have alwaj-s felt the 
severest punishment. The wound, indeed, is of the 
same dimensions ; but the edges are jagged, and there 
is a dull under-pain that survives the smart which it 
had aggravated. For there is always a consolatory 
feeling that accompanies the sense of a proportion 
between antecedents and consequents. The sense 
of bef()re and after becomes both intelligible and in- 
tellectual when, and only when, we contemplate the 
succession in the relations of cause and etfect, which 
like the two poles in the magnet, manifest the being 
and the unity of the one power by relative op[X)sites, 
and give, as it were, a substratum of permanence, of 
identity, and, therefore, of reality to the shadowy flux 
of time. It is eternity, revealing itself in the pheno- 
mena of time ; and the percepliim and acknowledg- 
ment of the proportionality and appropriateness of the 
present to the past, prove to the afflicted soul, that it 
has not yet been deprived of the sight of God ; that it 
can still recognize the effective presence of a Father, 
though through a darkened glass and a turbid atmo- 
sphere, though of a Father that is chastising it. And 
for this cause, doubtless, are we so framed in mind, 
and even so organized in brain and nerve, that all 
confusion is painful. It is within the experience of 
many medical practitioners, that a patient, with 
strange and unusual symptoms of disease, has been 
more distressed in mind, more wretched from the 
fact of being unintelligible to himself and others, than 
from the pain or danger of the disease ; na)', that the 
patient has received the most solid comfort, and re- 
sumed a genial and enduring cheerl'ulness, from some 
new sj'iTiptom or product, that had at once determined 
the name and nature of his complaint, and rendered 
't an intelligible effect of an intelligible cause ; even 
though the discovery did at the same moment pre- 
clude all hope of restoration. Hence the mystic the- 



ologians, whose delusions we may more confidently 
hope to separate from their actual intuitions, when 
we condescend to read their works without the pre- 
sumption that whatever our fancy, (always the ape, 
and too often the adulterator and counterfeit of our 
raemorj-) had not made or cannot make a picture of, 
must be nonsense ; hence, I say, the Mystics have 
joined in representing the state of the reprobate spi- 
rits as a dreadful dream in which there is no sense 
of realitj-, not even of tlie pangs they are enduring — 
an eternity without time, and, as it were, below it — 
God present, without manifestation of his presence. 
But these are depths which we dare not linger over. 
Let us turn to an instance more on a level with the 
ordinarj- sympathies of mankind. Here, then, and in 
this same healing influence of ligJit and distinct be- 
holding, we may detect the final cause of that in- 
stinct which, in the great majority of instances, leads 
and almost compels the afflicted to communicate 
their sorrows. Hence, too, flows the alleviation that 
results from " opening out our griefs ;" which are 
thus presented in distinguishable forms instead of the 
mist through which whatever is shapeless becomes 
magnified and (literally) enormous. Casimir, in the 
fiftli ode of his third book, has happily expressed this 
thought.* 

Me longus silendi 

Edit amor ; facilisque Lucius 

Hausit medullas. Fugerit ocius, 

Simul negantem vUere jusseris 

Aures aniicorum, et loquacem 

Questibus evacuaris irain. 

Glim querendo desinimus queri, 
Ipsoque Hetu lacryma perditur. 
Nee fortis a;que, si per omncs 
Cura volet residctque ramos. 

Vires amicis perdit in auribus 
Minorquo semper dividitur dolor 
Per multa permissus vagari 
Pectora. — 

Id. Lib. III. Od. 5. 

I shall not make this an excuse, however, for 
troubling my readers with any complaints or explana- 
tions, with which, as readers, they have little or no 
concern. It may suffice, (for the present at least) to 
declare that the causes that have delayed the pub- 
lication of these volumes for so lonsr a period after 
they had been printed off, were not connected with 
any neglect of my own ; and that they would form 



* ClasiiicaU!/, loo, as far as consists with the allegorizing 
fancy of the modem, that still striving to project the inward, 
conlra-distinguishes itself from the seeming ease with which 
the poetry of the ancion'.s rrflrcts the world without. Casi- 
mir atl'ords, perhaps, the most striking instance of this cha- 
racteristic diflerence ; for his sti/le and diction are really 
classical, while Cowley, who resembles Casimir in many re- 
spects, completely barbarizes his I.aliniiy, and even his 
metre, by the heterogeneous naluie of his thoughts. That 
Dr. Johnson should have passed a contrniy judgment, and 
have even preferred Cowley's Latin pnems to Milton's, is a 
caprice that has, if I mistake not, excited the surprise of all 
scholars. I was much amused Inst summi r with the laugh- 
able (itfright with which an Ita'ian poet perused a page of 
Cowley's Davideis, contrasted with the enthusiasm with 
wliich he first ran through, and then read aloud, Miltoii'a 
Mansus and Ad Patrem. 

370 



BIOGRAPIllA LITERARIA. 



361 



on inslructive comment on the chapter concerning 
auihoniliip as a trade, addressed to young men of 
genius in ihc fii>t volume of Ihis work. I remember 
the ludicrous etrert which the first sentence of an 
nuto-biogra(>hy> which, happily for the writer, was 
Bf meagre in incidenls as it is well [)os.sible for the 
life of an individual to be — "The euni/id life which 
I am about to record, from the hour in w hich I rose 
inio exist on this planet," &;e. Yet when, nolwiih- 
etnnding this warning example of self imjxjrtance 
before me, I review my own life, I cannot refrain 
from applying the same epithet to it, and with more 
than ordinary emphasis — and no private feeling, that 
affeclcd myself aiily, should prevent me from pub- 
lis/iiri!: the same, (Ibr urite it I as.surcdly shall, should 
life and leisure \)C granted me) if continued reflection 
should strengthen my present belief, that my history 
would add its conlinycnt to the enfijrcemcnt of one 
important truth, viz. that we must not only love our 
neighbors as ourselves, but ourselves likewise as 
our neighbors ; and that wo can do neither, unless 
we love God above Ixith. 

Who lives tint's not 
Depraved or deprnvc3 1 Who diee, that bears 
JVol one spurn to the grave — of their friends' gift ? 

Strange as the delusion may appear, yet it is most 
true, that three years ago I did not know or believe 
that I had an enemy in the world ; and now, even 
my strongest sen.salions of gratitude are mingled 
with fear, and I reproach myself for being too often 
disposed to ask — Have I one friend ? — During the 
many years which intervened between the compo- 
sition and the publication of the Christabel, it became 
almost as well known among literary men, as if it 
had been on common sale ; the same references 
were made to it, and the same liberties taken with 
it, even to the very names of the imaginary persons 
in the poem. From almost all of our most celebrated 
Poets, and from some with whom 1 had no personal 
acquaintance, I either received or heard of expres- 
sions of admiration that (I can truly say) appeared to 
myself utterly disproportionate to a work that pre- 
tended 10 be nothing more than a common Faery 
Tale. Many, who had allowed no merit to my other 
poems, whether printed or manuscript, and who have 
frankly told me as much, uniformly made an excep- 
tion in favor of the CiiRiSTAnEL and the Poem en- 
titled Love. Year after year, and in societies of the 
most different kinds, I had been entreated to recite 
it ; and the result was still the same in all, and alto- 
gether different in this respect from the effect pro- 
duced by the occasional recitation of any other poems 
I had composed. — This before the publication. And 
since then, with very few exceptions, I have heard 
nothing but abuse, and this loo in a spirit of bitter- 
ness at least as disproportionate to the pretensions of 
the f)oem, had it been the most pitiably below medi- 
ocrity, as the previous eulogies, and liir more inexpli- 
cable. In the Edinburgh Review, it was assailed 
with a malignity and a spirit of personal hatred that 
ought to have injured only the work in which such 
a tirade was suffered lo appear; and this review was 
48 



generally attributed (whether rightly or no I know 
not) to a man who, Iwth in my presence and jn my 
alwonce, has frequently pronounced it the finest poem 
of its kind in the language. This may serve as a 
warning to authors, that in their calculations on the 
probable reception of a poem, they must subtract to 
a large amount from the panegyric; which may 
have encouraged them to publish it, however unsus- 
picious and however various the sources of this pan- 
egyric may have been. And first, allowances muBl 
be made for private enmity, of the very existence of 
which they had perhaps entertained no suspicion— 
for personal enmity behind the mask of anonymous 
criticism : secondly, for the necessity of a certain 
proportion of abuse and ridicule in a Review, in or- 
der to make it saleable ; in consequence of which, 
if they had no friends behind the scenes, the chance 
must needs be against them ; but lastly, and chiefly, 
for the excitement and temporary sympathy of feel- 
ing, which the recitation of the poem by an admirer, 
es|)ecially if he be at once a warm admirer and a 
man of acknowledged celebrity, calls forth in the 
audience. For this is really a species of Animal 
Magnetism, in which the enkindling Reciter by per- 
petual comment of looks and tones, lends his own 
will and apprehensive faculty to his Auditors. They 
live for the time within the dilated sphere of his 
intellectual Being. It is equally possible, though 
not equally common, that a reader left lo himself 
should sink below the poem, as that the poem left to 
it.self should flag beneath the feelings of the reader. — 
But in my own instance, I had the additional misfor- 
tune of having been gossipped about, as devoted to 
metaphysics, and worse than all, to a system incom- 
parably nearer lo the visionary flights of Plato, and 
even lo the jargon of the mystics, than to the es- 
tablished tenets of Locke. Whatever, therefore, 
apj)€ared with my name, was condemned beforehand, 
as predestined metaphysics. In a dramatic poem, 
which had been submitted by me to a gentleman of 
great influence in the Theatrical world, occurred the 
following passage : 

() wc are querulous creatures ! Litlle less 
Than all ihinira can suffice to make ua happy : 
And litlle nr)ore than nothing is enough 
To make ue wretched. 

Ay, here now! (exclaimed the Critic) here come 
Coleridge's Metaphysics ! And the very same motive 
(that is, not that the lines were unfit for the present 
slate of our immense Theatres, but that they were 
Metaphysics*) was assigned elsewhere for the re- 
jection of the two following passages. The first is 
spoken in answer to a usurper, who had rested his 
plea on the circumstance, that he had been chosen 
by the acclamations of the people : 



* Prior unlucky Melnphysics ! and what arc they ? A sin- 
gle sentence expresses Ihe object and thereby the contents of 
this science. TvHii fiavrov : et Dcum quantum licet et il, 
Deo omnia scibis. Know thyself: and so shall thou know 
God, ns far as is permitted to a creature, and in God all 
lliines. — Surely, there is a strange — nay, rather a too natural 
aversion in many to know themselves. 



371 



302 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



What people ? How convened ? Or if convened. 

Must not that masic power that charms together 

Millions of men in council, needs have power 

To win or wield them 1 Rather. O far rather, 

Shout fcirlh tliy titles to yon circling mountains. 

And with a thousandfold reverberation 

Make the rocks flatter thee, and the volleying air 

Unbribed, shout back to thee. King Emerich I 

Ey wholesome laws to embank the Sovereign Power; 

To deepen by restraint ; and by prevention 

Of lawless will to amass and guide the flood 

In its majestic channel, is man's task 

And the true patriot's gloty ! In all else 

Men sufeller trust to Heaven, than to themselves 

When least themselves: even in those whirling crowds 

Where folly is contagious, and too oft 

Even wise men leave their better sense at home 

To chide and wonder at them when retutn'd. 

The second passage is in the mouth of an old and 
esperienced Courtier, betrayed by the man in whom 
he had most trusted. 

And yet Sarolta, simple, inexperienced. 
Could see him as he was and oft has warned me. 
Whence learnt she this 1 O she was innocent. 
And to be innocent is Nature's wisdom. 
The fledge dove knows the prowlers of the air, 
Fear'd soon as seen, and flutters back to shelter ! 
And the young steed recoils upon his haunches. 
The never-yet-seen adder's hiss first heard ! 
Ah ! surer than suspicion's hundred eyes 
Is that fine sense, which to the pure in heart 
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness 
Reveals the approach of evil '. 

As, therefore, my character as a writer could not 
easily be more injured by an overt-act than it was al- 
ready in consequence of the report, I published a 
work, a large portion of which was professedly meta- 
physical. A long delay occurred between its first 
annunciation and its appearance; it was reviewed 
therefore, by anticipation, with a malignity, so avow- 
edly and exclusively personal, as is, I believe, unpre- 
cedented even in the present contempt of all common 
humanity that disgraces and endangers the liberty of 
the press. After its appearance, the author of this 
lampoon was chosen to review it in the Edinburgh 
Review; and under the single condition, that he 
should have written what he himself really thought, 
and have criticised the work as he would have done 
had its author been indifferent to him, I should have 
chosen that man myself both from the vigor and the 
originality of his mind, and from his particular aciite- 
ness in speculative reasoning, before all others. I 
remembered CatuUus's lines, 

Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle merer 

Aut aliqueni fieri posse putare pium. 
Omnia sunt ingrata: nihil fecisse benignc est: 

Imo, etiam tajdet. teedet obestque magis. 
Ut mihi, quern nemo gravius nee aceribus urgct 

Quam, raudo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit. 

But I can truly say, that the grief with which I 
read this rhapsody of premeditated insult, had the 
Rhapsodist himself for its whole and sole object: and 
that the indignant contempt which it excited in me 
was as e.vclusively confined to it.s employer and su- 
tjurner. I refer to this Review at present, in conse- 
quence of information having been given me, that 
the innuendo of my " potential infidelity," grounded 
on one passage of my first Lay Sermon, has been re- 



ceived and propagated with a degree of credence, of i 
which I can safely acquit the originator of the calum- • 
ny. I give the sentences as they stand in the sermon, 
premising only, that I was speaking exclusively of 
miracles worked for the outward senses of men. " It 
was only to overlin-ow the usurpation exercised in 
and through the senses, that the senses were miracu- 
lously appealed to. Re.\son and Religion are 
THEIR OWN EVIDENCE. The natural sim is in this 
respect a symbol of the spiritual. Ere he is fully 
arisen, and while his glories are still under veil, he 
calls up the breeze to chase away the usurping va- 
pors of the night season, and thus converts the air it- 
self into the minister of its own purification : not 
surely in proof or elucidation of the light from heaven, 
but to prevent its interception. 

" Wherever, therefore, similar circumstances co- 
exist with the same moral causes, the principles re- 
vealed, and the examples recorded, in the inspired 
writings, render miracles superfluous: and if we ne- 
glect to apply truths in expectation of wonders, or un- 
der pretext of the cessation of the latter, we tempt 
God, and merit the same reply which our Lord gave 
to the Pharisees on a like occasion." 

In the sermon and the notes, both the historical 
truth and the necessity of the miracles are strongly 
and frequently asserted. " The testimony of books 
of history, (i. e. relatively to the signs and wonders 
with which Christ came) is one of the strong and 
stately 7)(7?a7S of the church; but it is not the foiin- 
Jafion .'" Instead, therefore, of defending myself, 
which I could easily effect by a series of passages, 
expressing the same opinion, from the Fathers, and 
the most eminent Protestant Divines from the Refor- 
mation to the Revolution, I shall merely stale here, 
what my belief is, concerning the true evidences of 
Christianity. 1. Its consistency with right Reason, I 
consider as the outer Court of the Temple, the com- 
mon area, wiihin which it stands. 2. The miracles, 
with and through which the Religion was first re 
vealed and attested, I regard as the sleps, the vesti- 
bule, and the portal of the Temple. 3. The sense, 
the inward feeling, in the soul of each believer of its 
exceeding desirableiiess — the experience that he needs 
something, joined with the strong foretokening, that 
the Redemption and the Graces propoimded to us in 
Christ, arc what he needs ; — this I hold to be the true 
Foundation of the spiritual Edifice. AViih the 
strong a priori probabilily that flows in from 1 and 3 
on the correspondent historical evidence of 2, no man 
can refuse or neglect to make the experiment with- 
out "uilt. But 4, it is the experience derived from a 
practical conformity to the conditions of the Gospel — 
it is the opening Eye; the dawning Light; the ter- 
rors and the promises of spiritual Growth; the bless- 
edness of loving God as God, the nascent sense of 
Sin hated as Sin, and of the incapability of attaining 
to either without Christ ; it is the sorrow that still 
rises up from beneath, and the consolation that meets 
it from above ; the bosom treacheries of the Principal 
in the warfare, and the exceeding faithfulness and 
long suffering of the uninterested Ally; — in a word, 
it is the actual Trial of the Faith in Christ, with its 
accompaniments and results, that must form the arch- 
372 



BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. 



363 



ed Roof, and Faith itself is the completing Kkv- 
STONE. In order to an ellicient beliei' in Christianity, 
a man must have been a Christian, and this is the 
seeming argumentum in circulo, incident to all spirit- 
ual Truths, to every subject not presentable under 
the iiirms of Time and S()acc as long as we attempt 
to master by the rellex acts of the Understanding, 
what we can only knoiv by the acl of becoming. " Do 
the will of my father, and ye shall liNOW whether I 
am of God." These four evidences I believe to have 
been, and still to be, fi)r the world, for the whole 
Church, all necessary, all equally necessary ; but that 
at present, and i'or the majority of Christians born in 
Christian coimlries, I believe the third and the fourth 
evidences to be the most operative, not as supersed- 
mg, but as involving a glad undoubling (iiith in the 
two ibriner. Credidi, indeoque inlellexi, appears to 
me the dictate equally of Philosophy and Religion, 
even as I believe Redemption to be the antecedent 
of Sanctificalion, and not its consequent. All spirit- 
ual predicates may be construed inditlerently as modes 
of Action, or as states of Being. Thus Holiness and 
Blessedness are the same idea, now seen in relation 
to act, and now to existence. The ready belief which 
has been yielded to the slander of my " potential in- 
fidelity," I attribute in part to the openness with 
which I have avowed my doubts whether the heavy 
interdict, under which the name of Benedict Spin- 
oza lies, is merited on the w hole, or to the whole ex- 
tent. Be this as it may, I wish, however, that I could 
find in the books of philosophy, theoretical or moral, 
which are alone recommended to the present students 
of Theology in our established schools, a iew passages 
as thoroughly Pauline, as completely accordant with 
the doctrines of the established Church, as the fol- 
lowing sentences in the concluding page of Spinoza's 
Ethics. Deinde quo mens amore divino sou beatitu- 
dine magis gaudet, eo plus intclligit, eo niajorem in 
affectus habet polentiam, et eo minus ab allectibus, 
qui mali sunt, patitur : atque adeo ex eo, quod mens 
hoc amore divino seu beatitudine gaudet, poteslatcm 
habet libidines coercendi, nemo beatitudine gaudet 
quia affectus coercuit; sed contra potestas libidines 
coercendi ex ipsa beatitudine oritur. 

With regard to the Unitarians, it has been shame- 
lessly asserted, that I have denied them to be Chris- 
tians. God forbid! F"or how should I know what 
the pietv of the heart may be, or what quantum of 
error in the understanding may consist with a saving 
faith in the intentions and actual dispositions of the 
whole moral being in any one individual ? Never 



will God reject a soul that sincerely loves him, be his 
speculative opinions what they may ; and whether in 
any given instance certain opinions, be they unbelief 
or misbelief, are compatible with a sincere love of 
God, God only can know. But this I have said, and 
shall continue to say ; that if the doctrines, the sum 
of which I believe to constitute the truth in Christ, he 
Christianity, then Unitariani.vm is not, and vice versa: 
and that in speaking theologically and impersonally, 
i. e. of P.siLANTiiRopiSM and Tiikanthropism as 
schemes of belief, without reference to individuals 
who profess either the one or the otiicr, it will be al> 
surd to use a different language as long as it is the 
dictate of common sense, that two opposites cannot 
properly be called by the same name. I should feel 
no offence if an Unitarian applied the same to me, 
any more than if he were to say, that 2 and 2 being 
4, 4 and 4 must be 8. 

AXXa PpoToiv 
Tov fitv Ktvotppovc; av^ai 

Tov S' av KarajitiKp^ivT' ayav 
liX^^ oiKEiuv KarciipaXcv xaXiav 
Xcipos e\KOJV OiTijju), Ov/xo; aroX/ipf. 

This has been my object, and this alone can be my 
defence — and O! that with this my personal as well 
as my literary life might conclude ! the unquench- 
ed desire I mean, not without the consciousness of 
having earnestly endeavored to kindle young minds 
and to guard them against the temptations of scorn- 
ers, by showing that the scheme of Christianity, as 
taught in the Liturgy and Homilies of our Church, 
though not discoverable by human Reason, is yet in 
accordance with it; tJiat link follows link by neces- 
sary consequence ; that Religion passes out of the ken 
of reason only where the eye of reason h.as reached 
its own horizon ; and that faith is then but its contin- 
uation: even as the day softens away into the sweet 
twilight, and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals 
into the darkness. It is night, sacred night ! the up- 
raised eye views only the starry heaven which mani- 
fests itself alone ; and the outward beholding is fixed 
on the sparks twinkling in the awful depth, though 
suns of other worlds, only to preserve the soul steady 
and collected in its pure act of inward adoration to the 
great I AM, and to the filial Word that re-affirmeth 
it from eternity to eternity, whose choral echo is the 
universe. 

eEfl MOKK AOHA. 



373 



^iit iFttentr: 



A SERIES OF ESSAVS, TO AID IN THE FORMATION OP 



FIXED PRINCIPLES IN POLITICS, MORALS, AND RELIGION, 



LITERARY AMUSEMENTS INTERSPERSED. 



Accipe principium rursus, formamque coactam 
Desere : rautata raelior procede figura. Claudian. 



2(if<aTt StiTivaa^ cui ra^iv, a<p' >j^ ip'pva-^ri^, 
AJ5i5- ava^rjaci^, liptf) AOFil spyov iviiSa^. 

ZiZPOA'STPOY Aoyia. 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 



Friend! were an Author privileged to name his 
own judge — in addition to moral and intellectual 
competence, I should look round for some man, 
whose knowledge and opinions had for the greater 
part been acquired experimentally : and the practi- 
cal habits of whoso life had put him on his guard 
with respect to all speculative reasoning, without 
rendering him insensible !o the desirableness of prin- 
ciples more secure than the shifting rules and theo- 
ries generalized from observations merely empirical, 
or unconscious in how many departments of know- 
ledge, and with how large a portion even of profes- 
sional men, such principles are still a desideratum. I 
would select loo one who felt kindly, nay, even par- 
tially, toward me ; but one whose partiality had its 
strongest foundations in hope, and more prospective 
than retrospective would make him quick-sighted in 
the detection, and unreserved in the exposure of the 
deficiencies and defects of each present work, in the 
anticipation of a more developed future. In you, 
honored Friend. I have found all these requisites 
combined and realized: and the improvement, which 
these Essays have derived from your judgment and 
judicious suggestions, would, of itself, have justified 
me in accompanying them with a public acknow- 
ledgment of the same. But knowing, as you cannot 



but know, that I owe in great measure the power of 
having written at all to your medical skill, and to the 
characteristic good sense which directed its exertion 
in my behalf; and whatever I may have written in 
happier vein, to the influence of your society and to 
the daily proofs of your disinterested attachment — 
knowing too, in how entire a sympathy with your 
feelings in this respect the partner of your name has 
blended the affectionate regards of a sister or a 
daughter with almost a mother's watchfulness and 
unwearied solicitude alike for my health, interest, 
and tranquillity ; — you will not, I trust, be pained, you 
ought not, I am sure, be surprised that 

TO 

MR. AND MRS. GILLMAN 

OF HIGHGATE, 
THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED, 

IN TESTIMONY OF HIGH 

RESPECT 
AND GRATEFUL AFFECTION, BY THEIR 

FRIEND, 

S. T. COLERIDGE 



October 7, 1818. 
Highgale 



374 



THE FRIEND. 



>G5 



THE FRIEND. 



ESSAY I. 



f.'rpde mihi, non est pnrvir fiduco", pollicori openi dcccrlanti- 
hu.a, consilium dubiis, lumen cxcis spem dcjectis, rcfrieeri- 
)im fi'ssis. Magna quidem hicc sunt si flant ; pnrva, si pro- 
inillantiir. Vc:um ego non tarn aliis legem ponnm, qiiaiii 
legem vobis mcai prupria; mentis exponam : (iiiam qui pro- 
baveril, tencat; cui non placuerit, abjiciat. Opiarcni, fa- 
teor, talis esse, qui prodcssc possem quam plutiniis. 

PETRARCH: " Dc Vita Solitaria." 



Antecedent to all History, and long glimmering 
through it as n holy Tradition, tliere presents itself 
to our imagination an indefinite period, dateless as 
I'ternity, a State rather than a Time. For even the 
sense of succession is lost in the uniformity of the 
stream. 

It was toward the close of this golden age (the me- 
mory of which the self dissatisfied Race of Men have 
every where preserved and cherished) when Con- 
science acted in Man with the ease and luiiformity 
of Instinct ; when Labor was a sweet name for the 
activity of sane Minds in healthful Bodies, and all 
enjoyed in common the bounteous harvest produced, 
and gathered in, by common effort ; when there ex- 
isted in the Sexes, and in the Individuals of each Sex, 
just variety enough to permit and call forth the gen- 
tle restlessness and final union of chaste love and in- 
dividual attachment, each seeking and finding the 
beloved one by the natural affinity of their Beings; 
when the dread Sovereign of the Universe was 
known only as the Universal Parent, no Altar but 
the pure Heart, and Thanksgiving and grateful Love 
the solo Sacrifice 

In this blest ageof dignified Innocence one of their 
honored Elders, whose absence they were beginning 
to notice, entered with hurrying steps the place of 
their common assemblage at noon, and instantly at- 
^tracted the general attention and wonder by the per- 
turbation of his gestures, and by a strange trouble 
both in his eyes and over his whole countenance. 
.\fier a short but deep silence, when the buzz of va- 
ried inquiry was becoming audible, the old man 
moved toward a small eminence, and having ascend- 
ed it, he thus addressed the hushed and listening 
company. 

" In the warmth of the approaching mid-day, as I 
was reposing in the vast cavern, out of which from 
its northern portal issues the river that winds through 
our vale, a voice powerful, yet not from its loudness, 
suddenly hailed me. Guided by my ear I looked to- 
ward the supposed place of the sound for some Form, 
Irom which it had proceeded. I beheld nothing but 
the glimmering walls of the cavern. Again, as I was 
turning round, the same voice hailed me : and whi- 
thersoever I turned my face, thence did the voice 



seem to proceed. I stood still therefore, and in rev- 
erence awaited its continuation. ' Sojourner of Fnrlh ! 
(the.se were its words) hasten to tlie meeting of thy 
Brethren, and the words which thou now hearo.et, 
the same do thou repent unto them. On the thirtieth 
mom from the morrow's sun-rising, and during the 
space of thrice three days and thrice three nights, a 
thick cloud will cover the sky, and a heavy rain (iill 
on the earth. Go ye therefore, ere the thiriieih sun 
ariseth, retreat to the cavern of the river, and there 
abide till the clouds have paissed away and the rain 
be over and gone. For know ye of a certainly that 
whomever that rain wetteth, on him, yen, on him and 
on his children's children will fiill — the spirit of Mad- 
ness.' Yes! Madness was the word of the voice 
what this be, I know not! But at the sound of the 
word trembling came upon me, and a feeling which 
I would not have had ; and I remained even as ye 
beheld and now behold me." 

The old man ended, and retired. Confused mur- 
murs succeeded, and wonder, and doubt. Day Ibl- 
lowed day, and every day brought with it a diminu- 
tion of the awe impres-sed. They could attach no 
image, no remembered sensations to the threat. The 
ominous morn arrived, the Prophet had retired to the 
appointed cavern, and there remained alone during 
the appointed time. On the tenth morning, he emer- 
ged from his place of shelter, and songlit his friends 
and brethren. But alas! how aflrightful the change'. 
Instead of the common children of one great family, 
working towards the same aim by reason, even as the 
bees in their hives by instinct, he looked and beheld, 
here a miserable wretch watching over a heap of hard 
and unnutritious substances, which he had dug out 
of the earth, at the cost of mangled limbs and exhaust- 
ed faculties. This he appeared to worship, at this 
he gazed, even as the youths of the vale had been 
accustomed to gaze at their chosen virgins in the first 
season of their choice. There he saw a fiirmer com- 
panion speeding on and panting after a butterfly, or 
a withered leaf whirling onward in the breeze; and 
another with pale and distorted countenance follow- 
ing close behind, and still stretching forth a dagger 
to stab his precursor in the back. In another place 
he observed a whole troop of his fellow-men famish- 
ing and in fetters, yet led by one of their brethren 
who had enslaved them, and pressing furiously on- 
wards in the hope of fiimishing and enslaving ano- 
ther troop moving in an opposite direction. For the 
first time, the Prophet missed his accustomed power 
of distinguishing between his dreams and his waking 
perceptions. He stood gazing and motionless, when 
several of the race gathered around him, and enquir- 
ed of each other, who is this man ? how strangely he 
looks! how wild ! — a worthless idler! exclaims one: 
assuredly, a very dangerous madman ! cries a second. 
In short, from words they proceeded to violence: till 
harassed, endangered, solitar}' in a world of forms 
like his own, without sympathy, without object ol 
love, he at length espied in some foss or furanv 
quantity of the maddening water still unevaporatea, 
and uttering the last words of reason. It is in vain 
375 



366 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



TO BE SANE IN A WORLD OF MADMEN, plunged and 

rolled himself in the liquid poison, and came out as 
mad and not more wretched than his neighbors and 
acquaintance. 

The plan of The Friend is comprised in the motto 
to this Essay.* This tale or allegory seems to me to 
contain the objections to its practicability in all their 
strength. Either, says the Skeptic, you are the Blind 
oflering to lead the Blind, or you are talking the lan- 
guage of Sight to those who do not possess the sense 
of seeing. If you mean to be read, try to entertain 
and do not pretend to instruct. To such objections 
* would be amply sufficient, on any system of faith, 
.o answer, that we are not all blind, but all subject 
to distempers of "the mental sight," differing in kind 
and in degree ; that though all men are in error, they 
are not all in the same error, nor at the same time ; 
and that each therefore may possibly heal the other, 
even as two or more physicians, all diseased in their 
general health yet under the immediate action of the 
disease on different days, may remove or alleviate 
the complaints of each other. But in respect to the 
enlertainingness of moral writings, if in entertainment 
be included whatever delights the imagination or af- 
fects the generous passions, so far from rejecting such 
a mean of persuading the human soul, my very sys- 
tem compels me to defend not only the propriety but 
the absolute necessity of adopting it, if we really in- 
tend to render o\ir fellow-creatures better or wiser. 

But it is with dullness as with obscurity. It may 
be positive, and the author's fault; but it may like- 
wise be relative, and if the author has presented his 
bill of fare at the portal, the reader has himself only 
to blame. The main question then is, of what class 
are the persons to be entertained ? — " One of the later 
schools of the Grecians (says Lord Bacon) is at a stand 
to think what should be in it that men should love 
lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with 
poets : nor for advantage, as with the merchant ; but 
lor the lie's sake. I cannot tell why, this same truth 
is a naked and open day-light, that doth not show the 
masques and mummeries and triumphs of the present 
world half so stately and daintily, as candle-lights. 
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that 
showeth best by day ; but it will not rise to the price 
of a diamond or carbuncle, which showeth best in 
varied lights. A mixtvire of lies doth ever add plea- 
sure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken 



* I Translation.) — Believe me, it requires no little conii- 
(ience, to promise Help to the SirugRling, Counsel to the 
Duublful, Light to the Blind, Hope to the Despondent, Re- 
freshment to ihe Weary. These are indeed great things, if 
they he acconiplifhcd ; Iritles if they exist but in a promise. 
1 however aim not so much to prescribe a Law for others, as 
to .=ct forth the Law of my own Mind ; which let the man, 
who shall have approver! of it, abide by ; and let him, to 
whom it shall appear not reasonable, reject it. It is my earn- 
est wish, I confess, to employ my understanding and acquire- 
ments in that mode and direction, in which 1 may be en- 
abled to benefit the largest number possible of nv» fellow- 
cteaturca 



from men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false 
valuations, imaginations as one ri-oidd, and the like 
vinum D^emonum (as a Father callelh poetry) but it 
would leave the minds of a number of men p>oor 
shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, 
and unpleasing to themselves?" 

A melancholy, a too general, but not, I trust, a uni- 
versal truth ! — and even where it does applj', yet in 
many instances not irremediable. Such at least 
must have been my persuasion : or the present work 
must have been wittingly written to no purpose. If 
I believe our nature fettered to all this wretchedness 
of head and heart by an absolute and innate neces- 
sity, at least by a necessity which no human power 
no efforts of reason or eloquence could remove or 
lessen ; I should deem it even presumptuous to aim 
at other or higher object than that of amusing a 
small portion of the reading public. 

And why not? whispers worldly prudence. To 
amuse though only to amuse our visiters is wisdom as 
well as good-nature, where it is presumption to at- 
tempt their amendment. And truly it would be 
most convenient to me in respects of no trifling im- 
portance, if I could persuade myself to take the ad- 
vice. Relaxed by these principles from all moral ob- 
ligation, and ambitious of procuring pastime and self- 
oblivion for a race, which could have nothing noble 
to remember, nothing desirable to anticipate, I might 
aspire even to the praise of the critics and dilettante 
of the higher circles of society ; of some trusty guide 
of blind fashion; some pleasant Analyst of Taste, 
as it exists both in the palate and the soul; some 
living gauge and mete-wand of past and present 
genius. But alas! my former studies would still 
have left a wrong bias! If instead of perplexing my 
common sense with the flights of Plato, and of stiff- 
ening over the meditations of the imperial Stoic, I 
had been laboring to imbibe the gay spirit of a 
Casti, or had employed my erudition, for the benefit 
of the favored few, in elucidating the interesting de- 
formities of ancient Greece and Inrlia, what might I 
not have hoped from the suffrage of those, who turn 
in weariness from the Paradise Lost, — because com- 
pared with the prurient heroes and grotesque mon- 
sters of Italian Romance, or even with the narrative 
dialogues of the melodious Metastasio, — that — " Ad- 
venturous Song, 

" Which justifies the ways of God to man," 
has been found a poor substitute for Grimaldi, a most 
inapt medicine for an occasional propensity to yawn? 
For, as hath been decided, to fill up pleasantly the 
brief intervals of fashionable pleasures, and above 
all to charm away the dusky Gnome of Ennui, is the 
chief and appropriate business of the Poet and — the 
Novelist! This duty unfulfilled, Apollo will have 
lavished his best gifts in vain; and Urania henceforth 
must be content to inspire Astronomers alone, and 
leave the Sons of Verse to more amusive Patron- 
esses. And yet — and yet — but it will be lime to be 
serious, when my visiters have sat dovm. 



376 



THE FRIEND. 



307 



ESSAY II. 



Sic oporlcl ad librum, proscrtim miscellnnoi Bcncris, Icgendnnti 
uccedoio lucturcm, ut sulel ad CDnvivium conviva civilis. 
Convivaiur anniliiur omnibuE sntisl'acerc: ct lamon si quid 
appoiiiiiir, ciuod liiijus aut illius pulatu non rcspiiixiiul, ct 
liic cl ille uriianc di>sliiuilnnl, ot nlia rcrrnlii pnilianl, lie 
quid coiitrislent conviva torcm. Cliiis eiiim cum ciinvivani 
fcriit, qui tantum hoc animo venial ad mcneam, ul carpcns 
qua? BPimnunlur npc vesculur ipso, ncc alios viwci Binnl ? ut 
tanipn his quoque reporias incivihoros, <|ui palain, (|ui sine 
fine iliiuuient ai' Inccient opus, quod nunijuaui legeriul. Ast 
hue plusquam siicophanticum est damnaro quod neiiciii!). 

ERASMUS. 



The musirian may tune his instrument in private, 
ere his audience have yet a.^sembled ; the archilet-t 
conceals the foundation of his building beneath the 
superstructure. But nn author's harp must be timed 
ill the hearing of those, who are to understand its af- 
ter harmonies; the foundation stones of his edifice 
must He open to common view, or his friends will 
hesitate to trust themselves beneath the roof 

From periodical Literature the general Reader 
deems himself entitled lo expect amusement, and 
some degree of information ; and if the writer can 
convey any instruction at the same time and without 
demanding any additional thought (as the Irishman, 
in the hackneyed jest, is said to have passed off a 
light guinea between two halfpence) this superero- 
gatory merit will not perhaps be taken amiss. i\ow 
amusement in and for itself may be aff()rded by the 
gratification either of the curiosity or of the passions. 
I use the former word as distinguished from the love 
of knowledge, and the latter in distinction from those 
emotions which arise in well ordered minds, from the 
perception of truth or falsehood, virtue or vice : — emo- 
tions, which are always preceded by thought, and 
linked with improvement. Again, all information 
pursued without any wish of becoming wiser or bet- 
tor thereby, I class among the gratifications of mere 
curiosity, whether it be sought for in a light Novel 
or a grave History. We may therefore omit the word 
Information, as included either in Amusement or In- 
struction. 

The present Work is an experiment; not whelher 
a writer may Aones^Z;/ overlook the one, or successfully 
omit the other, of the tvio elements themselves, which 
serious Readers at least persuade themselves, they 
pursue; but whether a change might not be hazard- 
ed of the usual order, in which periodical writers 
have in general attempted to convey them. Having 
myself experienced tiiat no delight either in kind or 
degree, was equal to that which accompanies the dis- 
tinct perception of a fundamental truth, relative to 
our moral being; having, long after the completion 
of what is ordinarily called a learned education, dis- 
covered a new world of intellectual profit opening on 
me — not from any new opinions, but lying, as it were, 
at the roots of those which I had been taught in child- 
hood in my Catechism and Spelling-book; there arose 
a soothing hope in my mind that a lesser Public might 
be found, comiX)sed of persons susceptible of the 
25 Hh 



same delight, and desirous of attaining ii by the same 
process. I heard a whisper too from within. (I trust 
that it proceeded from Conscience not Vanity) that a 
duty was performed in the endeavor to render it ns 
much easier to them, liian it had been to me, as could 
be effected by the luiited cflbrls of my understand- 
ing and imagination.* 

.Aclualed by this impulse, the Writer wishes, in 
the following Kssays, to convey not instruction mere- 
ly, but fundamental instruction; not so much to 
show my Reader this or that fact, as to kindle his 
own torch for him, and leave it to himself lo choose 
the particular objects, which he misht wish to ex- 
amine by its light. The Friend does not indectl 
exclude from his plan occasional interludes, anil 
vacations of innocent entertainment and promiscuous 
infiirmation ; but still in the main he proposes to him- 
self the communication of such dcligtit as rewards 
the march of Truth, rather than to collect the flowers 
which diversify its track, in order lo present them 
apart from the homely yet fJiodful or medicinal herbs 
among w-hich they had grown. To refer men's? 
opinions to their absolute principles, and thence 
their feelings to the appropriate objects, and in their 
true degrees ; and finally, to apply ihe principles 
thus ascertained, to the formation of steadfast con- 
victions concerning the most important questions of 
Politics, Morality, and Religion — these are to be the 
objects and the contents of this work. 

Themes like these not even the genius of a Plato or 
a Bacon could render intelligible, without demanding 
from the reader THOCGiiT sometimes, and .\ttkntion 
generally. By THOuaiiT I here mean the voluntary 
production in our own minds of those slates of con- 
sciousness, to which, as to his fundamental facts, the 
Writer has referred us ; while attention has for 
its object the order and connexion of Thoughts and 
Images, each of which is in itself already and 
familiarly known. Thus the elements of Geometry 
require attention only ; but the analysis of our pri- 
mary faculties, and the investigation of all the abso- 
lute grounds of Religion and Morals, are impossible 
without energies of thought in addition to the eflbrt 
of Attention. The Friend will not attempt to dis- 

* In confotmily with this nnx'ious wish I shall make no 
apology for subjoining a Translation of my Motto to llib Es- 
say. 

( Translation.) A reader should sit down to a book, espe- 
cially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visiter does 
to a banquet. The master of Ihe fcasi exerts himself to sat 
isfy all his guests; but if alter all his care am) pains ibere 
should still be something or olher put on llie 'able that does 
not suit this ov that person's taste, they politely pass it over 
without noticing the circumstance, iind commend other dishes, 
that they may not distress their kind host, or throw any damp 
on his spirits. For «ho could tolerate a pucst lliiit acceptid 
an invitation to your table wiih no other purpose but that of 
finilinR fault with every thin^; put before him, neither eating 
himself, or siifferins others lo eat in com'orl. And yel you 
may fall in with a still worse set than even these, — with cliurU 
that in all companies and without stop or stay will condenui 
and pull to pieces a work which they bad never read. But 
this sinks below the baseness of an Informer, yea, thouph he 
were a false witness to boot! The man, who abuses a thing 
of which he is utterly ignorant, unites the infamy of both 
and in addition to Ibis, makes himself the pander and syco- 
phant of bis own and other men's envy and mali„'nily 
377 



368 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



guise from his Readers that both Attention and 
Thought are Efforts, and the latter a most difficult 
and laborious Effort ; nor from himself, that to re- 
quire it often or for any continuance of time is incom- 
patible with the nature of the present Publication, 
even were it less mcongruous than it unfortunately 
is with the present habits and pursuits of English- 
men. Accordingly I shall be on my guard to make 
the Numbere as few as possible, which would re- 
quire from a well-educated Reader any energy of 
thought and voluntary abstraction. 

But Attention, I confess, will be requisite through- 
out, except in the excursive and miscellaneous Es- 
says that will be found interposed between each of 

,he three main divisions of the Work. On what- 
ever subject the mind feels a lively interest, atten- 

ion, though always an effort, becomes a delightful 
effort. I should be quite at ease, could I secure for 
the whole Work as much of it, as a card-party of 
earnest whist-players often expend in a single even- 
ing, or a lady in the making-up of a fashionable 
dress. But where no interest previously exists, at- 
tention (as every schoolmaster knows) can be pro- 
cured only by terror: which is the true reason why 
the majority of mankind learn nothing systematically, 
except as school-boys or apprentices. 

Happy shall I be, from other motives besides those 
of self-interest, if no fault or deficiency on my part 
shall prevent the Work from furnishing a presump- 
tive proof, that there are still to be found among us 
a respectable number of Readers who are desirous 
to derive pleasure from the consciousness of. being 
instructed or ameliorated, and who feel a sufficient 
interest as to the foundations of their own opinions 
m Literatnre,Politics, Morals, and Religion, to afford 
that degree of attention, without which, however 
men may deceive themselves, no actual progress 
ever was or ever can be made in that knowledge, 
which supplies at once both strengtli and nourish- 
ment. 



ESSAY III, 



A'XX 'ii>g 7rapfXo/3oi/ nj^v Ti'xyriv napa" cov TO-jpZ tov 

Ol&ov hav 'vzo KOjiiraafid tojv, koX 'pifid rav, i-na)(^So}v, 
'' l^^vava ixL'fi np(j}' narov a'vuri'v, Kat to' Pa' pof ' 

'arpdXov, 
'RttvXXioi^ Kal vtpma toi^ koi rcvr'Sloai /iiKpoTj' 
XvXo'v 6iiov'^ (TT<onv\ixd TUV, 'aiTO (itPXluiv, 'airri^iav. 

Aristoph. Ran.e. 

Imitation.* 

When I received the Muse from you, I found her puffed and 

pampered, 
Wiih pompous sentences and terms, a cumb'rous huge virago. 
My first attention was applied to make her look genteelly, 

* This Imitation is printed here by permission of the Au- 
.hor, from a Series of free Translations of selected Scenes 
''rom Aristophanes: a work, of which (should the Author be 
persuaded to make it public) it is my most deliberate judg- 



And bring her to a moderate bulk by dint of liehter diet. 
I fed her with plain household phrase and cool familiar salad 
With water-gruel episode, with sentimenl;il jelly, 
Wiih moral mince-meat : till at length I brought her within 
compass. 

ly the preceding Number I named the present 
undertaking an Experiment. The explanation will 
be found in the following Letter, written to a Cor- 
resixjndent during the first attempt, and before the 
plan was discontinued from an original error in the 
mode of circulation, as noticed in the Preface. 

To R. L. 
Dear Sir, 

When I first undertook the present Publication for 
the sake and with the arouecZ object of referring men 
in all things to Principles or fundamental Iruilis, I 
was well aware of the obstacles which the plan itself 
would oppose to my success. For in order to the 
regular attainment of this object, all the driest and 
least attractive Essays must appear in the first fifteen 
or twenty Numbers, and thus subject me to the 
necessity of dematiding effort or soliciting patience in 
that part of the Work where it was most my interest 
to secure the confidence of my readers by winning 
their favour. Though I dared v\'arrant for the plea- 
santness of the journey on the whole; though I 
might promise that the road would, for the far greater 
part of it, be found plain and easy, that it would 
pass through countries of various prospect, and that 
at every stage there would be a change of company ; 
it still remained a heavy disadvantage, that 1 had to 
start at the foot of a high and steep hill : and I fore- 
saw, not without occasional feelings of despondency, 
that during the slow and laborious ascent it would 
require no common management to keep my passen- 
gers in good humour with the vehicle and its driver. 
As far as this inconvenience could be palliated by 
sincerity and previous confessions, I have no reason 
to accuse myself of neglect. In the prospectus of 
The Friend, which for this cause I re-printed and 
annexed to the first number, I felt it my duty to in- 
form such as might be inclined to patronize the pub- 
lication, that I must submit to be esteemed dull by 
those who sought chiefly for amusement : and this I 
hazarded as a general confession, though in my own 
mind I felt a cheerful confidence that it would apply 
almost exclusively to the earlier Numbers. I could 
not therefore be surprised, however much I may 
have been depressed, by the frequency with which 
you hear The Friend complained of for its abstruse- 
ness and obscurity; nor did the highly flattering ex- 
pressions, with which you accompanied j'our com- 
munication, prevent me from feeling its truth to the 
whole extent. 

An author's pen, like children's legs, improves by 
exercise. That part of the blame which rests on 
myself I am exerting my best faculties to remove 



ment, and inmost conviction, that it will form an important 
epoch in English Literature, and open our sources of metri- 
cal and rhythmical wealth in the very heart of our language 
of which few, if any, among us are aware. 

S. T C 
378 



THE FRIEND. 



69 



A man long accustomed to silent and solitary medita- 
tion, in proprtion as he increases the (xiwer of'think- 
ine in Ions; and connected trains, is apt to lose or less- 
en the talent of commiiiiicatinfl; his thoughts with 
grace and perspicuity. Doubtless, too, 1 have in 
some measure injured my style, in respect to its fiici- 
lily and popularity, from having almost confined my 
reading, of late years, to the works of the Ancients 
and those of the elder Writers in the modern lan- 
guages. VVe insensibly imitate what we habiliially 
admire; and an aversion to the epigrammatic, uncon- 
nected periods of the fashionable Anglo-GuUiran 
taste has too often made me willing to forget, that the 
stately march and difTicult evolutions, which charac- 
terize the eloquence of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and 
Jeremy Taylor, are, notwithstanding their intrinsic 
excellence, still le-ss suited to a periodical Essay. 
This fault I am now endeavoring to correct; though 
1 can never so far sacrifice my judgment to the de- 
sire of being immediately popular, as to cast my sen- 
tences in the French moulds, or affect a style which 
an ancient critic would have deemed purposely in- 
vented for persons troubled with the asthma to read, 
and for those to comprehend who labor under the 
more'pitiable asthma of a shorl-witted intellect. It 
cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to 
be called into efl()rt; the habit of receiving pleasure 
without any exertion of thought, by the mere excite- 
ment of curiosity and sensibilit)', may be justly rank- 
ed among the worst effects of habitual novel reading. 
It is true that these short and unconnected sentences 
are easily and instantly understood : but it is equally 
true, that wanting all the cement of thoughts as well 
as of style, all the connections, and (if you will for- 
give too trivial a metaphor) all the hooks-and-eyes of 
the memory, they are as easily forgotten : or rather, 
it is scarcely possible that they should be remember- 
ed. — Nor is it less true, that those who confine their 
reading to such books dwarf their own faculties, and 
finally reduce their understanding to a deplorable 
imbecility : the fact you mention, and which I shall 
hereafter make use of, is a fair instance and a striking 
illustration. Like idle morning visiters, the brisk and 
breathless periods hurry in and hurry off in quick 
and profitless succession; each indeed for the mo- 
ments of its stay prevents the pain of vacancy, while 
it indulges the love of sloth ; but all together they 
leave the mistress of the house (the soul I mean) flat 
and exhausted, incapable of attending to her own 
concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more 
rational guests. 

I know you will not suspect me of fostering so idle 
a hope, as that of obtaining acquittal by recrimina- 
tion ; or think that I am attacking one fault, in order 
that its opposite may escape notice in the noise and 
smoke of the battery. On the contrary, I shall do 
my best, and even make all allowable sacrifices, to 
render ray manner more attractive and my matter 
more generally interesting. In the establishment of 
princii)les and fundamental doctrines, I must of ne- 
cessity require the attention of my reader to become 
my fellow-laborer. The primary facts essential to the 
49 



intelligibility of my piinciples I can prove to others 
only as far as I can prevail on them to retire into 
t/icmseltes and make their own minds the objects of 
their steadfast attention. Rut, on the other hand, I 
feel too deeply the imptirtance of the convictions, 
which first impelled me to the present undertaking, 
to leave unattempted any honorable means of recom 
mending them to as wide a circle as possible. 

Hitherto, my dear Sir, I have been employed it 
laying the ibundation of my work. Dut the propel 
merit of a foundation is its massivencss and solidity 
The conveniences and ornaments, the gilding and 
stucco work, the sunshine and sunny prospects, will 
come with the superstructure. Yet I dare notflattei 
myself, that any endeavors of mine, compatible with 
the duty I owe to truth and the hope of permanenl 
utility, will render The Frte-vd agreeable to the ma- 
jority of what is called the reading public. I never 
expected it. How indeed could I, when I was to 
borrow so little from the influence of pa.ssing events, 
and when 1 had absolutely excluded i'rom my plan 
all appeals to personal curiosity and personal inte- 
rests ? Yet even this is not my greatest impediment. 
No real information can be conveyed, no important 
errors rectified, no widely-injurious prejudices rooted 
up, without requiring some eflort or thought on the 
part of the reader. But the obstinate (and toward a 
contemporary Writer, the contemptuous) aversion to 
all intellectual effort is the mother evil of all which 
I had propo-sed to war against, the Queen Bee in the 
hive of our errors and misfortunes, both private and 
national. To solicit the attention of those, on whom 
these debilitating causes have acted to their full ex- 
tent, would be no less absurd than to recommend 
exercise with the dumb-bells, as the only mode of 
cure, to a patient paralytic in both arms. You, my 
dear Sir, well know, that my expectations were more 
modest as well as more rational. I hoped that my 
readers in general would be aware of the impracti- 
cability of suiting every Essay to every taste in any 
period of the work; and that they would not attribute 
wholly to the author, but in part to the necessity of 
his plan, the austerity and absence of the lighter 
graces in the first fifteen or twenty numbers. In my 
cheerful moods I sometimes flattered myself, that a 
few even among thn.se, who foresaw that my lucu- 
brations would at all times require more attention 
than from the nature of their own employments they 
could afford them, might yet find a pleasure in sui> 
porting the Friend during its infancy, so as to give it 
a chance of attracting the notice of othei-s, to whom 
its style and subjects might be better adapted. But 
my main anchor was the hope, that when circum- 
stances gradually enabled me to adopt the ordinary 
means of making the publication generally known, 
there might be found throughout the Kingdom a suf- 
ficient number of meditative minds, who, entertain- 
ing similar convictions with myself, and gratified by 
the prospect of seeing them reduced to form and sys- 
tem, would take a warm interest in the work from 
the very circumstance that it wanted those allure- 
ments of transitory interests, which render particulnr 
379 



370 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



patronage superfluous, and for ihe brief season of 
their blow and fragrance attract the eye of thousands, 
who would pass unregarded 



Ol" sober tint, and Herbs of medicinal powers. 

S. T. C. 

In these three introductory Numbers, The Friend 
ina endeavored to realize his promise of giving an 
honest bill of fare, both as to the objects and the 
s'.yle of the Work. With reference to both I con- 
cli;ile with a prophecy of Simon Grynajus, from his 
premonition to the candid Reader, prefixed to Ficin- 
us's translation of Plato, published at Leyden, 1557. 
IIovv far it has been gradually fulfilled in this coun- 
try since the revolution in 1688, 1 leave to my candid 
and intelligent Readers to determine. 

' Ac dolet mihi quidem deliciis literarum inescatos 
subito jam homines adeo esse, praesertim qui Christi- 
anos esse profitentur, ut legere nisi quod ad pre- 
seniem gustum facit, sustineant nihil : unde et dis- 
ciplina et philosophia ipsa jam fere prorsus etiam a 
doctis negliguntur. Quod quidem propositum studi- 
orum nisi mature corrigetur, tam magnum rebus 
incommodum dabit, quam dedit barbaries olim. Per- 
tinax res barbaries est fateor; sed minus potest 
tamen, quam ilia persuasa literatum, prudenlior si 
R.\TioNE caret, sapientiae virtutisque specie misere 
lectores circumducens. 

Succedet igitur, ut arbitror, hand ita multo post, 
pro rusticana saeculi nostri ruditate capatrix ilia 
blandi-loquentia, robur animi virilis omne, oranem 
virtutem masculum profligatura, nisi cavetur.' 

{Translation.) — In very truth, it grieveth me that 
men, those especially who profess themselves to be 
Christians, should be so taken with the stveet Baits 
of Literature that they can endure to read nothing 
but what gives them immediate gratification, no 
matter how low or sensual it may be. Consequently, 
the more austere and disciplinary branches of phi- 
losophy itself, are almost wholly neglected, even by 
the learned. — A course of study (if such reading, 
with such a purpose in view, could deserve that 
name) which, if not corrected in time, will occasion 
worse consequences than even barbarism did in the 
times of our forefathers. Barbarism is, I own, a 
wilful headstrong thing; but with all its bhnd ob- 
stinacy it has less power of doing harm than this 
self-sufficient, self-satisfied plain good common-sense 
sort of writing, this prudent saleable popular style 
of composition, if it be deserted by Reason and 
scientific Insight ; pitiably decoying the minds of 
men by an imposing show of amiableness, and prac- 
tical Wisdom, so that the delighted Reader knowing 
nothing knows all ahout almost every thing. There 
will succeed therefore in my opinion, and that too 
within no long time, to the rudeness and rusticity of 
our age, that ensnaring meretricious popularness in 
Literature, with all the tricksy humilities of the am- 
bitious candidates for the favorable suffrages of the 
judicious Public, which if we do not take good care 
will break up and scatter before it all robustness and 
manly vigor of intellect, all masculine fortitude of 
virtue. 



ESSAY IV. 



Si mode quae Natura et Ratione concessa sint, aseumpseri- 
mus, Priesumptionis suspicio a nobis quam longissime 
abe.'se debet. Multa Antiquitati, nobismel. nihil ariogamus. 
Nihilne vos 7 Nihil mehercule, nisi quod omnia onini animo 
Veritali arrogamus et SanctimoniK. 

ULR. RINOV. De Controversiis. 

{Translation.) — If we assvme only what Nature and Rea 
son have granted, with no shadow of right can we be bus- 
pected of Presumption. To Antiquity we arrogate many 
things, to ourselves nothing. Nothing 7 Ay nothing: unless 
indfed it be, that with all our strength we arrogate all things 
to Truth and Moral Purity. 



It has been remarked by the celebrated Haller, 
that we are deaf while we are yawning. The same 
act of drowsiness that stretches open our mouths 
closes our ears. It is much the same in acts of the 
understanding. A lazy halfattention amounts to a 
mental yawn. Where then a subject, that demands 
thought, has been thoughtfully treated, and with an 
exact and patient derivation from its principles, we 
must be willing to exert a portion of the same effort, 
and to think with the author, or the author will have 
thought in vain for us. It makes little difference foi 
the time being, whether there be an hiatus osciians 
in the reader's attention, or an hiatus lacrymahilis in 
the author's manuscript. When this occurs during 
the perusal of a work of known authority and estab- 
lished fame, we honestly lay the fault on our own 
deficiency, or on the unfitness of our present mood ; 
but when it is a contemporary production, over which 
we have been nodding, it is far more pleasant to pro- 
nounce it insvjferahly dull and obscure. Indeed, as 
charity begins at home, it would be unreasonable to 
expect that a reader should charge himself with lack 
of intellect, when the effect may be equally well ac- 
counted for by declaring the author unintelligible; 
or that he should accuse his own inattention, when 
by half a dozen phrases of abuse, as "heavy stuff, 
metaphorical jargon," &c., he can at once excuse his 
laziness, and gratify his pride, scorn, and envy. To 
similar impulses we must attribute the praises of a 
true modern reader, when he meets with a work in 
the true modern taste: videlicet, either in skipping, 
unconnected, short-winded asthmatic sentences, as 
easy to be understood as impossible to be remem- 
bered, in which the merest common-place acquires a 
momentary poignancy, a petty titillating sting, from 
affected point and wilful antithesis ; or else in strut- 
ting and rounded periods, in which the emptiest tru- 
isms are blown up into illustrious bubbles by help of 
film and inflation. "Ay!" (quoth the delighted 
reader) " this is sense, this is genius I this I under- 
stand and admire! / have thought the very same a 
hundred times myself!'' In other words, this man 
has reminded me of my own cleverness, and there- 
fore I admire him. 0! for one piece of egotism that 
presents itself under its own honest bare face of " I 
myself I," there are fifty that steal out in the mask of 
tuisms and ille-isms. 

It has ever been my opinion, that an excessive soli- 
380 



THE FRIEND. 



371 



citude to avoid the use of our first personal pronoun 
more ol^on has its source in conscious sellishness than 
in true sell-oblivion. A quiet observer of human fol- 
lies may olien amuse or sadden his thoughts l)y de- 
tecting a perpetual feeling of purest egotism through 
a long mas(]uerade of Disguises, the half of which, 
had old Proteus been masterofas many, would liave 
wearied out the patience of Menelaus. I say, the 
pilirrjcfouly: for it would ask more than the simpli- 
city of I'olypheme, with his one eye extinguished, to 
bo dcreived by so poor a repetition of Nobodij. Yet I 
can with strictest truth assure my Readers that with 
a pleasure combined with a sense of weariness I see 
the nigh approach of that point of my labors, in which 
I can convey my opinions and the workings of my 
heart without reminding the Reader obtrusively of 
myself But the frequency, with which I have spoken 
in my own person, recalls my apprehensions to the 
second danger, which it wa-s my hope to guard 
against; the probable charge of Arrooance, or pre- 
sumption, Iwth for daring to dissent from the opinions 
of great authorities, and, in my following numbers 
perhai>s, from the general opinion concerning the true 
value of certain authorities deemed great. The word, 
Presumption, I appropriate to the internal feeling, and 
Arrogance to the way and manner of outwardly ex- 
pres.sing ourselves. 

As no man can rightfully be condemned without 
reference to some definite law, by the knowledge of 
which he might have avoided the given fault, it is 
necessary so to define the constituent qualities and 
conditions of arrogance, that a reason may be assign- 
able why we pronounce one man guilty and acquit 
another. For merely to call a person arrogant or most 
arrogant can convict no one of the vice except per- 
haps the accuser. 1 was once present, when a young 
man who had left his books and a glass of water to 
join a convivial party, each of whom had nearly fin- 
ished his second bottle, was pronounced very drunk 
by the whole party — " he looked so strange and pale I" 
Many a man who has contrived to hide his ruling 
passion or predominant defect from himself, will be- 
tray the same to dispassionate observers, by his prone- 
ness on all occasions to suspect or accuse others of it. 
Now arrogance and Presumption, like all other moral 
qualities, must be shown by some act or conduct: 
and this too must be an act that implies, if not an im- 
mediate concurrence of the Will, yet some faulty con- 
stitution of the Moral Habits. For all criminality sup- 
poses its essentials to have been within the power of 
the .^gent. Either therefore the facts adduced do of 
themselves convey the whole proof of the charge, 
and the question rests on the truth or accuracy w'ith 
which they have been stated ; or they acquire their 
character from the circumstances. I have looked 
into a ponderous Review of the Corpuscular Philoso- 
phy bv a Sicilian Jesuit, in which the acrimonious 
Father frequently expresses his doubt whether he 
should pronounce Boyle or Newton more impious 
than prpfHmpliioiis, or more [jresumptuous than impi- 
ous. They had both attacked the reigning opinions 
on most important subjects, opinions sanctioned by 
the greatest names of antiquity, and by the general 
Hh'2 



suffrage of their learned Contemporaries or immedi- 
ate Predecessors. Locke was assailed with a full 
cry for his presumption in having deserted the philo- 
sophical system at that time generally received by 
the Universities of Kurope ; and of late years Dr. 
Priestley bestowed the epithets of arrogant and iuso- 
knt on Rcid, Bealtie, &c., for presuming to arraign 
certain opinions of Mr. Locke, himself repaid in kind 
by many of his own countrymen (()r his theological 
novelties. It will scarcely be affirmed, that these 
accusations were all of them just, or that any of them 
were fit or courteous. Must wo therefore say, that 
in order to avow doubt or disbelief of a [wpular per- 
suasion without arrogance, it is required that the dis- 
sentient should know himself to jwssess the genius, 
and foreknow that he should acquire the reputation, 
of Locke, Newton, Boyle, or oven of a Reid or Beat- 
tie 1 But as this knowledge and prescience are im- 
possible in the strict sense of the words, and could 
mean no more than a strong inward conviction, it is 
manifest that such a rule, if it were universally es- 
tablished, would encourage the presumptuous, and 
condemn modest and humble minds alone to silence. 
And as this silence could not acquit the individual's 
own mind of presumption, unless it were accompa- 
nied by conscious acquiescence ; Modesty itself must 
become an inert quality, which even in private soci- 
ety never displays its charms more unequivocally 
than in its mode of reconciling moral deference with 
intellectual courage, and general diflidence with sin- 
cerity in the avowal of the particular conviction. 

We must seek then elsewhere for the true marks, 
by which Presumption or Arrogance may be detect- 
ed, and on which the charge may be groimded with 
little hazard of mistake or injustice. And as I confine 
my present observations to literature, I deem such 
criteria neither difficult to determine or to apply. 
The first mark, as it appears to me, is a frequent bare 
assertion of opinions not generally received, without 
condescending to prefix or annex the facts and rea- 
sons on which such opinions were formed ; especially 
if this absence of logical courtesy is supplied by con- 
temptuous or abusive treatment of such as happen to 
doubt of, or oppose, the decisive ipse dixi. But to 
assert, however nakedly, that a passage in a lewd no- 
vel, in which the Sacred Writings are denounced as 
more likely to pollute the young and innocent mind 
than a romance notorious for its indecency — to assert, 
I say, that such a pa.ssage argues equal impudence 
and ignorance in its author, at the time of writing and 
publishing it — this is not arrogance ; although to a 
vast majority of the decent part of our coimtrymen it 
would be superfluous as a truism, if it were exclu- 
sively an author's business to convey or revive know- 
ledge, and not sometimes his duty to awaken the in- 
dignation of his Reader by the expression of his own. 

A second species of this unamiable quality, which 
has often been distinguished by the name of War- 
biirtonian arrogance, betrays itself, not as in the for 
mer, by proud or petulant omission of proof or argu- 
ment, but by the habit of ascribing weakness of 
intellect, or want of taste and sensibility, or hard- 
ness of heart, or corruption of moral principle, to all 
381 



372 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



who deny the truth of the doctrine, or the sufficiency 
of evidence, or the fairness of the reasoning ad- 
duced in its support. This is indeed not essentially 
different from Ihe first, but assumes a separate char- 
acter from its accompaniments : for though both the 
doctrine and its proofs may have been legitimately 
supplied by the understanding, yet the bitterness of 
personal crimination will resolve itself into naked 
assertion. We are, therefore, authorized by experi- 
ence, and justified on Ihe principle of selfdefence 
and by the law of fair retaliation, in attributing it to 
a vicious temper, arrogant from irritability, or irri- 
table from arrogance. This learned arrogance ad- 
mits of many gradations, and is palliated or aggra- 
vated, accordingly as the point in dispute has been 
more or less controverted, as the reasoning bears a 
greater or smaller proportion to the virulence of the 
personal detraction, and as the persons or parties, 
who are the objects of it, are more or less respected, 
more or less worthy of respect.* 

Lastly, it must be admitted as a just imputation of 
presumption when an individual obtrudes on the 
public eye, with all the high pretensions of origin- 
ality, opinions and observations, in regard to which 
he must plead wilful ignorance in order to be ac- 
quitted of dishonest plagiarism. On the same seat 
must the writer be placed, who in a disquisition on 
any important subject proves, by falsehoods either 
of omission or of positive error, that he has neglect- 
ed to possess himself, not only of the information 
requisite for this particular subject, but even of 
those acquirements, and that general knowledge, 
■which could alone authorise him to commence a 
public instructor : this is an office which cannot be 
procured gratis. The industry, necessary for the 
due exercise of its functions, is its purchase-money; 
and the absence or insufficiency of the same is so 
far a species of dishonesty, and implies a 2}resump- 
tion in the literal as well as in the ordinary sense of 



* Had the author of Ihe Divine Legation of Moses nacre 
Ekilfully appropriated his coarse eloquence of abuse, his cus- 
tomary assurance of the idiotcy, both in head and heart, of 
all his opponents ; if he had employed those vifforous argu- 
ments of his own vehement humor in the defence of Truths 
acknowledged and reverenced by learned men in general ; 
or if he had confined them to the names of Chubb, VVool- 
Bton, and other precursors of Mr. Thomas Paine ; we should 
perhaps still characterize his mode of controversy by its rude 
violence, but not so often have heard his name used, even by 
those who have never lead his writings, as a proverbial ex- 
pression of learned Arrogance. Hut when a novel and doubt- 
ful hypotheiiis of his own formation was the citadel to he 
defended, and his mephitic hand-grenados were thrown 
with the fury of a lawless despotism at the fair reputation of 
a Sykes and a Lardner, we not only confirm the verdict of 
his independent contemporaries, but cease to wonder, that 
arrogance should render man an object of contempt in many, 
and of aversion in all instances, when it was capable of hur- 
rying a Christian teacher of equal talents and learning into 
a slanderous vulgarity, which escapes our disgust only when 
we see the writer's own reputation the sole victim. But 
throughout his great work, and the pamphlets in -which he 
supported it, he always seems to v,'rite as if he had deemed 
it a duty of decorum to publish his fancies on the Mosaic 
Law, as the Law itself was delivered, that is, " in thunders 
and lightnings;" or as if he had applied to his own book 
instead of the sacred mount, the menace — There shall not 
a hand touch it but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. 



the word. He has taken a thing before he had ac 
quired any right or title thereto. 

If in addition to this unfitness which every man 
possesses the means of ascertaining, his aim should 
be to unsettle a general belief, closely connected 
with public and private quiet ; and if his language 
and manner be avowedly calculated for the illiterate 
(and perhaps licentious) part of his countrymen ; 
disgusting as his presumption must appear, it is yet 
lost or evanescent in the close neighborhood of his 
guilt. That Hobbes translated Homer in Knglish 
verse and published his translation, furnishes no 
positive evidence of his self conceit, though it im- 
plies a great lack of self-knowledge and of acquaint- 
ance with the nature of poetry. A strong wish 
often imposes itself on the mind for an actual pow- 
er ; the mistake is favored by the innocent pleasure 
derived from the exercise of versification, perhaps 
by the approbation of intimates ; and the candidate 
asks from more impartial readers, that sentence, 
which Nature has not enabled him lo anticipate. 
But when the philosopher of JMalrnsbury waged 
war with Wallis and the fundamental truths of pure 
geometry, every instance of his gross ignorance and 
utter misconception of the very elements of the 
science he proposed to confute, furnished an unan- 
swerable fact in proof of his high presumption ; and 
the confident and insulting language of the attack 
leaves the judicious reader in as little doubt of his 
gross arrogance. An illiterate mechanic, when mis- 
taking some disturbance of his nerves for a miracu- 
lous call proceeds alone to convert a tribe of savages, 
whose language he can have no natural means of 
acquiring, may have been misled by impulses very 
different from tho.se of high selfopinion ; but the 
illiterate perpetrator of " the Age of Reason," must 
have had his very conscience stupified by the habitu- 
al intoxication of presumptuous arrogance, and his 
common-sense over-clouded by the vapors from liis 
heart. 

As long therefore as I obtrude no unsupported as- 
sertions on my Readers ; and as long as I state my 
opinions and the evidence which induced or compel- 
led me to adopt them, with calmness and that diffi- 
dence in myself, which is by no means incompatible 
with a firm belief in the justness of the opinions 
themselves; while I attack no man"s [irivate life 
from any cause, and detract from no man's honors in 
his public character, from the truth of his doctrines, 
or the merits of his compositions, without detailing 
all my reasons and resting the result solely on the ar- 
guments adduced; while I moreover explain fully 
the motives of duty, which influenced me in resolv 
ing to institute such investigation ; while I confine an 
asperity of censure, and all expressions of contempt, 
to gross violations of truth, honor, and decency, (o 
the base corrupter and the detected slanderer; while 
I write on no subject, which I have not studied with 
my best attention, on no subject which my education 
and acquirements have incapacitated me from pr;v 
perly understanding; and above all, while I approve 
myself, alike in praise and in blame, in close reason- 
ing and in impassioned declamation, a steady fkiejsd 
382 



THE FRIEND. 



373 



to the two best and surest friends of all men, Truth 
and Honesty; I will not fear an accusation of cither 
Presumption or Arrogance from the gootl and the 
wise: I sliall pily it from the weak, and despise it 
Irom the wicked. 



ESSAY V. 



In eodem pcctoro nullum est lionostorum turpiumque consor- 
Uum : ft cogilare optiinu bimul et delerrima nun inngis c»t 
unius animx' quam cjusdein liuuiinis bonum eese ac milium. 
UUINTILIAN. 

There is no fellowship of honor and baseness in the same 
breast; and to combine the best and the worst designs is no 
more possible in one mind, than it is for the same man to be 
at the same instant virtuous and vicious. 

Cognitio veritalis omnia falsa, si modo proferantur, etiam 
quae piius inaudita erant, el dijudicare et subvertcrp idonea 
est. AUGUSTliNUS. 

A knowledge of the truth is equal to the task both of dis- 
cerning and of confuting all false atiseriions and erroneous 
arguments, though never before met wiih, if only lliey may 
freely be brought forward. 



I H.WE said, that my very system compels me to 
make every fair appeal to the feelings, the imagina- 
tii>n, and even the fancy. If these are to be with- 
held from the service of truth, virtue, and happiness, 
to what purpose were they given ? in whoso service 
are they retained ? I have indeed considered the dis- 
proportion of human passions to their ordinary ob- 
jects among the strongest internal evidonc'cs of our 
future destination, and the allempt to restore them to 
their rightful claimants, the most imperious duty and 
the noblest task of genius. The verbal enunciation 
of this master-truth could scarcely be new to me at 
any period of my life since earliest youth ; but I well 
remember the particular time, when the words first 
became more than words to me, when they incorpo- 
rated with a living conviction, and took their place 
among the realities of my being. On some wide 
common or open heath, peopled with Ant-hills, 
during some one of the grey-cloudy days of the late 
Autumn, many of my Readers may have noticed the 
effect of a sudden and momentary flash of sunshine 
on all the countless little animals within his view, 
aware too that the self-same influence was darted co- 
instanlaneously over all their swarming cities as far 
as his eye could reach; may have observed, with 
what a kindly force the gleam stirs and quickens 
them all ! and will have experienced no unpleasnr- 
able shock of feeling in seeing myriads of myriads 
of living and sentient beings united at the same mo- 
ment in one gay sensation, one joyous activity ! But 
awful indeed is the same appearance in a multitude 
of rational beings, our fellow-men, in whom too the 
effect is produced not so much by the external occa- 
sion as from the active quality of their own thoughts. 
I had walked from Gotiingen in the year 1799, to 
witness the arrival of the Queen of Prussia, on her 
visit to the Baron Von Ilartzberg's seat, five miles 



from the University. The spnciotis outer court of the 
palace was crowdeil with men and women, a sea of 
heads, with a number of children rising out of it 
from their fathers' shoulders. After a buzz of two 
hours' expcclalioii, ihe avant-courier rode at full speed 
into the Court. At the loud cracks of his long whip 
and the trampling of his horse's hoofs, the universal 
shock and thrill of emotion — 1 have not la:iguage to 
convey it — expressed as it was in such manifol 
looks, gestures, and attitudes, yet with one and the 
same feeling in the eyes of all ! Kecoveriiig from 
the first inevitable contagion of sympathy, I involtin- 
tarily exclaimed, though in a language to myself 
alone intelligible, "O man! ever nobler than thy 
circumstances! Spread but the mist of obscure feel- 
ing over any form, and even a woman incapable of 
blessing or of injury to thee shall be welcomed with 
an intensity of emotion adequate to the reception of 
the Redeemer of the world !" 

To a creature so highly, so fearfully gifted, who, 
alienated as he is by a sorcery scarcely less rnysteri 
Otis than Ihe nature on which it is exercised, yet like 
Ihe ffibled son of Jove in the evil day of his senstial 
bewilchment, lifts the spindles and distafis of Om- 
phale vvilh the arm of a giant. Truth is self restora- 
tion: for that which is the correlative of Truth, the 
existence of absolute Life, is the only object which 
can attract towards it the whole dejiih and mass of 
his fluctuating Being, and alone therefore can uiiiie 
('ahuness with Elevation. But it must be Truth 
without alloy and unsophisticated. It is by the agency 
of indislinct conceptions, as the counterfeits of the 
Ideal and Transcendent, that evil and vanity exercise 
their tyranny on the feelings of man. The Powers 
of Darkness are politic if not wise ; but surely nothing 
can be more irrational in the pretended children 
of Light, than to enlist themselves under the banners 
of Truth, and yet rest their hopes on an alliance with 
Delusion. 

Among the numerous artifices, by whith austere 
truths are to be softened down into palatable false- 
hoods, and Virtue and Vice, like the atoms of Epicu- 
rus, to receive that insensible clinamen which is to 
make them meet each other half way, I have an 
especial dislike to the expression. Pious Fr.vuds. 
Piety indeed shrinks from the very phrase, as an at- 
tempt to mix poison vvilh the cup of Blessing: while 
the expediency of the measures which this phrase 
was framed to recommend or palliate, appears more 
and more suspicious, as the range of our experience 
widens, and our acquaintance with the records of 
History becomes more extensive and accurate. One 
of the most seductive arguments of Infidelity grounds 
itself on the numerous passages in the works of the 
Christian Fathers, asserting Ihe lawfulness of Deceit 
for a good purpose. That ihe Fathers held, almost 
without exception, "That wholly without breach of 
duty it is allowed to the Teachers and heads of the 
Christian Church to employ artifices, to intermix 
falsehoods with truths, and especially to deceive the 
enemies of the faith, provided only they hereby serve 
the interests of Truth and the advantage of man- 



383 



374 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



kind,"* ig the unwilling confession of Ribof : (,Pro- 
gram, de Oeconomia Falrum.) St. Jerom, as is shown 
by the citations of this learned Theologian, boldly 
attributes this management {falsitalem dtspensativam) 
even to the Apostles themselves. But why speak I 
of the advantage given to the opponents of Christian- 
ity? Alas! to this doctrine chiefly, and to the prac- 
tices derived from it, we must attribute the utter 
corruption of the Religion itself lor so many ages, and 
even now over so large a portion of the civilized 
world. By a system of accommodating Truth to 
Falsehood, the Pastors of the Church gradually 
changed the life and light of the Gospel into the very 
superstitions which they were commissioned to dis- 
perse, and thus paganized Chrisiianity in order to 
christen Paganism. At this very hour Europe groans 
and bleeds in consequence. 

So much in proof and exemplification of the pro- 
bable expediency of pious deception, as suggested by 
its known and recorded conseq nonces. An honest 
man, however, possesses a clearer light than tliat of 
History. He knows, that by sacrificing the law of 
his reason to the maxim of pretended prudence, he 
Durehases the sword with the loss of the arm that is 
to wield it. The duties which we owe to our own 
moral being, are the ground and condition of all 
other duties ; and to set our nature at strife with it- 
self for a good purpose, implies the same sort of pru- 
dence, as a priest of Diana would have manifested, 
who should have proposed to dig up the celebrated 
charcoal foundations of (he mighty Temple of Ephe- 
sus, in order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings on 
its altars. Truth, Virtue and Happiness, may be 
distinguished from each other, but cannot be divided. 
They subsist by a mutual co-inherance, which gives 
a shadow of divinity even to our human nature. 
■' Will ye speak deceitfully for God ?" is a searching 
question, which most affectingly represents the grief 
and impatience of an uncorrupted mind at perceiving 
a good cause defended by ill means: and assuredly 
if any temptation can provoke a w-ell-regulated tem- 
per to intolerance, it is the shameless assertion, that 
Truth and Falsehood are indifferent in their own 
natures; that the former is as often injurious (and 
therefore criminal) and the latter on many occa.sions 
as beneficial (and consequently meritorious) as the 
former. 

I feel it incumbent on me, therefore, to place im- 
mediately before my Readers in the fullest and clear- 



* Integrum omnino Doctoribus et cmtus Christiani Jlntis- 
titibns esse, ut dolos vcrsent, falsa veris intermiscant et 
imprimis religionis hostcs fallant, dummodo vcritatis com- 
modis ct utilitati inservant. — I trust, I need not add, that the 
imputation of such principles of action to the first inspired 
Propagators of Christianity, is founded on the gross miseon- 
Btriiction of those passages in the writings of St. Paul, in 
which the necessity of employing different arguments to men 
of different capacities and prejudice?, is supposed and ac- 
ceded to. In other words, St. Paul strove to speak intelligi- 
bly, willingly sacrificed indifferent things to matters of im- 
portance, and acted courteously as a man, in order to win 
attention as an Apostle. A traveller prefers for daily use the 
coin of the nation through which he is passing, to liullion or 
the mintage of his own country : and is this to justify a suc- 
ceeding traveller in the U3e of counterfeit coin 1 



est light, the whole question of moral obligation re- 
specting the communication of Truth, its extent and 
conditions. I would fain obviate all apprehensions 
either of my incaulion on the one hand, or of any in- 
sincere reserve on the other, by proving that the 
more strictly we adhere to the Letter of the moral 
law in this respect, the more completely shall we 
reconcile the law with prudence ; thus securing a 
purity in the principle without mischief from the 
practice. I would not, I could not dare, address my 
countrymen as a Friend, if I might not justify the 
assumption of that sacred title by more than mere 
veracity, by open-heartedness. Pleasure, most often 
delusive, may be born of delusion. Pleasure, her- 
self a sorceress, may pitch her tents on enchanted 
groimd. But Happiness (or, to use a far more accu- 
rate as well as more comprehensive term, solid 
Well-Being) can be built on Virtue alone, and must 
of necessity have Truth for its foundation. Add to 
the known fact that the meanest of men feels him- 
self insulted by an unsuccessful attempt to deceive 
liim ; and hates and despises the man who had at- 
tempted it. What place then is left in the heart for 
Virtue to build on, if in any case we may dare prac- 
tise on others what we should feel as a cruel and 
contemptuous wrong in our own persons ? Every 
parent possesses the opportunity of observing, how 
deeply children resent the injury of a delusion ; and 
if men laugh at the falsehoods that were imposed on 
themselves during their childhood, it is because they 
are not good and wise enough to contemplate the 
past in the present, and so to produce by a virtuous 
and thoughtful sensibility that continuity in their 
self-consciousness, which Nature has made the law 
of their animal life. Ingratitude, sensuality, and 
hardness of heart, all flow from this source. Men 
are ungrateful to others only when they have ceased 
to look back on their former selves with joy and ten- 
derness. They exist in fragments. Annihilated as 
to the Past, they are dead to the Future, or seek for 
the proofs of it everywhere, only not (where alone 
they can be found) in themselves. A contemporary 
Poet has expressed and illustrated this sentiment 
vvith equal fineness of thought and tenderness of 
feeling : 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rain-bow in the sky ? 
So was it, when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So let it be, when I grow old, 

Or let me die. 
The Child is Father of the Man, 
And I would wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natvral pirty.f 

WORDSWORTH. 



t I am informed, that these very lines have been cited, as a 
specimen of despicable puerility. So much the worse for the 
citer. Not willingly in his presence would I behold the sun 
setting behind our mountains, or listen to a tale of distress or 
virtue. I should be ashamed of the quiet tear on my own 
cheek. But let the dead bury the dead ! The Poet sang for 
the Living. Of what value inderd, to a sane mind, are the 
likines or dislikings of one man, grounded on the mere asser- 
tions of another 7 Opinions formed from opinions— what are 

384 



THE FRIEND. 



375 



Alas! the pomicious influence of this Inx morality ex- 
tends from tlie nursery and the school to tiic cabinet and 
senate. It is a cominon weakness with men in (x)v\er, 
who have used dissimulation successfully, to form a 
passion fur the use of it, dupes to the love of duping I 
A pride is llallered by these lies. Ho who fancies 
that he must be perpetually stooping down to the pre- 
judices of his fellow-creatures, is perpetually remind- 
ing and re-assuring himself of his own vast suiierior- 
ity to them. Hut no real greatness can long co-exist 
with deceit. The whole faculties of man must be 
exerted in order to noble energies ; and he who is not 
earnestly sincere lives in but half his being, self-mu- 
tilated, self-paralyzed. 

The latter part of the proposition, which has drawn 
me into this discussion, that I mean in which the mo- 
rality of intentional falsehood is asserted, may safely 
be trusted to the Reader's own moral sense. Is it a 
groundless apprehension, that the patrons and admi- 
rers of such publications may receive the pnnishment 
of their indiscretion in the conduct of their sons and 
daughters ? The suspicion of mcthodism must be ex- 
pected by every man of rank and fortune, who car- 
ries his examination respecting the books which are 
to lie on his breakfast-table, farther than to their free- 
dom from gross verbal indecencies, and broad avow- 
als of atheism in the title-page. For the existence of 
an intelligent first cause may be ridiculed in the notes 
of one poem, or placed doubtfully as one of two or 
three possible hypotheses, in the very opening of an- 
other poem, and both be considered as works of safe 
promiscuous reading " virginibus puerisque:" and 
this too by many a father of a family, who would hold 
himself culpable in permitting his child to form hab- 
its of familiar acquaintance with a person of loose 
habits, and think it even criminal to receive into his 
liouse a private tutor without a previous inquiry con- 
cerning his opinions and principles, as well as his 
manners and outward conduct. How little I am an 
enemy to free inquiry of the boldest kind, and where 
the authors have differed the most widely from my 
own convictions and the general faith of mankind, 
provided only, the enquiry be conducted with that 
Beriousness, which naturally accompanies the love of 
truth, and that it is evidently intended for the perusal 
of those only, who may be presumed to be capable 
of weighing the arguments, I shall have abundant 
occasion of proving in the course of this work. Quin 
ipsa philosopliia lalihus e disputulioiiihus non 7iisi hen- 
eficium recipil. Nam si vera proponit homo ingenio- 
siis veritaliaque amans, nova ad earn accessio fiel : sin 
falsa, refutatione eorum priores lanto magis slabilien- 
tiir* Galilei Syst. Cosm. p. 42. 



they, bul clouds eaillDg under clouds which impress shadows 
upun shadows 1 

Funguin pelle procul, jubeo ! nam quid mihi fungo 1 
Cunveniunt stomacho non minus ista euo. 

I was always pleased with the mollo placed under the figure 
oftiie Rosemary in old Hcrbals: 

Sus, npage ! Ilaud tibo spiro. 
* ( Traruilalion.) — Moreover, Philosophy itself cannot but 



The assertion, that truth is often no less dangerous 
than falsehocKi, sounds less offensively at the first 
hearing, only because it hides ite delbrmily in an 
e(|uivocation, or double meaning of the word truth. 
What may be rightly affirmed of truth, used as sy- 
nonymous with verbal accuracy, is transferred to it 
in its higher sense of veracity. By verbal truth we 
mean no more than the correspondence of a given 
fact to given words. In moral truth, we involve like- 
wise the intention of the speaker, that his words 
should corres]X)nd to his thoughts in the sense in 
which he expects them to be understood by others : 
and in this latter imjwrt we are always supposed to 
use the word, whenever we speak of truth absolutely, 
or as a possible subject of a moral merit or demerit. 
It is verbally true, that in the sacred Scriptures it is 
written: "As is the good, so is the sinner, and he 
that sweareth as he that feareth an oath. A man 
hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and 
to drink, and to be merry. For there is one event 
unto all : the living know that they .«hall die, but the 
dead know not any thing, neither have they any more 
a reward." But he who should repeat these words, 
with this assurance, to an ignorant man in the hour 
of his temptation, lingering at the door of the ale- 
house, or hesitating as to the testimony required of 
him in the court of justice, would, spite of this verbal 
truth, be a liar, and the murderer of his brother's con- 
science. Veracity, therefore, not mere accuracy ; to 
convey truth, not merely to say it ; is the point of 
duly in dispute : and the only difliculty in the mind 
of an honest man arises from the doubt, whether more 
than veracity (i. e. the truth and nothing but the truth) 
is not demanded of him by the law of conscience ; 
whether it does not exact simplicity ; that is, the truth 
only, and the whole truth. If we can solve this dif- 
ficulty, if we can determine the conditions under 
which the law of universal reason commands the 
communication of the truth independently of conse- 
quences altogether, we shall then be enabled to judge 
whether there is any such probability of evil conse- 
quences from such communication, as can justify the 
assertion of its occasional criminality, as can perplex 
us in the conception, or disturb us in the performance, 
of our duty. 

The conscience, or efTecfive reason, commands the 
design of conveying an adequate notion of the thing 
spoken of, when this is practicable : but at all events 
a right notion, or none at all. A school-master is 
under the necessity of teaching a certain rule in 
simple arithmetic empirically, (do so and so, and the 
sum will always prove true) the necessary truth of 
the rule (i. e. that the rule having been adhered to, 
the sum must always prove true) requiring a know- 
ledge of the higher mathematics for its demonstra- 
tion. He, however, conveys a right notion, though 
he cannot convey the adequate one. 



derive benefit from such discussions. For if a man of genius 
and a lover of Truth brines just positions before the Public, 
there is a fresh accession to the stock of Philosophic Insight; 
but if erroneous positions, the former Truths will by the con- 
futation be established bo much the moie fiimly. 
385 



376 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ESSAY VI. 

HloXvuaSlv Kdpra /(fv o)<pe\ui, Kopra ye (iXdiTTU tov 
evovra '(tXpeXici jitv tov Ss^ibv 'avSpa, fiXdiTTCi Si 
Tdv pifi&iwf ipuivcvvra ttSv STrog- koI Iv iravTi S^'f^^- 
Xpn" Se Kaipov jihpa hhivaC co(piTir y«p ovto^, 
"0005-, "01 Se e^(i> Kaipov lurfaiv fxavaiKri^v ■nntvvnivu><^ 
auamaiv, o\ TrapaM ^o^'rai Iv apyiri yvw iirjv, ahtiv 5' 
(melius aiTirjv) e^ovci pnopia^. 

Heracjlitus apud Stobaum, {Serm. xxxiv. 

£d. Lgd. p. 216.) 

(Tra7!S?ffit!(m.)— General Knowledge and ready Talent 
may be of very great benefit, but they may likewise be of 
very great disservice to the possessor. They are highly ad- 
vantageous to the man of sound judgment, and dexterous in 
applying them ; but they injure your fluent holder forth on all 
subjects in all c<impanies. It is necessary to know the mea- 
sures of the time and occasion : for this is the very boundary 
of wisdom— (that by which it is defined, and distinguished 
from mere ubiliiy.) But be, who without regard to the unfit- 
ness of ihe lime and the audience " will soar in the high rea- 
son of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about 
hiin," will not acquire the credit of seriousness amidst frivo- 
lity, but will be condemned for his silliness, as the greatest 
idler of the company because the most unseasonable. 

The Moral Law, it has been shown, permits an 
inadequate communication of unsophisticated truth, 
on the condition that it alone is practicable, and binds 
us to silence when neither is in our power. We 
must first inquire then, What is necessary to consti- 
tute, and what may allowably accompany, a right 
though inadequate notion? And secondly, what are 
the circumstances, fi-om which we may deduce the 
impracticability of conveying even a right notion; 
the presence or absence of which circumstances it 
therefore becomes our duty to ascertain ? In answer 
to the first question, the conscience demands: 1. 
That it should be the wish and design of the mind 
to convey the truth only; that if in addition to the 
negative loss implied in its inadequateness,the notion 
commanicated should lead to any positive error, the 
cause should lie in the fault or defect of the Recipi- 
ent, not of the Communicator, whose paramount duty, 
whose inalienable right it is to preserve his own In- 
tegrity* the mtegral character of his own moral 
Being. Self-respect ; the reverence which he owes 
to the presence of Humanity in the person of his 
neighbor; the reverential upholding of the faith of 
man in man ; gratitude for the particular act of con- 



* The best and most forcib'e sense of a word is often that, 
which is contained in its Etymology. The Author of the 
Poems (T/ic Sijnago^He) frequently aflixed to Herbert's 
" Temple." gives the original purport of the word Integrity, 
in the following lines (fourth stanza of the eighth Poem.) 

Next to Sincerity, remember still, 

T|j,ou must resol'.-e upon Integrity, 

God will have all thou hast, thy mind, thy will, 

Thy thoughts, Ihy words, thy works. 
And again, after some verses on Constancy and Humility, 
the Poem concludes with — 

He that desires to goo 
The face of God, in his religion must 
Sincere, entire, constant and humble be. 



fidence ; and religious awe for the divine purposes 
in Iho gift of language ; are duties too sacred and 
important to be sacrificed to the guesses of an indi- 
vidual concerning the advantages to be gained by 
the breach of them. 2. It is further required, that 
the supposed error shall not be such as will pervert 
or materially vitiate the imperfect truth, in commu- 
nicating which we had unwillingly, though not per- 
haps unwittingly, occasioned it. A Barbarian so in- 
structed in the power and intelligence of the Infinite 
Being as to be left wholly ignorant of his moral at- 
tributes, would have acquired none but erroneous 
notions even of the former. At the very best, he 
would gain only a theory to satisfy his curiosity with ; 
but more probably, would deduce the belief of a 
Moloch or a Baal. (For the idea of an irresistible 
invisible Being naturally produces terror in the mind 
of uninstructed and linprotected man, and with terror 
there will be associated whatever had been accus- 
tomed to excite it, as anger, vengeance, &c. ; as is 
proved by the Mythology of all barbarous nations.; 
This must be the case with all organized truths; the 
component parts derive their significance from the 
idea of the whole. Bolingbroke removed Love, Jus- 
tice, and Choice, from Power and Intelligence, and 
pretended to have left unimpaired the conviction of 
a Deity. He might as consistently have paralyzed 
the optic nerve, and then excused himself by affirm- 
ing, that he had, however, not touched the eye. 

The third condition of a right though inadequate 
notion is, that the error occasioned be greatly out- 
weighed by the importance of the truth communi- 
cated. The rustic would have little reason to thank 
the philosopher, who should give him true concep- 
tions of the folly of believing in ghosts, omens, 
dreams, &c. at the price of abandoning his faith in 
Providence and in the continued existence of his 
fellow-creatures after their death. The teeth of iho 
old serpent planted by the Cadmuses of French 
Literature, under Lewis XV. produced a plenteous 
crop of Philosophers and Truth-trumpeters of this 
kind, in the reign of his Successor. They taught 
many truths, historical, political, physiological, and 
ecclesiastical, and diffused their notions so widely, 
that the very ladies and hair-dressers of Paris be- 
came fluent Encijclopffdists: and the sole price 
which their scholars paid for these treasures of new 
information, was to believe Christianity an imposture, 
the Scriptures a forgery, the worship (if not the 
belief) of God a superstition, hell a fable, heaven a 
dream, our life withotit Providence, and our death 
without hope. They became as gods as soon as the 
fruit of this Upas tree of knowledge and liberty had 
opened their eyes to perceive that they were no 
more than beasts — somewhat more cunning perhaps, 
and abundantly more mischievous. What can be 
conceived more natural than the result, — that self- 



Having mentioned the name of Hrrbcrt, that model of a 
man, a Gentleman, and a Clorpyman. let me add, that the 
quainlness of some of his thoughts nut of his riiciiun, than 
which nothing can be more pure, m inly, and unafiucted, has 
blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his Po- 
ems, which are for the most part exquisite in their kind. 
386 



THE FRIEND. 



377 



ai^knowledged beasts should first act, and next sufTer 
llicinst>lvcs to be treated as beasts. Wejiidsieby 
comparison. To exclude the preat is to mngnily the 
little. The disbelief of es-ienlial wisdom and good- 
iie.ss, necessarily prepares the imagination for the 
mipremacy of cunning with malignity. Folly and 
\we \vd\e their appropriate religions, as well as vir- 
tue and true knowledge; and in some way or other 
liiols will dance round the golden calf, and wicked 
•nen beat their timbrels and kettle-drums 

To Moloch, horrid king, bosinrnred with blood 
Ol' huinun sacrifice and puiont's teuts. 

My feelings have led me on, and in my illustration 
I had almost lo.^t from my view the subject to bo 
illustrated. One condition yet remains: that the 
error f >reseen shall not be of a kind to prevent or 
impede the after acquirement of that knowledge 
which will remove it. Observe, how graciously 
JVatnre instructs her human children. She cannot 
give us the knowledge derived li-om sight without 
occasioning us at lirst to mistake images of reflection 
for substances. But the very consequences of the 
delusion lead inevitably to its detection ; and out of 
the ashes of the error rises a new flower of know- 
ledge. We not only see, but are enabled to discover 
by what means we see. So too we are under the 
necessity, in given circumstances, of mistaking a 
sfjuare for a round object : but ere the mistake can 
have any practical consequences, it is not only re- 
moved, but its removal gives us the symbol of a 
new fact, that of distance. In a similar train of 
thought, though more fancifully, I might have eluci- 
dated the preoednig condition, and have referred our 
hurrying enlighteuers and revolutionary amputators 
to the gentleness of JXature, in the oak and the 
beech, the dry foliage of which she pushes off only 
by the propulsion of the new buds, that supply its 
place. My friends! a clothing even of withered 
leaves is better than bareness. 

Having thus determined the nature and conditions 
of a right notion, it remains to determine the circum- 
stances which tend to render the communication of it 
iinpncticable, and oblige us of course, to abstain from 
the attempt — oblige us not to convey falsehood under 
the pretext of saying truth. These circimistances, it 
is plain, must consist either in natural or moral impe- 
dimorus. The former, including the obvious grada- 
tions of constitutional insensibility and derangement, 
preclude all temptation to misconduct, as w-eil as all 
probability of ill-consequences from accidental over- 
8:g!it, on the part of the communicator. Far other- 
wise is it with the impediments from moral causes. 
These demand all the attention and forecast of the 
genuine lovers of truth in the matter, the manner, 
and the time of their communications, public and 
private: and those are the ordinary materials of the 
vain and the factious, determine them in the choice 
^[' their audiences and of their arguments, and to 
each argument give powers not its own. They are 
djsiin,'uishable into two sources, the streams from 
which, however, must often become confluent, viz. 
hiiulrances from ignorance (I here use the word in 
50 



relation to the habits of reasoning as well as to the 
previous knowledge requisite for the due comprehen- 
sion of the subject) and hindrances from predominant 
jHtxsians* 

From both the.«e the law of conscience commands 
us to al)siain, because such being the ignorance and 
such the passions of the sup|X)scd auditors, we ought 
to deduce the impracticability of conveying not only 
adequate but even right notions of our own convic- 
tions: much less does it permit us to avail ourselves of 
the causes of this impracticability in order to |)rocure 
nominal proselytes, each of whom will have a difTer- 
ent, and all a false, conception of those notions that 
were to be conveyed for their truth's sake alone. 
Whatever is (or but for some defect in our moral cha- 
racter would have been) foreseen as preventing the 
conveyance of our thoughts, makes the attempt an 
act of self-contradiction: and whether the faulty 
cause exist in our choice of unfit words or our choice 
of unfit auditors, the result is the same and so is the 
guilt. We have voluntarily communicated falschoo<l. 

Thus (without reference to con^eqiinices, if only 
one short digression be excepted) from the sole prin- 
ciple of self-consisteuce or moral integrity, we have 
evolved the clue of right rea.son, which we are 
bound to follow in the communication of truth. 
Now then we appeal to the judgment and experi- 
ence of the reader, whether he who most faithfully 
adheres to the letter of the law of conscience will 
not likewise act in the strictest correspondence to the 
maxims of prudence and sound policy. I am at least 
unable to recollect a single instance, either in history 
or in my personal experience, of a preponderance of 
injurious consequences from the publication of any 
truth, under the observance of the moral conditions 
alwve stated : much less can I even imagine any 
case, in which truth, as truth, can be pernicious. 
But if the asserter of the indifferency of truth and 
falsehood in their own natures, attempt to justify his 
position by confining the word truth, in the first in- 
stance, to the correspondence of given words to given 
facts, without reference to the total impression left by 
such W'Ords ; what is this more than to assert, that 
arlioilakd sounds are things of moral indifTerency ? 
and that we may relate a fact accurately and never- 
theless deceive grossly and wickedly? Blifil related 
accurately Tom Jones's riotous joy during his bene- 
factor's illness, only omitting that this joy was occa- 
sioned by the physician's having pronounced him out 
of danger. Blifil was not the less a liar for being an 
accurate maller-of-faci liar. TcU-truths in the service 
of falsehood we find every where, of various names 
and various occupations, from the elderly-young 
women that discuss the love-affairs of their friends 
and acquaintance at the village tea-tables, to the ano- 
nymous calumniators of literary merit in reviews, and 
the more daring malignants, who dole out discon- 
tent, innovation and panic, in political journals: and 
a most pernicious race of liars they are! But who 
ever doubted it ? Why should our moral feelings be 
shocked, and the holiest words with all their vene- 



* Sco the Aulhot's Second Lay Sermon. 
387 



378 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



rable associations be profaned, in order to bring forth 
a Truism ? But thus it is for the most part with the 
\enders of startling paradoxes. In the sense in which 
they are to gain for their author the character of a 
bold and original tliinker, they are false even to ab- 
surdity; and the sense in which they are true and 
harmless, conveys so mere a Truism, that it even bor- 
ders on Nonsense. How oflen have we heard " The 

Rights of Man— hurra ! The Sovereignty of 

THE People — hurra!" roared out by men who, if 
called upon in another place and before another au- 
dience, to explain themselves, would give to the 
words a meaning, in which the most monarchical of 
their political opponents would admit them to be 
true, but which would contain nothing new, or 
strange, or stimulant, nothing to flatter the pride or 
kindle the passions of the populace. 



ESSAY VII. 



At profanum vulgus Icctorum quomodo arcondem est? Li- 
biisne noetiis jubeamus, ut coram indigais obmutescanf? 
Si linguis, ut dicitur. einortuis utamur, ehou ! ingenium 
quoque nobis emoituum jacet: sin aliter, Minerva? secreia 
crassis ludibrium divulgamus, et Dianam nostrum impuris 
hujus saeculi Actsonibus nudam prot'erimus. Respondeo : — 
ad incommoditates hujnsmodi evitandas, nee Grace nee 
Latine scribere opus est. Sufficiet, nos sicca luce usos 
fuisse ct siricliore argumentandi methodo. Sufficiet, inno- 
center, utiliier scripsisse : eventus est apud lectorem. Nuper 
emptum est a nobis Ciceronianum istud "de officis," opus 
quod semper psneChrisliano dignum putabamus. Mirum ! 
libellus factum fuerat famosissimus. Credisne 1 Vix : at 
quomodo'! Maligna quodam, nescio quern, plena margins 
et super tergo, annotatum est et exemplis, calumniis potius, 
superlajtalum ! Sic el qui introrsum uritur inflammationes 
aiiiini vel Catonianis (ne dicam, sacrosanclis) paginis acci- 
pit. Omni aura mons, omnibus scriptis mens, ignita vesci- 

tur. RUDOLFHI LANGIl Epist: ad Amicum 

guemdam Ii.alicum in qua LinsuiB patriiB et hodierniB 
usam d'fcndit ct erudilis covimendat. 

Nee me fallil, ut in corporibus hominum sic in animis multi- 
plici passione afTectis, niedicamenta verborum multis ineffi- 
cacia visum iri. Sed nee illud quoque me prifiterit, ut invi- 
sibiles animorum morbus, sic invisibilia esse remedia. 
Fiilsis opinionibus circuinventi veris sententiis liberandi 
Bunt, ut qui audiendo ceciderant audicndo consurgant. 

PETRARCHA:Pr(i/'at. in lib. de remed. utriusgue 
fortuniB. 

{Translation.) But how are we to guard against the herd 
oF promiscuous Readers 1 Can wo bid our books be silent in 
the presence of the unworthy 1 If we employ what are called 
the dead languages, our own genius, alas ! becomes flat and 
dead : and if we embody our thoughts in the words native to 
tJiem or in which they were conceived, we divulge the secrets 
of Minerva to the ridicule of blockheads, and expose our 
Diana to the Aclaions of a sensual age. I reply : that in order 
to avoid inconveniences of this kind, we need write neither in 
Greek or in Latin. It will be £nough, if we abstain from 
appealing to the bad passions and low appetites, and confine 
ourselves to a strictly consequent method of reasoning. 

To have wriuen innocently, and for wise purposes, is all 
that can be required of us : the event lies with the Reader. 
I purchased lately Cicero's work, de ofBciis, which I had 
always considered as almost worthy of a Christian. To my 
Burpriso it had become a most flagrant libel. Nay ! but how 1 
— Some one, 1 know not who, out of the fruitfulness of his 
own malignity had filled all the margins and other blank 
spaces with annotations — a true supcrftrtation of examples, 
that is, of false and slanderous tales' In like manner, the 



slave of impure desires will turn the pages of Cato, not tosa;, i 
Scripture itself, into occasions and excitements of wanton 
imaginations. There is no wind but feeds a volcano, no work 
bnt feeds and fans a combustible mind. 

I am well aware, that words will appear to many ae ineffi- 
cacious medicines when administered to minds agitated with 
manifold passions, as when they are muttered by way of 
charm over bodily ailments. But neither does it escape me, 
on the other hand, that as the diseases of the mind are invisi- 
ble, invisible must the remedies likewise be. Those who havo 
been entrapped by false opinions are to be liberated by con- 
vincing truths: that thus having imbibed the poison through 
the ear, they may receive Uie antidote by the same channel. 



That our elder writers, to Jeremy Taylor inclu- 
sive, quoted to excess, it would be the very blindness 
of partiality to deny. More than one might be men- 
tioned, whose works might be characterized in the 
words of Milton, as"a paroxysm of citations, pampered 
metaphors, and aphorisming pedantry." On the other 
hand, it seems to me that we now avoid qtiotations 
with an anxiety that offends in the contrary extreme. 
Yet it is the beauty and independent worth of the ci- 
tations far more than their appropriateness which 
have made Johnson's Dictionary popular even as a 
reailing book — and the mottfjs with the translations 
of them are known to add considerably to the value 
of the Spectator. With this conviction I have taken 
more than common pains in the selection of the mot- 
tos for the Friend : and of two mottos equally appro- 
priate prefer always that from the book which is least 
likely to have come into my Reader's hands. For I 
often please myself with the fancy, now that I may 
I have saved from oblivion the only striking pa.=sage in 
a whole volume, and now that I may have attracted 
notice to a writer undeservedly forgotten. If this 
should be attributed to a silly ambition in the display 
of various reading, I can do no more than deny any 
consciousness of having been so actuated : and for 
the rest, I must console myself by the reflection, that 
if it be one of the most foolish, it is at the same time 
one of the most harmless, of human vanities. 

The passages prefixed lead at once to the question, 
which will probably have more than once occurred 
to the reflecting reader of the preceding Essay. How 
will these rules apply to the most important mode of 
communication ? to that, in which one man may ut- 
ter his thoughts to myriads of men at the same time, 
and to myriads of myriads at various times and 
through successions of generations? How do they ap- 
ply to authors, whose foreknowledge assuredly does 
not inform them who, or how many, or of what de- 
scription their Readers will be? How do these rules 
apply to books, which once published, are as likely 
to fall in the way of the incompetent as of the judi- 
cious, and will be fortunate indeed if they are not 
many times looked at through the thick mists of igno- 
rance, or amid the glare of prejudice and passion ? — 
We answer in the first place, that this is not univer- 
sally true. The readers are not seldom picked and 
chosen. Relations of certain pretended miracles per 
formed a few years ago, at Holywell, in consequence 
of prayers to the Virgin Mary, on female servants, 
and these relations moralized by the old Roman Cath- 
olic arguments without the old protestant answers, 
388 



THE FRIEND. 



379 



liuve to my knowledge been sold by travelling ped- 
lars II) villages and liinn-hoiises, not only in a lorni 
vNliich placed them wiiliin the reach of the narrowest 
means, but sold at a price less than their prime cost, 
and doubtless thrown in occasionally as tiio tiiakc- 
\iti^:lil in a bargain ol'pins and slay-tape. Shall I be 
told, that the publishers and reverend aullmrizers of 
iliKse base and vulgar delusions had exerted no choice 
as to the purchasers and readers? But waiving this, 
or rather having lirst |X)inted it out, as an imiurtanl 
exception, we further reply : that if the Author have 
clearly and rightly established in his own mind the 
class of readers, to which he means to address his 
communications; and if both in this choice, and in 
the particulars of the manner and matter of his work, 
he conscientiously observes all the conditions which 
reason and conscience have been shown to dictate, 
in relation to those for whom the w^ork was designed ; 
he will, in most instances, have efTected his design 
and realized the desired circumscription. The pos- 
thumous work of Spinoza {Elhica ordine ffcometrico 
demonslrala) may, indeed, accidentally fall into the 
hands of an incompetent reader. But, (not to men- 
tion, that it is written in a dead language) it will be 
entirely harmless, because it must needs be utterly 
unintelligible. I venture to a-ssert, that the whole 
lirst book, De Deo, might be read in literal English 
translation to any congregation in the kingdom, and 
that no mdividual, who had not been habituated to 
the strictest and most laborious processes of reason- 
ing, would even suspect its orthodoxy or piety, how- 
ever heavily the few who listened would complain 
of its obscurity and want of interest. 

This, it may be objected, is an extreme case. But 
it is not so for the present purpose. We are speaking 
of tiie probability of injurious consequences from 
the communication of Truth. This I have denied, 
if the right means have been adopted, and the neces- 
sary conditions adhered to, for its aclnal communica- 
tion. Now the truths conveyed in a book are either 
evident of themselves, or such as require a train of 
deductions of proof: and the latter will be either 
such as are authorized and generally received ; or 
such as are in opposition to received and authorized 
opinions; or lastly, truths presented for the appro- 
priate test of examination, and still under trial (adhuc 
suh Hie.) Of this latter class I aflirm, that in neither 
of the three sorts can an instance be brought of a 
preponderance of ill-consequences, or even of an 
equilibrium of advantage and injury, from a work in 
winch the understanding alone has been appealed 
to, by results fairly deduced from just premi-ses, in 
terms strictly appropriate. Alas! legitimate reason- 
ing is Impossible without severe thinking, and think- 
ing is neither an easy or amusing employment. The 
reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the 
summit and absolute principle of any one important 
subject, has chosen a Chamois-hunter for his guide. 
Our guide will, indeed, take us the shortest way, 
will save us many a wearisome and perilous wan- 
dering, and warn us of many a mock road that had 
formerly led himself to the brink of chasms and 
precipices, or at best in on idle circle to the spot 
li 



from whence he started. But he cannot carry us 
on his shoulders : wo must strain our own sinews, 
as he has strained his ; and make firm fooling on the 
smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from 
our own feet. Examine the journals of our humane 
and zealous missionaries in Himlostan. How often 
and how feelingly do tliey describe the dilliculty of 
making the simplest chain of reasoning intelligible to 
the ordinary natives : the rapid exhaustion of their 
whole power of attention, and with what pain and dis- 
tressful eflbrt it is exerted, while it lasts. Yet it is 
among this class, that the hideous practices of self-tor- 
turo chiefly, indeed almost exclusively, prevail. O if 
folly were no easier than wisdom, it being often so 
very much more grievous, how certainly might not 
these miserable men be converted to Christianity ? 
But alas I to swing by hooks passed through the 
back, or to walk on shoes with nails of iron jwinted 
upward on the soles, all this is so much less difllcult, 
demands so very interior an exertion of the will 
than to ihin};, and by thought to gain Knowledge 
and Tranquillity ! 

It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion 
of the advantages of Truth and Knowledge. They 
confess, they see those advantages in the conduct, 
the immunities, and the superior powers of the pos- 
sessors. Were these attainable by Pilgrimages the 
most toilsome, or Penances the most painful, we 
should assuredly have as many Pilgrims and as many 
Self-tormentors in the service of true Religion and 
Virtue, as now exist under the tyranny of Papal or 
Brahman superstition. This ineflicacy of legitimate 
Reason, from the want of fit objects, thi.s its relative 
weakness and how narrow at all times its immediate 
sphere of action must be, is proved to us by the im- 
postors of all professions. What, I pray, is their for- 
tress, the rock which is both their quarry and their 
foundation, from which and on which they are built? 
The desire of arriving at the end without the effort 
of thought and will, which are the appointed means. 
Let us look backwards three or four centuries. 
Then, as now, the great mass of mankind were 
governed by three main wishes, the wish for vigor 
of body, including the absence of painful feelings: 
for wealth, or the power of procuring the internal 
conditions of bodily enjoyment: these during life — 
and security from pain and continuance of happiness 
after death. Then, as now, men were desirous to 
attain them by some easier means than those of 
Temperance, Industry, and strict Justice. They 
gladly therefore applied to the Priest, who could 
ensure them happiness hereafter without the per- 
formance of their duties here ; to the Lawyer, who 
could make money a substitute for a right cause; to 
the Physician, whose medicines promised to take the 
sting out of the tail of their sensual indulgences, 
and lot them fondle and play with vice, as with a 
charmed serpent; to the .Alchemist, whose gold- 
tincture would enrich them without toil or economy; 
and to the Astrologer, from whom they could pur- 
chase foresight without knowledge or reflection. 
The established professions were, without exception, 
no other than licensed modes of witchcraft. The 
389 



380 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Wizards, who would now find their due reward in 
Bridewell, and their appropriate honors in the pillory, 
sate then on episcopal thrones, candidates for Saint- 
ship, and already canonized in the belief of their de- 
luded contemporaries; while the one or two real 
teachers and Discoverers of Truth were exposed to 
the hazard of fire and fagot, a dungeon the best 
shrine that was vouchsafed to a Roger Bacon and a 
Galileo ! 



ESSAY VIII. 



Pray, why is it, that people say that men are not such fools 
now-a-days as they were in the days of yore? I would fain 
know, whether you would have us understand by this same 
sayin?, as indeed you logically may, that formerly men 
were fools, and in this generation are grown wise'? How 
many and what dispositions made them fools 7 How 
many and what dispositions were wanting to make 'em 
wise? Why were those fools? How should these be 
wise ? Pray, how came you to know that men were for- 
merly fools ? How did you find, that they are now wise? 
Who made them fools? Who in Heaven's name made us 
wise ? Who d'ye think are most, thofe that loved mankind 
foolish, or those that love it wise? How long has it been 
wise? How long otherwise? Whence proceeded the fore- 
going folly? Whence the following wisdom? Why did 
the old folly end now and no later ? Why did the modern 
wisdom begin now and no sooner? What were we the 
worse fi)r the former folly ? What the better for the suc- 
ceeding wisdom ? How should the ancient folly have come 
to nothing? How should this same new wisdom be started 
up and established ? Now answer me, an't please you ! 
FR. RABELAIS' Preface to his 5th Book. 



Monsters and Madmen canonized, and Galileo 
blind in a dungeon ! It is not so in our times. Hea- 
ven be praised, that in this respect, at least, we are, 
if not better, yet better off than our forefathers. But 
to what, and to whom (under Providence) do we owe 
the improvement? To any radical change in the 
moral affections of mankind in general ? Perhaps the 
great majority of men are now fully conscious that 
they are born with the god-like faculty of Reason, 
and that it is the business of life to develope and 
apply it ? The Jacob's ladder of Truth, let down 
from heaven, with all its numerous rounds, is now 
the common highway, on which we are content to 
toil upward to the object of our desires? We are 
ashamed of expecting the end without the means ? 
In order to answer these questions in the affirmative, 
I must have forgotten the Animal Magnetists ; the 
proselytes of Brothers, and of Joanna Southcot ; and 
some hundred thousand fanatics less original in their 
creeds, but not a whit more rational in their ex- 
pectations! I must forget the infamous Empirics, 
whose advertisements pollute and disgrace all our 
Newspapers, and almost /jajier the walls of our cities; 
and the vending of whose poisons and poisonous 
drams (with shame and anguish be it spoken) support 
a shop in every market-town? I must forget that 
jther opprobrium of the nation, that Mother-vice, the 
Lottery! I must forget that a numerous class plead 
Prudence for keeping their fellow-men ignorant and 
jinapable of intellectual enjoyments, ancl the Reve- 



nue for upholding such temptations as men so igno- 
rant will not withstand — yes ! that even senators and 
officers of state hold forth the Revenue as a sufficient 
plea for upholding, at every fiftieth door throughout 
the kingdom, temptations to the most pernicious 
vices, which fill the land witli mourning, and fit the 
laboring classes for sedition and religious fanaticism! 
Above all I must forget the first years of the French 
Revolution, and the millions throughout Europe who 
confidently expected the best and choicest results of 
Knowledge and Virtue, namely. Liberty and univer- 
sal Peace, from the votes of a tumultuous Assembly 
— that is, from the mechanical agitation of the air in 
a large room at Paris — and this too in the most light, 
unthinking, sensual and profligate of the European 
nations, a nation, the very phrases of whose language 
are so composed, that they can scarcely speak with- 
out lying ! — No ! Let us not deceive ourselves. Like 
the man who used (o pull off his hat with great de- 
monstration of respect whenever he spoke of himself, 
we are fond of styling our own the ejtlighteiicd age: 
though as Jortin, I think, has wittily remarked, the 
golden age would be more appropriate. But in spite 
of our great scientific discoveries, for which praise 
be given to whom the praise is due, and in spite of 
that general indifference to all the truths and all the 
principles of truth, that belong to our permanent 
being, and therefore do not lie within the sphere of 
our senses, (that same indifference which makes tole- 
ration so easy a virtue with us, and constitutes nine- 
tenths of our pretended ilUmiination) it still remains 
the character of the mass of mankind to seek for the 
attainment of their necessary ends by any means 
rather than the appointed ones ; and for this cause 
only, that the latter imply the exertion of the Reason 
and the Will. But of all things this demands the 
longest apprenticeship, even an apprenticeship from 
Infancy; which is generally neglected, because an 
excellence, that may and should belong to all men, is 
expected to come to every man of its own accord. 

To whom then do we owe our ameliorated condi- 
tion ? To the successive Few in every age (more 
indeed in one generation than in another, but rela- 
tively to the mass of mankind always few) who by 
the intensity and permanence of their action have 
compensated for the limited sphere, within which it 
is at anyone time intelligible; and whose good deeds 
posterity reverence in their result, though the mode, 
in which we repair the inevitable waste of time, and 
the style of our additions, too generally furnish a sad 
proof, how little we understand the principles. I 
appeal to the Histories of the Jewish, the Grecian, 
and the Roman Republics, to the Records of the 
Christian Church, to the History of Europe from the 
Treaty of Westphalia (1648). What do they contain 
but accounts of noble structures raised by the wisdom 
of the few, and gradually undermined by the igno- 
rance and profligacy of the many ? If therefore th 
deficiency of good, which everywhere surrounds us, 
originate in the general tmfitness and aversions of 
men to the process of thought, that is, to continuous 
reasoning, it must surely be absurd to apprehend a 
preponderance of evil from works which cannot act 
390 



THE FRIEND. 



381 



at all except as far as they call the reasoning facul- 
ties into full co-exertion with lliem. 

Still, however, lliere are Irutlis so self-evident or so 
immediately and [lalpably deduced from those that 
are, or are acknowledged for such, that they are at 
once intelligible to all men, who possess the connnon 
advantages of the social slate ; ulihough by sophistry, 
by evil habits, by the neglect, false persuasions, and 
iin|x)stiires of an anti-chrislian priesthood joined in 
one conspiracy with the violence of tyrannical gover- 
nors, the understandings of men may become so dark- 
ened and their consciences so lelharijic, that there 
may arise a necessity for the republication of these 
truths, and this too with a voice of loud alarm, and 
impassioned warning. Such were the doctrines pro- 
claimed by the lirst Christians of tlie Pagan world ; 
such were the lightnings (lashed by WicklifT lltiss, 
Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Fatimcr, &<:. across the 
Papal darkness; and sucli in our own times the agi- 
tating truths, with which Thomas Clarkson, and his 
e.tcellent confederates, the Quakers, (ought and con- 
quered the legalized banditti of men-slealers, the nu- 
merous and powerful perpetrators and advocates of 
rapine, murder, and (of blacker guilt than cither) 
slavery. Truths of this kind being indispensable to 
man, considered as a moral being, are above all ex- 
pedience, all accidental consequences : for as sure as 
God is holy, and man immortal, there can be no evil so 
great as the ignorance or disregard of thcin. It is the 
very madness of mock prudence to oppose the re- 
moval of a poisonous dish on account of the pleasant 
sauces or nutritious viands which would be lost with 
it! The dish contains destruction to that, for which 
alone we ought to wish the palate to be gratified, or 
the body to be nourished. 

The sole condition, therefore, imposed on us by 
the law of conscience in these cases is. that we em- 
ploy no imworthy and heterogeneous means to realize 
the necessary end, that we entrust the event wholly 
to the full and adequate promulgation of the truth, 
and to those generous adl-ctions which the constitu- 
tion of our moral nature has linked to the full per- 
ception of it. Yet evil may, nay it will be occasioned. 
Weak men may take offence, and wicked men avail 
themselves of it ; though we must not attribute to the 
promulgation, or to the truth promulgated, all the evil, 
of which wicked men (predetermined, like the wolf 
in the fable, to create some occasion) may choose to 
make it the pretext. But that there ever was or ever 
can be a preponderance of evil, I defy either the His- 
torian to instance or the philosopher to prove. " Let* 
it fly away, all that chafT of light faith that can fly 
off at any breath of temptation; the cleaner will the 
true grain be stored up in the granary of the Lord," 
we are entitled to say with Terlullian: and to ex- 
claim with heroic Luther, " Scandalt and olTence ! 



* Avolcnt quantum volent palen) Icvis fiilei quocunque 
afllata Ibntationum ! eo purior masea frumenti in horrea 
ilomini rcponelur. TERTULLFAN. 

f .^ergerniss hin, Aergerniea her! Nolh brinhi F.iscn, und 
hilt kein AciRcriiies. Ich soil der schwachcn Gcwissen 
BChonen so fern C9 ohno Gcfahr mpincr Scelen gpschcin mag. 
Wo nicht, BO soil ich moinor Seolon ralhen, ca argcre eich 
damn die gunze oder lialbe VVuli. 



Talk not to me of scandal and offence. Keed breaks 
through stone walls, and recks not of scandal. It is 
my duly to spare weak consciences as (iir as it may 
be done without hazard of my soul. Where not. 
I must lake counsel lor my soul, though half or the 
whole world slioiild he scandalized thereby." 

Luther felt and preached and wrote and acted, as 
beseemed a Luther to (eel and inter and act. The 
truths, which had been outraged, he re-pro( laimed in 
the spirit of outraged truth, at the behest of his con- 
science and in the service of the God of truth. He 
did his duty, come good, come evil: and made no 
question, on which side the preponderance would be. 
In Ihe one scale there was gold, and the impress 
thereon the image and superscription of the Univer- 
sal Sovereign. In all the wide und ever-widening 
commerce of mind with mind throughout the world, 
it is treason to refuse it. Can this have a counter- 
weight ? The other scale indeed might have seemed 
full up to the very balance-yard ; but of what worth 
and substance were its contents ? Were they capable 
of being counted or weighed against the former ? 
The conscience indeed is already violated when to 
moral good or evil we oppose things pos.sessing no 
moral interest. Even if the conscience dared waive 
this her preventive veto, yet before we could con- 
sider the twofold results in the relations of loss and 
gain, it must be known whether their kind is the 
same or equivalent. They must first be valued, and 
then they may be weighed or counted, if they are 
worth it. But in the particular case at present before 
us, the loss is contingent, and alien ; the gain essen- 
tial and the tree's own natural produce. The gain is 
permanent, and spreads through all times and places ; 
the loss but temporary, and, owing its very being to 
vice or ignorance, vanishes at the approach of know- 
ledge and moral improvement. The gain reaches nil 
good men, belongs to all that love light and desire an 
increase of light: to all men of all times, who thank 
Heaven for Ihe gracious dawn, and expect the noon- 
day ; who welcome the first gleams of spring, and 
sow their fields in confident faith of the ripening sum- 
mer and the rewarding harvest-tide I But the loss is 
confined to the unenlightened and the prejudiced — 
say rather, to the weak and the prejudiced of a sin- 
gle generation. The prejudices of one age are con- 
demned even by the prejudiced of the succeeding 
ages: for endless are the modes of folly, and Ihe fool 
joins with the wise in passing sentence on all modes 
but his own. Who cried out with greater horror 
against the murderers of the Prophets, than those 
who likewise cried out, crucify him! crucify him! 
The truth-haters of every future generation will call 
the truth haters of the preceding ages by their true 
names : for even these the stream of lime carries on- 
ward. In fine. Truth considered in itself and in the 
effects natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle 
spring or water-source, warm from the genial earth, 
and breathing up into Ihe snow-drift that is piled over 
and around its outlet. It turns the obstacle in iw 
own form and character, and as it makes its way in- 
creases its stream. And should it be arrested in its 
course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not lose, 
391 



382 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



and waits only for a change in the wind to awaken 
and again roll onwards. 

I seniplici pastori 
Sul Vasolo nevoso 
Fatti curvi e canuti, 
D' alto stupor son rauti 
Mirando al fonte ombroso 

II Po con pochi umori, 
Poscia udendo gli onori 
Deir urna angusta e stretta, 
Che'l Adda che'l Tesino 
Soverchia in suo cammino, 
Che ampio al mar's affretta 
Che si spuma, e si suona, 

Che gli si da corona !* CHIABRERA. 

Literal Translation.— "The simple shepherds grown bent 
and hoary-headed on the snowy Vesolo, are mute with deep 
astonishment, gazing in the overshadowed fountain on the Po 
with his scanty waters ; then hearing of the honors of his 
confined and narrow urn, how he receives as a sovereign the 
Mda and the Tesino in his course, how ample he hastens on 
to the sea, how he foams, how mighty his voice, and that to 
him the crown is assigned." 



ESSAY IX. 



Great men have lived among us. Heads that plann'd 
And Tongues that utter'd Wisdom — better none. 

********* 
Even so doth Heaven protect us ! 

WORDSWORTH. 

In the preceding Number I have explained the 
good, that is, the natural consequences of the promul- 
gation to all of truths which all are bound to know 
and to make known. The evils occasioned by it, with 
few and rare exceptions, have their origin in the at- 
tempts to suppress or pervert it; in the fury and vio- 
lence of imposture attacked or undermined in her 
strong holds, or in the extravagances of ignorance and 
credulity roused from their lethargy, and angry at the 
medicinal disturbance — awakening not yet broad 
awake, and thus blending the monsters of uneasy 
dreams with the real objects, on which the drowsy 
eye had alternately half opened and closed, again 
halfopened and again closed. This re-action of de- 
ceit and superstition, with all the trouble and tumult 
incident, I would compare to a fire which bursts forth 
from some stifled and fermenting mass on the first ad- 
mission of light and air. It roars and blazes, and con- 
verts the already spoilt or damaged stuff with all the 
straw and straw-like near it, first into flame and the 
next moment into ashes. The fire dies away, the 
ashes are scattered on all the winds, and what began 
m worthlessness ends in nothingness. Such are the 
evil, that is, the casual consequences of the same pro- 
mulgation. 

It argties a narrow or corrupt nature to lose the 
general and lasting consequences of rare and virtu- 



* I give literal translations of my poetic as well as prose 
quotations : because the propriety of their introduction often 
depenas on the exact sense and order of the words : which it 
J impossible always to retain in a metrical version. 



ous energy, in the brief accidents, which accompa- 
nied its first movements — to set lightly by the eman- 
cipation of the human reason from a legion of devils, 
in our complaints and lamentations over the loss of a 
herd of swine ! The Cranmers, Hampdens, and Sid- 
neys : the counsellors of our Elizabeth, and the friends 
of our other great Deliverer, the third William, — is it 
in vain, that these have been our countrymen ? Are 
we not the heirs of their good deeds ? And what are 
noble deeds but noble truths realized ? As Protest- 
ants, as Englishmen, as the inherilers of so ample an 
estate of might and right, an estate so strongly fenced, 
so richly planted, by the sinewy arms and dauntless 
hearts of our forefathers, we of all others have good 
cause to trust in the truth, yea, to follow its pillar of 
fire through the darkness and the desert, even though 
its light should but suffice to make us certain of its 
own presence. If there be elsewhere men jealous 
of the light, who prophesy an excess of evil over good 
from its manifestation, we are entitled to ask them, 
on what experience they ground their bodings ? Our 
own country bears no traces, our own history con- 
tains no records, to justify them. From the great 
eras of national illumination, we date the commence- 
ment of our main national advantages. The tangle 
of delusions, which stifled and distorted the growing 
tree, have been torn away ; the parasite weeds, that 
fed on Its very roots, have been plucked up with a 
salutary violence. To us there remain only quiet 
duties, the constant care, the gradual improvement, 
the cautious unhazardous labors of the industrious 
though contented gardener — to prune, to engraft, and 
one by one to remove from its leaves and fresh shoots 
the slug and the caterpillar. But far be it from us to 
undervalue with light and senseless detraction the 
conscientious hardihood of our predecessors, or even 
to condemn in them that vehemence, to which the 
blessings it won for us leave us now neither tempta- 
tion or pretext. That the very terms, with which the 
bigot or the hireling would blacken the first publish- 
ers of political and religious Truth, are, and deserve 
to be, hateful to us, we owe to the effects of its pub- 
lication. We antedate the feelings, in wrder to crimi 
nate the authors of our tranquillity, opulence, and se- 
curity. But let us be aware. Effects will not, in 
deed, immediately disappear with their causes ; but 
neither can they long continue without them. If by 
the reception of Truth in the spirit of Truth, we he 
came what we are : only by the retention of it in the 
same spirit, can we remain what we are. The nar- 
row seas that form our boundaries, what were they in 
times of old ? The convenient highway for Danish 
and Norman pirates. What are they now ? Still but 
"a Span of Water." — Yet they roll at the base of the 
inisled Ararat, on which the Ark of the Hope of Eu- 
rope and of Civilization rested .' 

Even so doth God protect us, if we be 
Virtuous and Wise. Winds blow and Waters roll, 
Strength to the Brave, and Power and Deity: 
Yet in themselves are nothing ! One Decree 
Spake Laws to them, and said that by the Soul 
Only the Nations shall be great and free 1 

WORDSWORTH 
392 



THE FRIEND. 



883 



ESSAY X. 



(deny not but that it is orgroatcat concernment in llie church 
anil coninionwcaUh lo have a visilani eye how books de- 
mean thenisrlvcs Ud well as men. Tor hooka are not abso- 
lutely dead things, hut do contain ii progeny of life in them 
lo bu as active us Ihat soul was whose progeny they arc. 
I know they are aa lively and as vigorously productive as 
those fabulous dragon's teeth : and being sown up and 
down may chance to spring up armed men. And yot on 
the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost 
kill a man ns kill a sood bonk. Many a man lives a bur- 
then to the earth ; but a good book is the precious life- 
blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on 

purpose to a hfe beyond life. MILTOM'S Upecc/i for 

tlic Liberty of unlicensed Printing. 



Tnrs far then I have been condticting a cause 
between an individual and his own mind. Proceed- 
ing on the conviction, that to man is entrusted the 
nature, not the result of his actions, I have presup- 
posed no calculations. 1 have presumed no foresight. 
— Introduce no contradiction into thy own conscious- 
ness. Acting or abstaining from action, delivering 
or withholding thy thoughts, whatsoever thou dost, 
doit in singleness of heart. In all things therefore, 
let thy means correspond to thy purpose, and let the 
purpose be one with the purport. — To this principle 
I have referred the supposed individual, and from 
this principle solely 1 have deduced each particular 
of his conduct. As far, therefore, as the court of 
Conscience extends, (and in this court alone I have 
been pleading hitherto) I have won the cause. It 
has been decided, that there is no just ground for 
apprehending mischief from Truth communicated 
conscientiously, (i. e. with a strict observance of all 
tlie conditions required by the Conscience) — that 
what is not so communicated, is falsehood, and that 
to the Falsehood, not to the Truth, must the ill con- 
sequences be attributed. 

Another and altogether different cause remains 
now to be pleaded ; a different cause, and in a dif- 
ferent court. The parties concerned are no longer 
the well-meaning Individual and his Conscience, but 
the Citizen and the State — The Citizen, who may be 
a fanatic as probably as a philosopher, and the State, 
which concerns itself with the Conscience only as 
liir as it appears in the action, or still more accurately, 
in the fact ; and which must determine tlie nature 
of the fact not merely by a rule of Right formed from 
the modification of particular by general conse- 
quences, not merely by a principle of compromise, 
that reduces the freedom of each citizen to the com- 
mon measure in which it becomes compatible with 
the freedom of all ; but likewise by the relation 
which the facts bear to its (the State's) own instinct- 
ive principle of self-preservation. For every deposit- 
ory of the Supreme Power must presume itself right- 
ful : and as the source of law not legally to be endan- 
gered. A form of government may indeed, in reality, 
be most pernicious to the governed, and the highest 
moral honor may await the patriot who risks his life 
m order by its subversion to introduce a better and 
juster constitution ; but it would be absurd to blame 
26 1>2 



the law by which his life is declared forfeit. It were 
to expect, that by an involved contradiction the law 
should allow ilself not lo be law, by allowing the 
State, of which it is a part, not lo be a State. For as 
Hooker has well observed, the law of men's actions 
is one, if they bo respected only as men ; and another, 
when they are considered as parU of a body |)olilic. 

Hut though every government, subsisting in law 
(for pure lawless desiKjtism grounding itself wholly 
on terror precludes all consideration of duty) — though 
every government subsisting in law must, and ought 
to, regard ilself as the life of the Iwdy politic, of 
which it is the head, and consequently must piniish 
every attempt against itself as an act of as-saidt or 
murder, i. e. sedition or treason; yet still it ought so 
to secure the life as not to prevent the conditions of 
its growth, and of thai adaptation to circumstances, 
without which ils very life becomes insecure. In 
the application, therefore, of these princijjles to tho 
public communication of opinions by the most effi- 
cient means, the Press — we have to decide, whether 
consistently with them there should be any liberty 
of the press ; and if this be answered in the aflirma- 
tive, what shall be declared abuses of that liberty, 
and made punishable as such; and in what way the 
general law shall he applied to each particular case. 

First then, should there be any liberty of the 
press ? we will not here mean, whether it should be 
permitted to print books at all ; (for our Fssay has 
little chance of being read in Turkey, and in any 
other part of Europe it cannot be supposed question- 
able) but whether by the appointment of a Censor- 
ship the (lovernmeiit should take upon itself the 
responsibility of each particular publication. fn 
Governments purely monarchical (i. e. oligarchies 
under one head) the balance of the advantage and 
disadvantage from this monopoly of tho press will 
undoubtedly i)e affected by the general state of in- 
formation; though after reading Milton's "Speech 
for the liberty of unlicensed Printing*" we shall 
probably be inclined to believe, that the best argu- 
ment in favor of licensing, (to. under awy constitution 
is that, which supposing the ruler to have a different 
interest from that of his country, and even from 
himself as a reasonable and moral creature, grounds 
ilself on the incompatibility of knowledge with folly, 
oppression, and degradation. What our prophetic 
Harrington said of religious, applies equally to liter- 
ary toleration. " If it be said that in France there is 
liberty of conscience in part, it is also plain that 
while the hierarchy is standing, this liberty is falling; 
and that if on the contrary, it comes to pull down 
the Hierarcliy, it pulls down that Monarchy also; 
whereltJre the Monarchy or Hierarchy will be be- 
forehand with it, if they see their true interest." 
On the other hand, there is no slight danger from 



* 11 y a un voile qui doit toujour couvrir tout ce que Ton 
pent dire ul tout co qu' on peut croiro du Droit drs ptuphs 
et do leliii dez princes, que c, a' accordent jamais si I ien cu- 
semblc quedanj lo silence. 

Jilem. du Card, dc lictz. 

How severe a satire when 't can be justly applied* Ip . 
false and calumnious if meant as a general ipaxi'u I 
393 



384 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



general ignorance; and the only choice, which 
Providence has graciously left to a vicious Govern- 
ment, is either to fall by the People, if they are 
suffered to become enhghtened, or with them, if they 
are kept enslaved and ignorant. 

The nature of our Constitution, since the revolu- 
tion, the state of our literature, and the wide diffusion, 
if not of intellectual yet of hterary power, and the 
almost universal interest in the productions of litera- 
ture, have set the question at rest relatively to the 
British press. However great the advantages of 
previous examination might be under other circum- 
stances, in this country it would be both impracti- 
cable and inefficient. I need only suggest in broken 
sentences — the prodigious number of licensers that 
would be requisite — the variety of their attainments, 
and (inasmuch as the scheme must be made consist- 
ent with our religious freedom) the ludicrous variety 
of their principles and creeds — the numbers being 
so great, and each appointed censor being himself a 
man of letters, qids custodiel ipsos citstodes ? — if these 
numerous licensers hold their offices for life, and in- 
9ependent of the ministry pro tempore, a new heter- 
ogeneous, and alarming power is introduced, which 
can never be assimilated to the constitutional powers 
already existing : — if they are removable at pleas- 
ure, that which is heretical and seditious in 1809, 
may become orthodox and loyal in 1810 — and what 
man, whose attainments and moral respectability 
gave him even an endurable claim to this awful 
trust, would accept a situation at once so invidious 
and so precarious ? And what institution can retain 
any useful influence in so free a nation, when its 
abuses have made it contemptible ? — Lastly, and 
which of itself would suffice to justify the rejection 
of such a plan — unless all proportion between crime 
and punishment were abandoned, what penalties 
could the law attach to the assumption of a liberty, 
which it had denied, more severe than those which 
it now attaches to the abuse of the liberty, which it 
grants? In all those instances at least, which it 
would be most the inclination — perhaps the duty — 
of the State to prevent, namely, in seditious and in- 
cendiary publications (whether actually such, or only 
such as the existing Government chose so to denomi- 
nate, makes no difference in the argument) the pub- 
lisher, who hazards the punishment now assigned to 
seditious publications, would assuredly hazard the 
penalties of unlicensed ones, especially as the very 
practice of licensing would naturally diminish the 
attention to the contents of the works published, the 
chance of impunity therefore be so much greater, 
and the artifice of prefixing an unauthorized license 
60 likely to escape detection. It is a fact, that in 
many of the former German States in which litera- 
ture flourished, notwithstanding the establishment 
of censors or licensers, three-fourths of the books 
printed were unlicensed — even those, the contents 
of which were unobjectionable, and where the sole 
motive ibr evading the law, must have been either 
ne pride and delicacy of the author,or the indolence 
of the bookseller. So difficult was the detection, so 
various were the means of evasion, and worse than 



all, from the nature of the law and the affront it of- 
fers to the pride of human nature, such was the merit 
attached to the breach of it — a merit commencing 
perhaps with Luther's Bible, and other prohibited 
works of similar great minds, published with no dis- 
similar purpose, and thence by many an intermediate 
link of association finally connected with books, of 
the very titles of which a good man would wish to 
remain ignorant. The interdictory catalogues of the 
Roman Hierarchy always present to my fancy the 
muster-rolls of the two hostile armies of Michael 
and Satan printed promiscuously, or extracted at hap- 
hazard, save only that the extracts from the former 
appear somewhat the more numerous. And yet even 
in Kaples, and in Rome itself, whatever difficulty 
occurs in procuring any article catalogued in these 
formidable folios, must arise either from the scarcity 
of the work itself, or the absence of all interest in it. 
Assuredly there is no difficulty in procuring from the 
most respectable booksellers the vilest provocatives 
to the basest crimes, though intermixed with gross 
lampoons on the heads of the Church, the religious 
orders, and on religion itself The stranger is in- 
vited into an inner room, and the loathsome wares 
presented to him with most significant looks and 
gestures, implying the liazard, and the necessity of 
secrecy. A creditable English bookseller would 
deem himself insulted, if such works were even in- 
quired after at his shop. It is a well-known fact, 
that with the mournful exception indeed of political 
provocatives, and the titillations of vulgar envy pro- 
vided by our anonymous critics; the loathsome ar- 
ticles are among us vended and offered for sale 
almost exclusively by Foreigners. Such are tho 
purifying effects of a free Press, and the dignified 
habit of action imbibed from the blessed air of Law 
and Liberty, even by men who neither understand 
the principle or leel the sentiment of the dignified 
purity, to which they yield obeisance from the in- 
stinct of character. As there is a national guilt 
which can be charged but gently on each individual, 
so are there national virtues, which can as little be 
imputed to the individuals, — no where, however, but 
in countries where Liberty is the presiding influence, 
the universal medium and menstruum of all other 
excellence, moral and intellectual. Admirably doth 
the admirable Petrarch* admonish us: 

JNec sibi vero quisquam falso persuadeat, eos qui 
pro LiBERTATE cxcubant, aUenum agere negotium 



* 1 quote Petrarch often in the hope of drawing the atten- 
tion of scholars to his inestimable Latin Writings, het mc 
add, in the wish of likewise recommending a Tmnslation of 
select passages from his Treatises and Linieia to the London 
Publishers. If I except the German writings and original 
Letters of the heroic Luther, 1 do not remember a work from 
which so delightful and instructive a volume might be com- 
piled. 

To give the true bent to the above extract, it is necessary 
to bear in mind, that he who keeps watch and ward for Free- 
dom, has to guard against two enemies, the Despoti^m of the 
Few and the Despotism of the Many— but especially in tlid 
present day against the Sycophants of the Populace. 

License they mean, when they cry Liberty ! 
For who loves that, must first be wise and good. 
394 



THE FRIEND. 



385 



non suiim. In hac unft reposita sibi omnia norint i 
omnes, scciiritatom niercator, gloriam miles, utilitn- I 
tern ngricola. Postremo, in eddcm mbeiitate Roli- 
giosi csprimonias. otiuni stiuliosi, requiem sencs, rudi- 
inenta disciplinarum pueri, nuptiaa et casiitatem pu- 
ellac, pudicitiam matrona;, pielatem et antiqui laris 
sacra palrcs fiimilias spcm atque gaiidiiim omnes in- 
venient. Iliiic uni igitur reliquac cedant curte. Si 
lianc omittitis, in quanta libet occupatione 7iihil agi- 
tis : si huic incumbiiis, et nihil agere vidcmini, cumu- 
late tamcn et civium et virorum implevitis oflicia. 
Petrarch^. Horta. 
{Translation.) — Nor let any one falsely persuade 
himself, that those who keep watch ami ward for 
LiBERTV, are meddling with things that do not con- 
cern them, instead of minding their own business. 
For all men should know that all blessings are stored 
and protected in this one. as in a common rejxjsitorj'. 
Here is the tradesman's security, the soldier's honor, 
the agriculturist's profit. Lastly, in this one good of 
Liberty the Religious will find the permission of their 
rites and forms of worship, the students their learn- 
ed leisure, the aged their repose, boys the rudiments 
of the several branches of their education, maidens 
their chaste nuptials, matrons their womanly honor 
and the dignity of their modesty, and fathers of fami- 
lies the dues of natural affection and the sacred privi- 
leges of their ancient home. To this one solicitude 
therefore let all other cares yield the priority. If you 
omit this, be occupied as much and sedulously as you 
may, you are doing nothing : If j'ou apply your heart 
and strength to this, though you seem to be doing no- 
thing, you will, nevertheless, have been fulfJling the 
duties of citizens and of men, yea in a measure press- 
ed down and running over. 



ESSAY XL 



Nemo vcro fallatur, quasi minora aint animorum contajria 
quam corporum. Majnrasunt; graviuB Itedunt; oltius de- 
Bcendunt, serpuntque latentius. 

PETRARCH, de Vit. Solit. L. 1. s.3. c. 4. 

(Translation.)— And let no man be deceived as if the conta- 
gions ofthe soul were less than those of the body. They 
arc yet greater; they convey more direful diseases; they 
sink deeper, and creep on more unsaspectodly. 

We have abundant reason then to infer, that the 
Law of England has done well and concluded wisely 
in proceeding on the principle so clearly worded by 
Milton ; that a book should be as freely admitted into 
the world as any other birth ; and if it prove a mon- 
ster, who denies but that it may justly be burnt or 
sunk into the sea? We have reason then, I repeat, to 
rest satisfied with our Laws, which no more prevent 
a book from coming into the world unlicensed, lest it 
should p'ove a libel, than a traveller from passing 
unquestioned through our turn-pike gates, because it 
is possible he may be a highwayman. Innocence is 
presumed in both cases. The publication is a part 
of the offence, and its necessary condition. Words 
51 



are moral acts, and words deliberately made public 
the law considers in the same light as any otlier cog- 
nizable overt-act. 

Here however a difTiculty presents itself Theft, 
Robbery, Murder, atid the like, are ea.sily define<l : the 
degrees and circumstances likewise of these and sim- 
ilar actions are definite, and constitute specific offences, 
described and punishable each under its own name. 
We have only to prove the fiict and identify the of- 
fender. The intention too, in the great majority of 
cases, is so clearly implied in the action, that the 
Law can safely adopt it as its universal maxim, that 
the proof of the malice is included in the proof of the 
fact : especially as the few occasional exceptions have 
their remedy provided in the prerogative entrusted 
to the supreme Magistrate. But in the case of Libel, 
the degree makes the kind, tho circumstances consti- 
tute the criminality ; and both degrees and circum- 
stances, like tho a.scending shades of color or the 
shooting hues of a dove's neck, die away into each 
other, incapable of definition or outline. The eye of 
the understanding, indeed, sees the determinate dif- 
ference in each individual case, but language is most 
often inadequate to express what the eye perceives, 
much less can a general statute anticipate and pre- 
define it. Again ; in other overt-acts a charge dis- 
proved leaves the Defendant either guilty of a dif- 
ferent fault, or at best simply blameless. A man hav- 
ing killed a fellow-citizen is acquitted of murder — the 
act was Manslaughter only, or it was justifiable Ho- 
micide. But when we reverse the iniquitous sen- 
tence passed on Algernon Sidney, during our perusiil 
of his work on Government ; at the moment we deny 
it to have been a traitorous Libel , our beating hearts 
declare it to have been a benefaction to our country, 
and under tho circumstances of those times the per- 
formance of an heroic duty. From this cause there- 
fore, as well as from a liibel's being a thing made up 
of degrees and circumstances (and these too discrimi- 
nating offence from merit by stich dim and ambulant 
boundaries) the intention of the agent, wherever it 
can be independently or exclusively ascertained, 
must be allowed a great share in determining the 
character ofthe action, unless the Law is not only to 
be divorced from moral Justice,* but to wage open 
hostility against it. 

Add too, that Laws in doubtful point.s are to be in- 
terpreted according to the design of the legislator, 
where this can be certainly inferred. But the Laws 
of England, which owe their own present supremacy 
and absoluteness to the good sense and generous dis- 
positions diffused by the Press more, far more, than 
to any other single cause, must needs bo presumed 
favorable to its general influence. Even in the pen- 
alties attached to its abuse, we must suppose the Le- 
gislature to have been actuated by the desire of pre- 
serving its essential privileges. The Press is indif- 
ferently the passive instrument of Evil and of Goo<l; 
nay, there is some good even in its evil. " Good and 

Evil," says Milton, in the Speech from which I have 

* According to tho old adage : you are not hung for steal- 
ing a horse, but that horses may not be stolen. To what ex- 
lent Itiia is true, we shall have occasion to examine hcreaflor. 
395 



J86 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



selected the Motto of the preceding Essay, " in the 
field of this world, grow up together almost insepa- 
rably : and the knowledge of Good is so intervolved 
and interwoven with the knowledge of Evil, and in 
so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discern- 
ed, that those confused seeds which were imposed on 
Psyche as an incessant labor to cull out and sort 
asunder, were not more intermixed. As, therefore, 
the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be 
to choose, what continence to forbear, without the 
knowledge of Evil ? He that can apprehend and 
consider Vice with all her baits and seeming plea- 
sures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet 
prefer that which is truly better, he is the true way- 
faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and clois- 
tered virtue, that never sallies out and sees her ad- 
versary : — that which is but a youngling in the con- 
templation of Evil, and knows not the utmost that 
Vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a 
blank Virtue, not a pure. — Since, therefore, the 
knowledge and survey of Vice is in this world so ne- 
cessary to the constituting of human Virtue, and the 
scanning of Error to the confirmation of Truth, how 
can we more safely and with less danger scout into 
the regions of Sin and Falsity, than by reading all 
manner of Tractates, and hearing all manner of rea- 
son ?" Again — but, indeed the whole Treatise is one 
strain of moral wisdom and political prudence — 
" Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the 
manner of God and of Nature, by abridging or scant- 
ing those means, which Books, freely permitted, are 
both to the trial of Virtue and the exercise of Truth? 
It would be better done to learn, that the Law must 
needs be frivolous, which goes to restrain things un- 
certainly, and yet equally working to Good and to 
Evil. And were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing 
should be preferred before many times as much the 
forcible hindrance of Evil-doing. For God sure es- 
teems the growth and completion of one virtuous 
person more than the restraint of ten vicious." 

The evidence of history is strong in favor of the 
same principles, even in respect of their expediency. 
The average result of the Press from Henry VUI. to 
Charles I. was such a diffusion of religious light as 
first redeemed and afterwards saved this nation from 
the spiritual and moral death of Popery ; and in the 
following period it is to the Press that we owe the 
gradual ascendency of those wise political maxims, 
which casting philosophic truth in the moulds of na- 
tional laws, customs, and existing orders of society, 
subverted the tyranny without suspending the go- 
vernment, and at length completed the mild and sa- 
lutary revolution by the establishment of the House 
of Brunswick. To what must we attribute this vast 
over-balance of Good in the general effects of the 
Press, but to the over-balance of virtuous intention 
in those who employed the Press ? The Law, there- 
fore, will not refuse to manifest good intention a cer- 
tain weight even in cases of apparent error, lest it 
should discourage and scare away those, to whose ef- 
forts we owe the comparative in frequency and weak- 
ness of error on the whole. The Law may however, 
■ay, It must demand, that the external proofs of the 



author's honest intentions should be suppr/rfed by the 
general style and matter of his work, and by the cir- 
cumstances, and mode of its publication. A passage, 
which in a grave and regular disquisition would be 
blameless, might become highly libellous and justly 
punishable, if it were applied to present measures or 
persons for immediate purposes, in a cheap and popu- 
lar tract. I have seldom felt greater indignation than 
at finding in a large manufactory a sixpenny pamph- 
let, containing a selection of inflammatory paragraphs 
from the prose-writings of Milton, without a hint 
given of the time, occasion, state of government, &c. 
under which they were written, not a hint that the 
Freedom, which we now enjoy, exceeds all that Mil- 
ton dared hope for, or deemed practicable ; and that 
his political creed sternly excluded the populace, and 
indeed the majority of the population, from all pre- 
tensions to political power. If the manifest bad in- 
tention would constitute this publication a seditious 
Libel, a good intention equally manifest cannot justly 
be denied its share of influence in producing a con- 
trary verdict. 

Here then is the difficulty. From the very nature 
of a libel it is impossible so to define it, but that the 
most meritorious works will be found included in the 
description. Not from any defect or undue severity 
in the particular Statute, but from the very nature of 
the offence to be guarded against, a work recom- 
mending reform by the only rational mode of recom- 
mendation, that is, by the detection and exposure of 
corruption, abuse, or incapacity, might, though it 
should breathe the best and most unadulterated 
English feelings, be brought within the definition of 
libel equally with the vilest incendiary Brochure, 
that ever aimed at leading and misleading the multi- 
tude. Not a paragraph in the Morning Post during 
the peace of Amiens, (or rather the experimental 
truce so called) though to the immortal honor of the 
then editor, that newspaper was the chief secondary 
means of producing the unexampled national unani- 
mity, with which the war re-commenced and has 
since been continued — not a paragraph warning the 
nation, as need was and most imperious duty com- 
manded, of the perilous designs and unsleeping ambi- 
tion of our neighbor, the mimic and caricaturist of 
Charlemagne, but was a punish.able libel. The sta- 
tute of libel is a vast aviary, which incages the 
awakening cock and the geese whose alarum pre- 
served the Capitol, no less than the babbling magpye 
and ominous screech-owl. And yet will we avoid 
this seeming injustice, we throw down all fence and 
bulwark of public decency and public opinion ; poli- 
tical calumny will soon join hands with private slan 
der; and every principle, every feeling, that binds the 
citizen to his country and the spirit to its Creator, will 
be luidermined — not by reasoning, for from that there 
is no danger; but — by the mere habit of hearing them 
reviled and scoffed at with impunity. Were we to 
contemplate the evils of a rank and unvieeded press 
only in its effects on the manners of a people, and on 
the general tone of thought and conversation, the 
greater the love, which we bore to literature and lo 
all the means and instruments of human improve 
396 



THE FRIEND. 



387 



nieni, the greater would be the earnestness wiih 
which we slioiilil solicit the interference of law: the 
more anxiously should we wish for some Ithureal 
spear, that might remove from the ear of the public, 
nnd e\|K)se in their ow n fiendisli shape those reptiles, 
which iiispiritts venom and Jorsi'ig Ulusiotis as they 
lot, 

thonce raise. 

At least distempered discontented tlioimhts. 
Vain hopes, vuin aims, inordinate desires. 

Paradise Lost. 



ESSAY XII. 



Quomndo autem id futurum sit, ne nuis incredibile arbitretur, 
ubiendam. In primis multiplicabilur re{;num, et summa 
reruin poteslas per plurimoe dissipata et conciea minuetur. 
Tunc discordiffi civiles serentur, nee ulla requies belles ex- 
iiinlibiH erit, duin exercitibus in inimcnsum coaclis, repcs 
dis^prrdent omnia, et comminuent : dunec adversiis eos dnx 
p<Mcntiseimu9 a plebeorietur, et assumctur in sncielatem a 
crnteri^, et princeps omnium constituetur. Ilic insuslentabili 
dominatione vexabit orbem, divini et Inimana miscebil : in- 
fundii diclu et execrabilia molietur : nnva consilia in pec- 
tore suo volutabit, ut prnprium sibi constituat imperium : 
leges cummutabit, et suas sanciet, contaminabit, diripiot, 
ppoliabit, occldct. Deniquc immutalis nominilius, et im- 
l>erii scde translata, confusio ac perturbatio humani generis 
consenuelur. Turn vere detestabile, et atque abominandum 
lompus exislel, quo nulli hominum sit vita jucunda. 

LACTANTIUS dc Vita Beata. Lib. vii. c. 16. 



Rut lest this should be deemed incredible, I show the man- 
ner in which it is to take place. First, there will be a multi- 
tiplicaliiin of independent sovereignties ; and the supreme 
nintiisiracy of the Empire, scaUcred and cut up into (Vag- 
nients, will be enfeebled in the exercise of power by law 
and nii'horiiy. Then will be sowed the seeds of civil discords, 
niir will there be any rest or pause to wasteful and ruinous 
wars, while the soldiery kept losether in immense standing 
brmit'S. the Kings will crash and lay waste at their will; — 
nnlil at length there will rai.<:c up against them a most puis- 
?.int military chicrtain of low birth, who will have acceded 
tn him a fellowship with the other Sovereigns of the earth, 
iiiid will finally be constituted the head of all. This man will 
hfirass the civihzed world with an insupportable despotism, 
hi' will confound and commix all things spirituil and tcmpo- 
inl. lie will form plans and preparations of the most exe- 
crable nnd sacrilegious nature. lie will be for ever restlessly 
turning over new schemes in his imagination, in order that he 
may fix the imperial power over all in his own name and 
possPEsinns. lie will change the former laws, he will sanction 
a code of his own, he will contaminate, pillage, lay waste and 
I massacre. At length, when he has succeeded in the change 

I of names and titles, and in the transfer of the scat of Empire, 

there will follow a confusion and perturbation of the human 
race; then will there be for a while an era of horror and abo- 
mination, during which no man will enjoy his life in quiet- 
ness. 



I inferpo.se thi.s Essay as an historical comment on 
the words " mimic and caricaturist of Charlemagne," 
na apjilied to the despot, whom since the time that 
the words were first printed, wo have, thank heaven ! 
sticceodcd in incaging. The Motto contains the most 
sirikinc instance of an uninspired prophecy fulfilled 
I'vcn in its minutiT, that I recollect ever to have met 
with: and it is hoped, that as a CMr/V».«i7i/ it will recon- 
cile my readers to its unusual length. But though 



my ciiief motive was that of relieving (by the variety 
of an historical parallel) the series of argument on 
this most imiK)rlaiit of all subjects, the communira- 
bility of truth, yet the Essay is far from being a di- 
gression. Having in the preceding number given 
utterance to quicquid in rem turn mulifwam indigiialio 
dolorque diclarenl. concerning the mischiefs of a law- 
less Press, I held it an act of justice to give a portrait 
no less lively of the excess to which the remorseless 
ambition of a government might accumulate its of»- 
pressions in the one instance before the discovery of 
Printing, and in the other during the suppression of 
its freedom. 

I have translated the following from a voluminous 
German work, Michael Jgnuz Schmidt's History of 
the Germans; in which this Exlract forms the con- 
clusion of the second chapter of the third book, from 
Charles the Great to Conrade the First. The late 
Tyrant's close imitation of Charlemagne was sufli- 
ciently evidenced by his assumption of the Iron 
Crov\n of Italy; by his imperial coronation, with the 
presence and authority of the Holy Father; by his 
imperial robe embroidered with bees in order to inark 
him as a successor of Pepin ; and even by his osten- 
tatious revocation of Charlemagne's grants to the 
Bishop of Rome. But that the differences might be 
felt likewise, I prefaced the translation here re-print- 
ed with the few follow'ing observations. 

Let it be remembered then, that Charlemagne, for 
the greater part, created for himself the means of 
which he availed himself; that his very education 
was his own work, and that unlike Peter the Great, 
he could find no assistants out of his own realm ; that 
the unconquerable courage and heroic dispositions of 
the nations he conquered, supplied a proof jiositive 
of real superiority, indeed the sole positive proof of 
intellectual power in a warrior : for how can we 
measure force but by the resistance of it ? But all 
was prepared for Buonaparte ; Europe weakened in 
the very heart of all human strength, namely, in 
moral and religious principle, and at the same time 
accidentally destitute of any one great or command- 
ing mind : the French people, on the other hand, 
still restless from revolutionary fanaticism ; their civic 
enthusiasm already passed into military passion and 
the ambition of conquest; and alike by disgust, ter- 
ror, and characteristic unfitness for freedom, ripe f(Fr 
the reception of a despotism. Add too, that the main 
obstacles to an unlimited system of compiest, and the 
purstiit of univeral monarchy had been cleared away 
for him by his pioneers the Jacobins, viz. the influ- 
ence of the great land-holders, of the privileged and 
of the commercial classes. Even the naval successes 
of Great Britain, by destroying the trade, rendered 
useless the colonies, and almost annihilating the navy 
of France, were in some respects subservient to hib 
designs by concentrating the powers of the French 
empire in its armies, and supplying Ihem out of the 
wrecks of all other employments, save that of agri- 
culture. Franco had already approximated to the 
formidable state so prophetically described by Sir 
James Stuart, in his Political Economy, in which the 
population should consist chiclly of soldiers and pea 
397 



388 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



santry: at least the interests of no other classes were 
regarded. The great merit of Buonaparte has been 
that of a skilful steersman, who with his boat in the 
most violent storm still keeps himself on the summit 
of the waves, which not he, but the winds had raised. 
I will now proceed to my translation. 

That Charles was an hero, his exploits bear evi- 
dence. The subjugation of the Lombards, protected 
as they were by the Alps, by fortresses and fortified 
towns, by numerous armies, and by a great name ; 
of the Saxons, secured by their savage resoluteness, 
by an untameable love of freedom, by their desert 
plains and enormous forests, and by their own pover- 
ty ,• the humbling of the Dukes of Bavaria, Aquita- 
nia, Bretagne, and Gascony ; proud of their ancestry 
as well as of their ample domains ; the almost entire 
extirpation of the Avars, so long the terror of Europe ; 
are assuredly works which demand a courage and a 
firmness of mind such as Charles only possessed. 

How great his reputation was, and this too beyond 
the limits of Europe, is proved by the embassies sent 
to him out of Persia, Palestine, Mauritania, and even 
from the Caliphs of Bagdad. If at the present day 
an embassy from the Black or Caspian Sea comes to 
a prince on the Baltic, it is not to be wondered at, 
since such are now the political relations of the four 
quarters of the world, that a blow which is given to 
any one of them is felt more or less by all the others. 
Whereas in the times of Charlemagne, the inhabit- 
ants in one of the known parts of the world scarcely 
knew what was going on in the rest. Nothing but 
the extraordinary, all-piercing report of Charles's ex- 
ploits could bring this to pass. His greatness, which 
set the world in astonishment, was likewise, without 
doubt, that which begot in the Pope and the Romans 
the first idea of the re-establishment of their empire. 

It is true, that a number of things united to make 
Charles a great man— favourable circumstances of 
time, a nation already disciplined to warlike habits, 
a long life, and the consequent acquisition of experi- 
ence, such as no one possessed in his whole realm. 
Still, however, the principal means of his greatness 
Charles found in himself His great mind was capa- 
ble of extending its attention to the greatest multipli- 
city of affairs. In the middle of Saxony he thought 
on Italy and Spain, and at Rome he made provisions 
for Saxony, Bavaria, and Pannonia. He gave audi- 
ence to the Ambassadors of the Greek emperor and 
other potentates, and himself audited the accounts of 
his own farms, where everything was entered even 
to the number of the eggs. Busy as his mind was, 
his body was not less in one continued state of motion. 
Charles would see into everything himself, and do 
everything himself, as far as his powers extended : 
and even this it was too, which gave to his under- 
takings such a force and energy. 

But with all this the government of Charles was 
the government of a conqueror, that is splendid abroad 
and fearfully oppressive at home. What a grievance 
must it not have been for the people that Charles for 
forty years together dragged them now to the Elbe, 
then to the Ebro, after this to the Po, and from thence 
Dack again to the Elbe, and this not to check an in- 



vading enemy, but to make conquests which little 
profited the French nation! This must prove too 
much, at length, for a hired soldier ; how much more 
for conscripts, who did not live only to fight, but who 
were fathers of families, citizens, and proprietors ? 
But above all, it is to be wondered at, that a nation 
like the French, should suffer themselves to be used 
as Charles used them. But the people no longer 
possessed any considerable share of influence. All 
depended on the great chieftains, who gave their wil 
ling suffrage for endless wars, by which tliey were 
always sure to win. They found the best opportunity, 
under such circumstances, to make themselves great 
and mighty at the expense of the freemen resident 
within the circle of their baronial courts ; and when 
conquests were made, it was far more for their ad. 
vantage than that of the monarchy. In the conquer- 
ed provinces there was a necessity for dukes, vassal 
kings, and different high offices : all this fell to their 
share. 

I would not say this if we did not possess incontro- 
vertible original documents of those times, which 
prove clearly to us that Charles's government was an 
unhappy one for the people, and that this great man, 
by his actions, labored to the direct subversion of his 
first principles. It was his first pretext to establish a 
greater equality among the members of his vast com- 
munity, and to make all free and equal subjects un- 
der a common sovereign. And from the necessity 
occasioned by continual war, the exact contrary took 
place. Nothing gives us a better notion of the inte- 
rior state of the French Monarchy, than the diird ca- 
pitular of the year 811. {Compare with this the four 
or five quarto vols, of the present French Conscript. 
Code.) All is full of complaint; the Bishops and 
Earls clamoring against the freeholders, and these in 
their turn against the Bishops and Earls. And in 
truth the freeholders had no small reason to be dis- 
contented and to resist, as far as they dared, even the 
imperial levies. A dependant must be content to fol- 
low his lord without further questioning: for he wa.s 
paid for it. But a free citizen, who lived wholly on 
his own property, might reasonably object to suffer 
himself to be dragged about in all quarters of the 
world, at the fancies of his lord : especially as there 
was so much injustice intermixed. Those who gave 
up their properties entirely, or in part, of their own 
accord, were left undisturbed at home, while those, 
who refused to do this, were forced so often into ser- 
vice, that at length, becoming impoveri.shed, they 
were compelled by want to give up, or dispose of 
their free tenures to the Bishops or Earls. {It wnuld 
require no great ingenuity to discover parallels, or at 
least, equivalent hardships to tfie.te, in the treatment <.f, 
and regulations concerning the reluctant conscripts.) 

It almost surpasses belief to \\ hat a heiglit, at length, 
the aversion to war rose in the Froiich nation, from 
the multitude of the campaigns and the grievances 
connected with them. The national vanity was now 
satiated by the frequency of victories; and the plun- 
der which fell to the lot of individuals, made but a 
poor compensation for the losses and burthens sus- 
tained by their families at home. Some, in order to 
398 



THE FRIEND. 



889 



become exempt from military service, sooglit for me- 
nial employmcnls in tlie establishments of the Bish- 
ops, Abbots, Abbesses, and Hurls. Others made over 
their Iree properly to become tenants at will ol' such 
Lords, as from their age or otiier circumstances, they 
thought would be called to no further uulitary ser- 
vices. Others, even privately took away the life of 
their murhers, aunts, or other of their relatives, in or- 
der that no family residents might remain through 
whom their names might be known, and themselves 
traced ; others voluntarily made slaves of themselves, 
in order thus to render themselves incapable of the 
military rank. 

When this Extract was first published, namely, 
September 7, 1809, 1 prefixed the following sentence. 
"This passage contains so much matter /or political 
andcipalinn and well-grounded hope, that I feel no ap- 
prehension of the Reader's being dissatisfied with its 
length." I trust, that I may derive the same confi- 
dence from his genial exultation, as a Christian ; and 
from his honest pride as a Briton; in the retrospect 
of its completion. In this belief I venture to conclude 
the Essay with the following Extract from a " Com- 
parison of the French Republic, imder Buonaparte, 
with the Roman Empire under the first Casars," pub- 
lished by me in the Morning Post, Tuesday, 21 Sept., 
1802. 

If then there is no counterpoise of dissimilar cir- 
cumstances, the prospect is gloomy indeed. Tiie com- 
mencement of the public slavery in Rome was in the 
most splendid era of human genius. Any unusually 
flourishing period of the arts and sciences in any 
country, is, even to this day, called the Augustan age 
of that country. The Roman poets, the Roman his- 
torians, the Roman orators, rivalled those of Greece ; 
m military tactics, in machinery, in all the conve- 
niences of private life, the Romans greatly surpassed 
the Greeks. With few exceptions, all the emperors, 
even the worst of them, were, like Buonaparte,* the 
liberal encouragers of all great public works, and of 
every species of public merit not connected with the 
assertion of political freedom. 

O Juvenes, circumspicit et agitat vos, 

Materiamque sibi Ducis indulgcntia quxrit. 



* Imitators succeed better in copying the vices than the ex- 
cellencea or their archetypes. Where shall we find in the 
First Consul of France a counterpart to the generous and 
dreadless clemency of the first Caesar 7 Acorbe loquentibus 
f alis habuit pro condone denunciare, ne persevarent. Au- 
hque Ceecina! criminosissimo libro, et Pitholai curminihus ma- 
ledicentissimis laceratam e.xistimationem euam civih animo 
tulit. 

It deserves translation, for our English readers. " If any 
spoke bitterly against him, he held it eutlicient to complain of 
it publicly, to prevent them from persevering in the use of 
such language. His character had been mangled in a most 
libellous work of Aulue Cicina, and he had been grossly lam- 
pooned in some verses by Pitholaus ; but he bore both with 
the temper of a good citizen." 

For this part of the First Consul's character, if common re- 
port speaks the truth, we must seek a parallel in the disposi- 
tions of the third Ca;sar, who dreaded the pen of a paragraph 
writer, hinting aught against his morals and measures, with 
as great anxiety, and with as vindictive feelings, as if it had 
been the dii.'jgcr of an assassin lifted up against his life. From 
the tnird Cicsar, too, lie adopted the abrogation of all popular 
elections. 



It is even so, at this present moment, in France. 
Yet, lx)th in France and in Rome, we have learned, 
that the most abject dispositions to slavery rapidly 
trod on the heels of the most outrageous fanulicism 
fiir an almost anarchical liberty. litiert in seirilimn 
jialres el populum. Peace and the coadunatiun of all 
the civilized provinces of the earth were the grand 
and plausible pretexts of Roman despotism : the de- 
generacy of the human si^cies il.self, in all the na- 
tions so blended, was the melancholy effect. To- 
morrow, therefore, we shall endeavor to delect all 
those points and circumstances of dissimilarity, which, 
though they cannot impeach the rectitude of the par- 
allel, for the present, may yet render it probable, that 
as the same Constitution of Government has been 
built up in France with incomparably greater rapid- 
ity, so it may have an incomparably shorter duration 
We are not conscious of any feelings of bitterness to- 
wards the First Consul ; or, if any, only that venial 
prejudice, which naturally results from the having 
hoped proudly of any individual, and the having been 
miserably disappointed. But we will not voluntarily 
cense to think freely and speak openly. We owe 
grateful hearts, and uplifted hands of thanksgiving to 
the Divine Providence, that there is yet one Europe- 
an country (and that country our own) in which the 
actions of public men may be boldly analyzed, and 
the result publicly slated. And let the Chief Consul, 
who professes in all things to follow' his i ate, learn 
to submit to it if he finds that it is still his f.\te to 
struggle with the spirit of English freedom, and the 
virtues which are the offspring of that spirit I If he 
finds that the Ge.mus of Great Britain, which blew 
up his Egyptian navy into the air, and blighted his 
Syrian laurels, still follows him with a culm and 
dreadful eye; and in peace, equally as in war, still 
watches for that liberty, in which alone the Genius 
of our Isle lives, and moves, and has his being ; and 
which being lost, all our commercial and naval great- 
ness would instantly languish, like a flower, the root 
of which had been silently eat away by a worm ; and 
without which, in any country, the public festivals, 
and pompous merriments of a nation present no other 
spectacle to the eye of Reason, than a mob of mani- 
acs dancing in their fetters. 



ESSAY XIII. 



Must there be still some discord mixt among 

The harmony of men, whoso mood accords 

Best with contention tun'd to notes of wrong 7 

'I'hat when War fails, Peace must make war with wordi 

With words unto destruction arin'd more strong 

Than ever were our foreign Foemiui's swords : 

Making as deep, tho' not yet bleeding woiuids 1 

What War left ecarli.ss, Calumny confoundi. 

Truth lies entrapp'd where Cunning finds no bar : 
Since no proportion can there bo betwixt 
Our actions which in endless motions are, 
And ordinances which arc always fi.\t. 
Ten thousand Laws more cannot reach so far. 
But Malice goes beyond, or lives commixt 
So close with Goodness, that it ever will 
Corrupt, disguise, or counterfeit it still. 

399 



390 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



A.nd therefore would our gloriouB Alfred, who 
Join'd with the King's (he good man's Majesty, 
Not leave Law's liibyrinth without a clue- 
Gave to deep Siiill its just authority,— 



But the lost Judgment (this his Jury's plan) 
Left to the natural sense of Work-day Man. 

Adapted from an elder Poet. 



We recur to the dilemma stated in our eighth num- 
ber. How shall we solve this problem ? Its solution 
is to be found in that spirit which, like the universal 
menstruum sought for by the old Alchemists, can 
blend and harmonize the most discordant elements — 
it is found to be in the spirit of a rational Freedom 
diffused and become national, in the consequent in- 
fluence and control of public opinion, and in its most 
precious organ, the jury. It is to be found, where- 
ever Juries are sufficiently enlightened to perceive 
the difference, and to comprehend the origin and ne- 
cessity of the diflference, between libels and other 
criminal overt-acts, and are sufficiently independent 
to act upon the conviction, that in a charge of libel, 
the degree, the circumstances, and intention, consti- 
tute (not merely modify,) the offence, give it its Being, 
and determine its legal name. The words " malicious- 
ly and advisedly," must here have a force of their 
own and a proof of their own. They will conse- 
quently consider the written law as a blank power 
provided for the punishment of the offender, not as a 
light by which they are to determine and discrimi- 
nate the offence. The understanding and conscience 
of the Jury are the Judges, in toto : the statute a 
blank congi d'elire. The Statute is the Clay and 
those the Potter's wheel. Shame fall on that Man, 
who shall labor to confound what reason and nature 
have put asunder, and who at once, as far as in him 
lies, would render the Press ineflfectual and the Law 
odious; who would lock up the main river, the 
Thames of our intellectual commerce ; would throw 
a bar across the stream, that must render its naviga- 
tion dangerous or partial, using as his materials the 
very banks, that were intended to deepen its channel 
and guard against inundations . Shame fall on him, 
and participation of the infamy of those, who misled 
an English Jury to the murder of Algernon Sidney! 

But though the virtuous intention of the writer 
must be allowed a certain influence in facilitating 
his acquittal, the degree of his moral guilt is not the 
true index or mete-wand of his condemnation. For 
Juries do not sit in a Court of Conscience, but of 
Law ; they are not the representatives of religion, 
but the guardians of external tranquillity. The lead- 
ing principle, the Pole Star, of the judgment in its 
decision concerning the libellous nature of a pub- 
lished writing, is its more or less remote connection 
with after overt-acts, as the cause or occasion of the 
same. Thus the publicatioit of actual facts may be, 
and most often will be, criminal and libellous, when 
directed against private characters : not only because 
the charge will reach the minds of many who can- 
not be competent judges of the truth or falsehood of 
facts to which themselves were not witnesses, against 



a man whom they do not know, or at best know im- 
perfectly ; but because such a publication is of itself 
a very serious overt-act, by which the author, without 
authority and without trial, has inflicted punishment 
on a fellow-subject, himself being witness and jury, 
judge and executioner. Of such publications there 
can be no legal justification, though the wrong may 
be palliated by the circumstance that the injurious 
charges are not only true but wholly out of the reach 
of the law. But in libels on the government there 
are two things to be balanced against each other : 
first, the incomparably greater mischief of the overt- 
acts, supposing them actually occasioned by the libel 
— (as for instance, the subversion of government and 
property, if the principles taught by Thomas Paine 
hud been realized, or if even an attempt had been 
made to realize them, by the many thousands of his 
readers;) and second, the very great improbability 
that such efl^ects will be produced by such writings. 
Government concerns all generally, and no one in 
particular. The facts are commonly as well known 
to the readers, as to the writer: and falsehood there- 
fore easily detected. It is proved, likewise, by expe- 
rience, that the frequency of open political discussion, 
with all its blameable indiscretion, indisposes a nation 
to overt-acts of practical sedition or conspiracy. They 
talk ill, said Charles the Fifth, of his Belgian Pro 
vinces, but they sufl^er so much the better for it. His 
successor thought diflferently : he determined to be 
master of their words and opinions, as well as of their 
actions, and in consequence lost one half of those pro- 
vinces, and retained the other half at an expense of 
strength and treasure greater than the original worth 
of the whole. An enlightened Jury, therefore, will 
require proofs of some more than ordinary malignity 
of intention, as furnished by the stj^le, price, mode of 
circulation, and so forth ; or of punishable indiscre 
tion arising out of the state of the times, as of dearth, 
for instance, or of whatever other calamity is likely 
to render the lower classes turbulent and apt to be 
alienated from the government of their country. T'or 
the absence of a right disposition of mind must be 
considered both in law and in morals, as nearly equiv 
alent to the presence of a wrong disposition. I'nder 
such circumstances the legal paradox, that a libel 
may be the more a libel for being true, becomes 
strictly just, and as such ought to be acted upon. 

Concerning the right of punishing by law the au 
thors of heretical or deistical writings, 1 reserve my 
remarks for a future Essay, in which I hope to stale 
the grounds and limits of toleration more accurately 
than they seem to me to have been hitherto traced. 
There is one maxim, however, which I ain tempted 
to seize as it passes across me. If I may trust my 
own memory, it is indeed a very old truth : and yet 
if the fashion of acting in apparent ignorance thereof 
be any presumption of its novelty, it ought to be new, 
or at least have become so by courtesy of oblivion. 
It is this : that as far as human practice can realize 
the sharp limits and exclusive proprieties of Science, 
Law and Religion should be kept distinct. There 
IS, strictly speaking, no proper opposition but be- 
tween THE TWO polar FORCES OF ONE AND THE 

400 



THE FRIEND. 



391 



SAME POWER.* If I sny then, that Law and Religion 
are natural opj>osilfs, and tlial ilic latter is the reijui- 
site countor|Mjise of the former, let it not bo inter- 
preted, as if I had declared them to be contraries. 
The Law has rightfully invested the Creditor with 
the power of arresiinsj and imprisoning an insolvent 
Debtor, the F'armer with the Power of transporting, 
mediaielij at least, the Pillagers of his Hedges and 
Copses; but the law docs not compel him to exercise 
that power, while it will often happen, that Religion 
commands him to forego it. Nay, so well was this 
understood by our Grandfathers, that a man who 
squares his conscience by the Law was a common 
paraphrase or synonyme of a wretch without any 
conscience at all. We have all of us learnt from 
History, that there was a long and dark period during 
which the Powers and the Aims of Law were usurped 
in the name of Religion by the Clergy and the Courts 
Spiritual : and we all know the result. Law and 
Religion thus interpenetrating neutralized each other; 
and the baleful product, or tertium Aliquid, of this 
union retarded the civilization of Europe for Centu- 
ries. Law splintered into the minutia; of Religion, 
whose awful function and prerogative it is to take 
account of every " idle word," became a busy and 
inquisitorial tyranny: and Religion substituting legal 
terrors fjr the ennobling influences of Conscience re- 
mained Religion in name only. The present age 
appears to me approaching fast to a similar usurpa- 
tion of the functions of Religion by Law: and if it 
were required, I should not want strong presumptive 
proofs in favor of this opinion, whether I sought for 
them in the Charges from the Bench concerning 
Wrongs, to which Religion denounces the fearful 
penalties of Guilt, but for which the Law of the 
Lund assigns Damages only: or in sundry statutes, 
and (all praise to the late Mr. Windham, Romanorum 
ultimo) in a still greater number of attempts towards 
new statutes, the authors of which displayed the 
most pitiable ignorance, not merely of the distinction 
between perfected and imperfected Obligations, but 
even of that still more sacred distinction between 
Things and Persons. What the Son of Sirach ad- 
vises concerning the Soul, every Senator should 

* Every Pouter in J^ature and in Spirit must evolve an 
opposite, as the sole means and condition of its manifesta- 
tion: and all opposition is a tendency to Rc-union. This 
is Ihu univeraal Liiw of Polarity or essential Dualism, first 
proinuk'ated by Hcraclitus, 'JOOO years afterwards rc-publish- 
eil, and made the foundation both of Logic, of Physics, and 
of Metaphysics by Giordano Bruno. The Principle may be 
thus expressed. The Identity of Thesis and Antithesis is the 
substance of all Bcini; ; their Opposition the condition of all 
Existtnce, or Being manifested ; and every Thing or Pheno- 
menon is the Exponent of a Synthesis as long as the opposite 
eiicr:.'ii's are retaimd in that Synthesis. Thus Water is nei- 
ther Oxycen nor Hydrogen, nor yet is it a commixture of 
both; but the Synthesis or Indiflorcnce of the two: and as 
lone aa the cupula endures, by which it becomes Water, or 
rather which alone is Water, it is not loss u simple Body than 
either of tho imaginary Elements, improperly called its In- 
gredients or Components. It is the object of the mechanical 
atomistic Psilosiipliy to confound Synthesis with synartesis, 
or railier with mere juxta-positlon of Corpuscles separated 
by invisible Interspaces. I find it didicult to determine, whe- 
ther this theory contradicts the Reason or the Senses most: 
for it is alike inconceivable and unimaginable. 
Kk 



apply to his legislative capacity — Reverence it in 
meekness, knowing how feeble and how mighty a 
Thing it is! 

From this hint concerning Toleration, we may pass 
by an easy transition to the, [wrhaps, still more inte- 
resting subject of Tolerance. And here I liilly coin- 
cide with Frederic H. Jacobi, that the only true spirit 
of Tolerance consists in otir conscientious toleration 
of each other's intolerance. Whatever pretends lo 
be more than this, is either the unthinking cant of 
fashion, or the soul-palsying narcotic of moral and 
religious indifference. All of tis without exception, 
in the same mode though not in the same degree, are 
necessarily subjected to the risk of mistaking |X)silive 
opinions for certainty and clear insight. I'rom this 
yoke we cannot free ourselves, but by ceasing to be 
men ; and this too not in order to transcend but to 
sink below our human nature. For if in one point 
of view it be the mulct of otir fall, and of tho corrup- 
tion of our will ; it is equally true, that contemplated 
from another point, it is the price and consequence 
of our progressivcness. To him who is compelled to 
pace to and fro within the high walls and in the nar- 
row courtyard of a prison, all objects may appear 
clear and distinct. It is the traveller journeying on- 
ward, full of heart and hope, with an ever-varying 
horizon, on the boundless plain, that is liable to mis- 
take clouds for mountains, and the mirage of drought 
for an expanse of refreshing waters. 

But notwithstanding this deep conviction of our 
general fallibility, and the most vivid recollection of 
my own, I dare avow with the German philosopher, 
that as far as opinions, and not motives; principles, 
and not men, are concerned ; I neither am tolerant. 
nor wish to be regarded as such. According to my 
judgment, it is mere ostentation, or a poor trick that 
hypocrisy plays with the cards of nonsense, when a 
man makes protestation of being perfectly tolerant m 
respect of all principles, opinions and persuasions, 
those alone excepted which render the holders intole- 
rant. For he either means lo say by this, that he is 
utterly indifferent towards all truth, and finds nothing 
so insufferable as the perstiasion of there being any 
such mighty value or importance attached to the pro- 
fession of the Truth as should give a marked prefer- 
ence to any one conviction above any other ; or else 
he means nothing, and amuses himself with articu- 
lating the pulses of the air instead of inhabiting it in 
the more healthful and profitable exercise of yawn- 
ing. That which doth not withstand, hath itself no 
standing place. To Jill a station is to exclude or re- 
pel others — and this is not less the definition of moral, 
than of material, solidity. We live by continued acts 
of defence, that involve a sort of oflbnsive warfare. 
But a man's principles, on which he grounds his Hope 
and his Faith, are the life of his life. We live by 
Faith, says the philosophic .\posllo; and Faith with- 
out principles is but a flattering phrase for wilful \v>- 
sitivcness, or fanatical bodily sensation. Well, and 
of good right therefore, do we maintain with moml 
zeal, than we should defend body or estate, a deep 
and inward conviction, which is the moon lo us; and 
like the moon with all its massy shadows and decep- 
401 



392 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tive gleams, it yet lights us on oi:r way> poor travel- 
lers as we are, and benighted pilgrims. With all its 
spots and changes and temporary eclipses, with all its 
vain halos and bedimming vapors, it yet reflects the 
light that IS to rise on us, which even now is rising, 
though intercepted from our immediate view by the 
mountains that enclose and frown over the vale of 
our mortal life. 

This again is the mystery and the dignity of our 
human nature, that we cannot give up our reason, 
without giving up at the same time our individual 
personality. For that must appear to each man to be 
his reason which produces in him the highest sense 
of certainty ; and yet it is 7iot reason, except as far as 
it is of universal validity and obligatory on all man- 
kind. There is a one heart for the whole mighty 
mass of Humanity, and every pulse in each particu- 
lar vessel strives to beat in concert with it. He who 
asserts that truth is of no importance except in the 
sense of sincerity, confounds sense with madness, and 
the word of God with a dream. If the power of 
reasoning be the Gift of the Supreme Reason, that 
we be sedulous, yea, and militant in the endeavor to 
reason arighl, is his implied Command. But what is 
of permanent and essential interest to one man must 
needs be so to all, in proportion to the means and op- 
p<}rtunities of each. Woe to him by whom these are 
neglected, and double woe to him by whom they are 
withheld ; for he robs atonce himself and his neighbor. 
That man's Soul is not dear to himself, to whom the 
Souls of his Brethren are not dear. As far as they 
can be influenced by him, they are parts and proper- 
ties of his own soul, their laith his faith, their errors 
his burthen, their righteousness and bliss his righte- 
ousness and his reward— and of their Guilt and Mis- 
ery his own will be the echo. As much as I love 
my fellow-men, so much and no more will I be intol- 
erant of their Heresies and Unbelief— and I will ho- 
nor and hold forth the right hand of fellowship to 
every individual who is equally intolerant of that 
which he conceives such in me. We will both ex- 
claim — I know not, what antidotes among the com- 
plex views, impulses and circumstances, that form 
your moral Being, God's gracious Providence may 
have vouchsafed to you against the serpent fang of 
this Error — but it is a viper, and its poison deadly, 
although through higher influences some may take 
the reptile to their bosom, and remain unstung. 

Jn one of these viperous Journals, which deal out 
Profaneness, Hate, Fury, and Sedition throughout the 
Land, I read the following paragraph. "The Brah- 
man believes that every man will be saved in his 
own persuasion, and that all religions are equally 
pleasing to the God of all. The Christian confines 
salvation to the Believer in his own Vedahs and 
Shasters. Which is the more humane and philoso- 
phic creed of the two?" Let question answer ques- 
tion. Self complacent Scoffer! Whom meanest thou 
by GoD ? The God of Tratli ? and can He be pleased 
with falsehood and the debasement or utter suspen- 
sion of the Reason which he gave to man that he 
might receive from him the sacrifice of Truth? Or 
the God of love and mercy ? And can He be pleased 



with the blood of thousands poured out under the 
wheels of Juggernaut, or with the shrieks of children 
offered up as fire offerings to Baal or to Moloch ? Or 
dost thou mean the God of holiness and infinite puri- 
ty ? and can He be pleased with abominations unut- 
terable and more than brutal defilements ? and equal- 
ly pleased too as with that religion, which commands 
us that we have no fellowship with the unfruitful 
works of darkness but to reprove them ? With that 
religion, which strikes the fear of the Most High so 
deeply, and the sense of the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin so inwardly, that the Believer anxiously enquires : 
" Shall I give my first-born for my transgres.'iion, the 
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?" — and which 
makes me answer to him — " He hath showed thee, 
O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord re- 
quire of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God." But I check 
myself. It is at once folly and profanation of Truth, 
to reason with the man who can place before his eyes 
a minister of the Gospel directing the eye of the wi- 
dow from the corse of her husband upward to his and 
her Redeemer, (the God of the living and not of the 
dead,) and then the remorseless Brahmin goading on 
the disconsolate victim to the flames of her husband's 
funeral pile, abandoned by, and abandoning, the help- 
less pledges of their love — and yet dare ask, which is 
the more humane and philosophic creed of the two ? 
No! No! when such opinions are in question, I nei- 
ther am, or will be, or wish to be regarded as, tole- 
rant. 



ESSAY XIV. 



Knowing the heart of Man is set to be 
The centre of this world, about the which 
These revolutions of disturbances 
Siill roll ; where all th' aspects of misery 
Predominate; whose strong efTecls are BUcb 
As he must bear, being powerless to redress: 
And that unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is Man ! 

DANIEL. 



I HAVE thus endeavored, with an anxiety which 
may perhaps have misled me into prolixity, to detail 
and ground the condition under which the communi- 
cation of truth is commanded or fiirbidden to us as 
individuals, by our conscience; and those too, under 
which it is permissible by the law which controls oiii 
conduct as members of the state. But is the subject 
of sufficient importance to deserve so minute an ex- 
amination? O that my readers would look round the 
world, as it now is, and make to themselves a faith- 
ful catalogue of its many miseries! From what do 
these proceed, and on what do they depend ior their 
continuance? Assuredly for the grealer part on the 
actions of men, and those again on the want of a vi- 
tal principle of action. We live by faith. The es- 
sence of virtue consists in the principle. And the 
reality of this, as well as its importance, is believed 
by all men in fact, few as there may be who bring 
402 



THE FRIEND. 



393 



the truth forward into llie liglit ol" clislincl consrious- 
iiess. Vet all men ("eel, and at times acknowledge to 
themselves, the true cause of their misery. There is 
no man so base, but at some time or other, and in 
some way or otlier, he admits that he is not what ho 
(Might to be, ihoiigli by a curious art of self-delusion, 
by an ettiirt to keep at peace with himself as long 
and as much as possible, he will throw oil' the blame 
from the amenable part of his nature, his moral prin- 
ciple, to that which is independent of his will, name- 
ly, the degree of his intellectual faculties. Hence, for 
once that a man exclaims, how dishonest I am, on 
what base and unworthy motives 1 act, we may hear 
a hundred times, what a fool I ami curse on my fol- 
ly ?* and tiie like. 

Yet even this implies an obscure sentiment, that 
with clearer conceptions in the underslandmg, the 
principle of action would become purer in the will. 
Thanks to the image of our Maker not wholly oblit- 
erated from any human soul, we dare not purchase 
an exemption from guilt by an excuse, which would 
jiiace our amelioralion out of our own power. Thus 
the very man who w ill abuse himself for a fool but 
not (or a villain, would rather, spite of the usual pro 
fessions to the contrary, be condemned as a rogue by 
other men, than be acquitted as a blockhead. But 
be this as it may, out of himselfi however, he sees 
plainly the true cause of our common complaints. 
Doubtless, there seem many physical causes of dis- 
tress, of disease, of poverty, and of desolation — tem- 
pests, earthquakes, volcanoes, wild or venomous ani- 
mals, barren soils, uncertain or tyrannous climates, 
fwslilential swamps, and death in the very air we 
breathe. Yet when do we hear the general wretch- 
edness of mankind attributed to these? In Iceland, 
the earth opened and sent forth three or more vast 
rivers of fire. The smoke and vapor from them 
dimmed the light of Heaven through all Europe, for 
months; even at Cadiz, the sun and moon, for seve- 
ral weeks, seemed turned to blood. What was the 
amount of the injury to the human race? sixty men 
were destroyed, and of these the greater part in con- 
sequence of tlieir own imprudence. Natural calami- 
ties that do indeed sjiread devastation wide, (for in- 
stance, the Marsh Fever,) are almost without excep- 
tion, voices of Nature in her ail-intelligible language 
— do this! or cease to do that! By the mere absence 
of one superstition, and of the sloth engendered by 
it, the Plague would cease to exist throughout Asia 
nud Africa. Pronounce meditatively the name of 
Jkv.nrr, and ask what might vvc not hope, what need 
we deem unattainable, if all the time, the effort, the 
skill, which we waste in making ourselves miserable 
through vice, and vicious through misery, were em- 
bixlied and marshalled to a systematic war against 
the existing evils of nature? No, " II is a viicked 
world!" This is so generally the solution, that this 



* We (io not ciiniijder ae exceptions the thousands that 
nbiiBe themselves by rote with lip pcnilence. or ihe wild rnv- 
iiisr,! of fannticium : for Ihcse persons at Iho very lime they 
fpenk §o vehemently of the wickednes and rdtlrnneea of Iheir 
heRrl?, are then commonly the warmest in their own good 
opinion, "lovered round and conifortabic in the wrap-rascal 
of self-hypocrisy. 

53 



I very wickedness is assigned by selfish men, as their 
j excuse for doing nothing to render it belter, and (or 
; op(X)sing those who would make the attempt. \Vhat 
have not Clarkson, Ciranvillc Sharp, Wilberlijrcc, and 
j the Society of the Friends, effected for the honor, and 
if we believe in a retributive providence, for the con- 
tinuance of the prosperity of the Hnglish nation, im- 
(lerfectly as the intellectual and moral faculties of the 
people at large are developed at present? What may 
not be effected, if the recent discovery of the means 
of educating nations, (freed, however, from the vile 
sophistications and mutilations of ignorant mounte- 
banks.) shall have been applied to ils full extent? 
Would I frame to myself the most inspiriting repre- 
sentation of future bliss, which my mind is capable 
of comprehending, it would be embodied to me in 
the idea of Bell receiving, at some distant period, 
the appropriate reward of his earthly labors, when 
thousands and ten thousands of glorified spirits, whose 
reason and conscience had, through his eflbrls, been 
unfolded, shall sing the song of their own redemp- 
tion, and pouring forth praises to CJod and to their Sa- 
viour, shall repeat his " New name" in Heaven, give 
thanks for his earthly virtues, as the chosen instru- 
ments of divine mercy to themselves, and not seldom 
perhaps, turn their eyes toward him, as from the sun 
to ils image in the fountain, with secondary gratitude 
and the permitted utterance of a human love! Were 
but a hundred men to combine a deep conviction that 
virtuous habits may be formed by the very means by 
which knowledge is communicated, that men may be 
made better, not only in consequence, but hi/ the 
mode and i?i the process, of instruction : were but an 
hundred men to combine that clear conviction of this, 
which I myself at this moment feel, even as I feel 
the certainty of my being, with the perseverance of a 
Cl.4Rkson or a Bell, the promises of ancient pro- 
phecy would disclose themselves to our faith, even 
as when a noble castle hidden from us by an inter- 
vening mist, discovers itself by its reflection in the 
tranquil lake, on the opposite shore of which we stand 
gazing. What an awful duty, what a nurse of all 
other, the fairest virtues, does not iiorE become! We 
are bad ourselves, because we despair of the good- 
ness of others. 

If then it be a truth, attested alike by common feel- 
ing and common sense, that the greater part of human 
misery depends directly on human vices and the re- 
mainder indirectly, by what means can we act on 
men so as to remove or preclude these vices and pu- 
rify their principle of moral election ? The question 
is not by what means each man is to alter liis own 
character — in order to this, all the means prescribed 
and all the aidances given by religion, may be neces- 
sary for him. Vain, of themselves, may be, 

the sayinKS of the wise 

In ancient and in modern books enrolled 
♦ *»**»» 

Unless hn feel within 
Some source of consolation from above — 
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength 
And fainting spirits uphold. 

SAMSON AGONISTES. 

This is not the question. Virtue would not be 
403 



394 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



virtue, could it be given by one fellow-creature to 
another. To TnaJce use of all the means and appli- 
ances in our power to the actual attainment of Rec- 
titude, is the abstract of the Duty which we owe to 
ourselves; to supply those means as far as we can, 
comprises our Duty to others. The question then is, 
what are these means ? Can they be any other than 
the communication of knowledge, and the removal of 
those evils and impediments which prevent its recep- 
tion ? It may not be in our power to combine both, 
but it is in the power of every man to contribute to 
the former, who is sufficiently inf<)rmed to feel that 
it is his duty. If it be said, that we should endeavor 
not so much to remove ignorance, as to make the ig- 
norant religious : Religion herself, through her sacred 
oracles, answers for me, that all effective faith pre- 
supposes knowledge and individual conviction. If 
the mere acquiescence in truth, uncomprehended and 
unfathomed, viere sufficient, few indeed would be 
the vicious and the miserable, in this country at least 
where speculative infidelity is, Heaven be praised, 
confined to a small number. Like bodily deformity, 
there is one instance here and another there; but 
three in one place are already an undue proportion. 
It is highly worthy of observation, that the inspired 
writings received by Christians are distinguishable 
from all other books pretending to inspiration, from 
the scriptures of the Bramins, and even from the Ko- 
ran, in their strong and frequent recommendations of 
truth. I do not here mean veracity, which cannot 
but be enforced in every code whicn appeals to the 
religious principle of man ; but knowledge. This is 
not only extolled as the crown and honor of a man, 
but to seek after it is again and again commanded us 
as one of our most sacred duties. Yea, the very per- 
fection and final bliss of the glorified spirit is repre- 
sented by the Apostle as a plain aspect, or intuitive 
beholding of truth in ils eternal and immutable source. 
Not that knowledge can of itself do all I The light 
of religion is not that of the moon, light without heat; 
but neither is its warmth that of the stove, w-armih 
without light. Religion is the sun, whose warmth 
indeed swells, and stirs, and actuates the life of na- 
ture, but who at the same time beholds all the growth 
of life with a master eye, makes all objects glorious 
on which he looks, and by that glory visible to all 
others. 

But though knowledge be not the only, yet that it 
is an indispensable and most effectual agent in the 
direction of our actions, one consideration will con- 
vince us. It is an undoubted fad of human nature, 
that the sense of impossibility quenches all will. 
Sense of utter inaptitude does the same. The man 
shuns the beautiful flame, which is eagerly grasped 
at by the infant. The sense of a disproportion of 
certain after-harm to present gratification — produces 
effects almost equally uniform : though almost perish- 
ing with thirst, we should dash to the earth a goblet 
of wine in which we had seen a poison infused, 
though the poison were without taste or odour, or 
even added to the pleasures of both. Are not all our 
vices equally inapt to the universal end of human 
actions, the satisfaction of the agent? Are not their 



pleasures equally disproportionate to the af\er-harm ? 
Yet many a maiden, who will not grasp at the fire, 
will yet purchase a wreath of diamonds at the price 
of her health, her honor, nay (and she herself knows 
it at the moment of her choice) at the sacrifice of her 
peace and hapjiiness. The sot would reject the poi- 
soned cup, yet the' trembling hand with which he 
raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips, has not 
left him ignorant that this too is altogether a poison. 
I know it will be objected, that the consequences fore- 
seen are less immediate ; that they are diffused over 
a larger space of time ; and that the slave of vice hopes 
where no hope is. This, however, only removes 
the question one step further: for why should the 
distance ordiffiision of known consequences produce 
so great a difference ? Why are men the dupes of the 
present moment ? Evidently because the conceptions 
are indistinct in the one case, and vivid in the 
other; because all confused conceptions render U3 
restless ; and because restlessness can drive us to 
vices that promise no enjoyment, no, not even the ces- 
sation of that restlessnes. This is indeed the dread 
punishment attached by nature to habitual vice, that 
its impulses wax as its motives wane. JVo object, not 
even liie light of a solitary taper in the far distance, 
tempts the benighted mind from before; but its own 
restlessness dogs it from behind, as with the iron goad 
of Destiny. What then is or can be the preventive, 
the remedy, the counteraction, but the habituation of 
the intellect to clear, distinct, and adequate concep- 
tions concerning all things that are the possible ob- 
jects of clear conception, and thus to reserve the deep 
feelings which belong, as by natural right, to those 
ob-scure ideas* that are necessary to the moral perfec- 
tion of the human being, notwithstanding, yea, even 
in consequence of, their obscurity — to reserve these 
feelings, I repeat, for objects, which their very sub- 
limity renders indefinite, no le.ss than their indefinite- 
ness renders ilicm sublime: namely, to the Ideas of 
Being, Form, Life, the Reason, the Law of Conscience, 
Freedom, Immortality, God! To connect with the 
objects of our senses the obscure notions and conse- 
quent vivid feelings, which are due only to immate- 
rial and permanent things, is profanation relatively to 
the heart, and superstition in the understanding. It 
is in this sense, that the philosophic Apostle calls 
Covetousness Idolatry. Could we emancipate our- 
selves from the bedimming influences of custom, and 
the transforming witchcraft of early associations, we 
should see as numerous tribes of Felish-Worshippers 
in the streets of London and Paris, as we hear of on 
the coasts of Africa. 

* I have nut pxprossnd myself as clearly aa I coiiW witli. 
But Ihe truih (if ihe assertion, that deep feeling has a tendon- 
cy to conihiiie wiih obscure ideas, in preference to (lif'nd anil 
clear notions, may bi' proved by the history of Fitnatics and 
Fanaticism in all aers and countries. The odium theohiti- 
cum is even proverbial: and it is the common complaint of 
Philosophers and philosophic Historians, that the passions of 
the disputants are commonly violent in proportion to the snh- 
t'ely and obscurity of the questions in diepute. Nor is this 
fact confined to professional theologians: for whole nations 
liave displayed Ihe same agitations, and have sacrificed na- 
tional policy to the more powerful interest of a controveited 
obscurity. 

404 



THE FRIEND. 



S95 



ESSAY XV. 



h pHlaco when 'tia that which it should bo 
l.oj\'es growinjr, and slaiidB such, or clso decay?. 
V/i;h him who dwells there, 'lis not so : for he 
Should still uiKC upward, and his Tortuno raise. 

Our bodies had Iheir morninsj, have their noon. 
And shall not better — the next chanRc is night; 
But their fair larger guest, t' whom sun and moon 
Are sparks and short-lived, claims another right. 

The noble soul hy age crows lustier. 
Her appetite and her digestion mend : 
Wo must not starvr nor hope lo pamper her 
With woman's milk and pap unto the end. 



Provide you manlier diet ! 



DOXNE. 



I AM fully aware, that what I am writing and have 
written (in these latter Essays at least) will expf)se mo 
to the censure of some, as bewildering myself and 
readers with Metaphysics ; to the ridicule of others 
as a school-boy declaimer on old and worn-out tru- 
isms or exploded fancies ; and to the objection of 
most as obscure. The last real or supposed defect 
has already received an answer both in the preced- 
ing .Numbers, and in page 34 of the .Appendix to the 
.Xulhor's First Lay-Sermon, entitled the States.man's 
Manual. Of the two former, I shall take the pres- 
ent opportunity of declaring my sentiments; espe- 
cially as I have already received a hint that my 
"idol, Milton, has represented Metajihysics as the 
subjects which the bad spirits in hell delight in dis- 
cussing." And truly, if I had exerted my subtlety 
and invention in persuading myself and olhers that 
we are but living machines, and that (as one of the 
late fiillowers of Hobbes and Hartley has expressed 
the system) the assassin and his dagger are equally 
fit objects of moral esteem and abhorrence ; or if with 
a writer of wider influence and higher authority, I 
ii,-id reduced all virtue to a selfish prudence eked 
out by superstition, (for assuredly, a creed which 
takes its central point in conscious selfishness, what- 
ever be the forms or names that act on the selfish 
passion, a ghost or a constable, can have but a dis- 
tant relationship to that religion, which places its es- 
sence in our loving our neighbor as ourselves, and 
God above all) I know not, by what arguments I 
could repel the sarcasm. But what are my meta- 
physics? merely the referring of the mind to its own 
consciousness for truths indispensable to its own hap- 
piness! To what purposes do I, or am I about to 
employ them? To perplex our clearest notions and 
'iving moral instincts? To deaden the feelings of 
will and free power, to extinguish the light of love 
and conscience, to make myself and others worthless, 
soul-less, God-less? i\o! to expose the folly and the 
leperdemain of those who have thus abused the 
blessed machine of language; to support all old and 
venerable truths; and by them to support, to kindle, 
to project the spirit; to make the reason spread light 
over our feelings, to make our feelings, with their vital 
warmth, actualize our reason : — these are my objects, 
Kk2 



these are my subjects, and are these the metaphysics 
which the bad spirits in hell delight in ? 

But how shall I avert the scorn of those critics who 
laugh at the oldness of my topics. Evil and Good, Ne- 
cessity and Arbilratnent, Immortality and the Ulti- 
mate .\im? By what shall I regain their favor? My 
themes must be iitiv. a French Constitution ; a bal- 
loon ; a change of ministry ; a fresh batch of kings on 
the Continent, or of peers in our happier island ; or 
who had the best of it of two parliamentary gladia- 
tors, and whose speech, on the subject of Europe 
bleeding at a thousand wounds, or our own country 
struggling for herself and all human nature, was 
cheered by the greatest nnmbcr ot laughs, loud faw^'/js, 
and very loud laughs: (which, carefully marked by 
italics, form most conspicuous and strange parenthe- 
ses in the newspaper reiwrts.) Or if I must be phi- 
losoiihical, the last chemical discoveries, provided I 
do not trouble my reader with the principle which 
gives them their highest interest, and the character 
of intellectual grandeur to the discoverer ; or the last 
shower of stones, and that they were supposed, by 
certain philosophers, to have been projected by some 
volcano in the moon, taking care, however, not lo add 
any of the cramp reasons for this opinion ! Something 
new, however, it must be, quite new and quite out 
of themselves! for whatever is within them, what- 
ever is deep within them, tnust be as old as the first 
dawn of human reason. But lo find no contradiction 
in the union of old and new, to contemplate the an- 
cient OF days with feelings as fresh, as if they then 
sprung forth at his own fiat, this characterizes the 
mitids that feel the riddle of the world, and may helj) 
to unravel it ! To carry on the feelings of childhood 
into the powers of manhood, to combine the child's 
sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances 
which every day for perhaps forty years h.td render- 
ed familiar, 

Willi Sun and Moon and Stars throughout the year. 
And Man and Woman 

this is the character and privilege of genius, and one 
of the marks which distinguish genius from talents. 
And so to present familiar objects as to awaken the 
minds of others to a like freshness of sensation con- 
cerning them (that constant accompaniment of men- 
tal, no less than of bodily, convalescence) — to the 
same modest questioning of a self-discovered and in- 
telligent ignorance, which, like the deep and massy 
Ibundalions of a Roman bridge, forms hall' of the 
whole structure (prudens inlerrogatio dimidinm sci- 
cnfifF, says Lord Bacon) — this is the prime merit of 
genius, and its most unequivocal mode of manifesta- 
tion. Who has not, a thousand times, seen it snow 
upon water ? who has not seen it with a new feeling, 
since he has read Burns's comparison of sensual plea- 
sure. 

To snow that fall.= upon a river, 

A moment white — then gone for ever '. 

In philosophy equally, as in poetrj', genius produces 
the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues 
the stalest and most admitted truths from the impo- 
tence caused by the very circumstance of their uni- 
405 



396 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



versal admission. Extremes meet — a proverb, by-the- 
bye, to collect and explain all the instances and ex- 
cmplificalions of which, would constitute and ex- 
haust all philosophy. Truths, of all others the most 
awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of 
universal interest, are too often considered as so true 
that they lose all the powers of truth, and lie bed- 
ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with 
the most despised and exploded errors. 

But as the class of critics, whose contempt I have 
anticipated, commonly consider themselves as men 
of the world, instead of hazarding additional sneers 
by appealing to the authorities of recluse philosophers, 
(for such in spite of all history, the men who have 
distinguished themselves by profound thought, are 
generally deemed, from Plato and Aristotle to Tully, 
and i'rom Bacon to Berkeley) I will refer them to the 
Darling of the polished Court of Augustus, to the 
man, whose works have been in all ages deemed the 
models of good sense, and are still the pocket-com- 
panion of those who pride themselves on uniting the 
scholar with the gentleman. This accomplished man 
of the world has given us an account of the subjects 
of conversation between himself and the illustrious 
statesman who governed, and the brightest lumina- 
ries who then adorned the empire of the civilized 
world : 

Sermo oritur non de villia domibusvo alienis 

Nee, male, nee ne Icpus saltet. Sed quod magie ad nos 

Pertinet, et nescire malum est, a^itamus : utrumne 

Divitiis homines, an sint virtute beati ? 

Et quo sit natura boni 1 summumque quid eius 7 

HORAT, SERM. L. II. Sat. 6. v. IS* 

Berkeley indeed asserts, and is supported in his 
assertion by the great statesmen. Lord Bacon and Sir 
Walter Raleigh, that without an habitual interest in 
these subjects, a man may be a dexterous intriguer, 
but never can be a statesman. Would to Heaven 
that the verdict to be passed on my labors depended 
on those who least needed them ! The water lily in 
the midst of waters lifts up its broad leaves, and ex- 
pands its petals at the first paltering of the shower, 
and rejoices in the rain with a quicker sympathy, 
than the parched shrub in a sandy desert. 

God created man in his own image. To be the 
image of his own eternity created he man ! Of eter- 
nity and self existence what other likeness is possible 
in a finite being, but immortality and moral self-de- 
termination! In addition to sensation, perception, 
and practical judgment (instinctive or acquirable) 
concerning the notices furnished by the organs of 
perception, all which in kind at least, the dog pos- 
sesses in common with his master ; in addition to 
these, God gave us reason, and with reason he gave 
us reflective self-consciousness; gave us princi- 
ples, distinguished from the maxims and generaliza- 
tions of outward experience by their absolute and 



* (Literal Translation.) Conversation arises not con- 
cerning the country-seats or families of strangers, nor whether 
llie dancing hare performed well or ill. But we discuss what 
nore nearly concerns us, and wliich it is an evil not to know : 
whether men are made happy by riches or by virtue t And 
in what consists the nature of eoud 1 and what is the ultimate 
or supreme I (i. c. the Suinmum Bonum.) 



essential universality and necessity ; and above all, 
by superadding to reason the mysterious faculty of 
free-will and consequent personal amenability, he 
gave us conscience — that law of conscience, vvhi( h 
in the power, and as the indwelhng word, of an holy 
and omnipotent legislator, commaTJtZs us — from among 
the numerous ideas mathematical and philosophical, 
which the reason by the necessity of its own excel- 
lence creates for itself, unconditionally cmnmands us 
to attribute reuUty, and actual existence, to those ideas 
and to those only, without which the conscience it- 
self would be baseless and contradictory, to the ideas 
of Soul, of Free-will, of Immortality, and of God ? 

To God, as the reality of the conscience and the 
source of all obligation ; to Free-will, as the power 
of the human being to maintain the obedience, which 
God through the conscience has commanded, against 
all the might of nature ; and to the Immortality of 
the Soul, as a state in which the weal and woe of 
man shall be proportioned to his moral worth. 

With this fiiith, all nature, 

all the mighty world 



Of eye and ear- 



presents itself to us, now as the aggregate material, 
of duty, and now as a vision of the Most High reveal- 
ing to us the mode, and time, and particular instance 
of applying and realizing that universal rule, pre-es- 
tablished in the heart of our reason! 

"The displeasure of some Readers may, perhaps, 
be incurred by my having surprised them into cer- 
tain reflections and inquiries, for which they have no 
curiosity. But perhaps some others may be pleased 
to find themselves carried into ancient times, even 
though they should consider the hoary maxims, de- 
fended in these Essays, barely as Hints to awaken 
and exercise the inquisitive Reader, on points not 
beneath the attention of the ablest men. Those great 
men, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, men the most 
consummate in politics, who founded states, or in- 
structed princes, or wrote most accurately on public 
government, were at the same time the most acute 
at all abstracted and sublime speculations : the clear- 
est light being ever necessary to guide the most im- 
portant actions. Aiid whatever the -world may opine, 
he who hath not much meditated upon God, the Human 
Mind, and the Summum Bonum, may possibly make a 
thriving Earlh-ivorm, but tvill 7nosi indubitably make 
a blundering Patriot and a sorry statesman." 

SiRis, $ 350. 



ESSAY XVI. 



Blind is that soul which from this truth can swerve, 
No stale stands sure, but on the grounds of right. 
Of virtue, knowledge ; judgment to preserve, 
And all the powers of learning requisite ! 
Though other shifts a present turn may serve. 
Yet in the trial they will weigh too light. 

DANIEL. 



I EARNESTLY entreat the reader not to be dissatis- 
fied either with himself or with the author, if he 

406 



THE FRIEND. 



397 



should not at onre nmiersfand every part of the pre- 
ceding Number ; but ratlier to consider it as a mere 
annunciation of a magnificent theme, the different 
parts of which are to be demonstmled and developed, 
explained, illustrated, and exenipliticd in the progress 
of the work. I likewise entreat liim to peruse with 
nllention and with candor, the weiglity extract from 
ihe judicious Hooker, prefixed as the motto to n fol- 
lowing Number of the Friend. In works of reasoning, 
as distinguished from narration of events or statements 
of facts ; but more particularly in works, the object 
of which i.s to make us better acquainted with our 
own nature, a writer, whose meaning is everywhere 
comprehended as quickly as his sentences can be 
read, may indeed have produced an amusing compo- 
sition, nay, by awakening and re-enlivening our re- 
collections, a useful one; but most assuredly he will 
not have added either to the stock of our knowledge, 
or to the vigor of our intellect. For how can we 
gather strength, but by exercise ? How can a truth, 
new to us, be made our own without examination 
and self-questioning — any new truth, I mean, that 
relates to the properties of the mind, and its various 
fiiculiics and aficctions ! But whatever demands ef- 
fort, requires time. Ignorance seldom vaults into 
knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate 
state of obscurity, even as night into day through 
twilight. All speculative Truths begin with a Pos- 
tulate, even the Truths of Geometry. They all sup- 
pose an act of the Will ; for in the moral being lies 
the source of the intellectual. The first step to know- 
ledge, or rather the previous condition of all insight 
into truth, is to dare commune with our very and 
permanent self It is Warburton's remark, not the 
Friend's, that "of all literary exercitations, whether 
designed for the use or entertainment of the world, 
there are none of so much imjxirlance, or so imme- 
diately our concern, as those which let us into the 
knowledge of our own nature. Others may exercise 
the understanding or amuse the imagination; but 
these only can improve the heart and form the human 
mind to wisdom." 

The recluse Hermit ort-limea more dotli know 

Of the world's inmost wheels, Ihan worldlings can. 

As M.in is of Iho World, the Heart of IMan 

Is an Epitome of God's great Hook 

Of Creatures, and Men need no further look. 

DONNE. 

The higher a man's station, the more arduous and 
full of peril his duties, the more comprehensive 
should his Foresight be, the more rooted his tranquil- 
lity concerning Life and Death. But these are gifts 
which no experience can bestow, but the experience 
Irom within: and there is a nobleness of the whole 
j)ersonal being, to which the contemplation of all 
events and phenomena in the Light of the three 
Master Ideas, announced in the foregoing pages, can 
alone elevate the spirit. Anima Sapiens, (says Gior- 
dano Bruno, and let the sublime piety of the passage 
excuse some intermixture of error, or rather let the 
words, as they well may, be interpreted in a safe 
sense) Anima sapiens non timet mortem, immo inter- 
dum illam ultro appetit, illi ultro occurrit. Manet 



' quippe substantiam omnem pro Duratione Eternilas, 
pro Loco Immensitas, pro Acta Omniformitas. Non 
levem igitur ac futilem, alqtii gravis.'<imam pcrfecto- 
qiie Ilomine dignissimam Conlemplalionis Partem 
persoquiinur ubi divinitatis, natun^qtie splendorem, 
(iisioiiem, et communicationem, non in Cilx), Potu, et 
ignobilioro qtiadam materia cum attonilorum sectilo 
perquirimus ; sed in august:'i Omni|)<)tentis Regia, 
immenso a;theris spacio, in infinita naliinc geminas 
omnia fienlis et omnia facicntis potcntia, unde tot as- 
trorum, mundortim inqiiam et niuniiuim,uni allissimo 
ctmciiiontiinn atqiie saltanlium absque nnmero ntquc 
fine jiixta prnpositos ubiquc fines alque ordincs, con- 
templamur. Sic ex visibilium a'tcrno, irniucuso et 
innumerabili efTcctu, scmpiterna immensa ilia Mojcs- 
tas atqtie bonilas intcllecta conspieitur, proque sua 
dignitate innumerabilium Deoriim (mundorum dico) 
adsistentia, concinentia, el glorias, ipsius enarratione, 
immo ad oculos expressa concione glorificafur. Cui 
Immenso mensum non quadrabit Domicilium atque 
Templum — ad cujus majestalis piciiitudiricm agnos- 
cendam atque percolcndam, numerabilium ministo- 
rum nullus esset ordo. Eia igitur ad omniformis Dei 
omniformem Imagincm conjcctemus oculos, vivum 
et magnum illius admiremar simulacrum! — Ilinc mi- 
raculum magnum a Trismegisto appellabaiur Homo 
qui in Deum transeat quasi ipse sit Deus qui conatur 
omnia fieri sicut Deus est omnia ; ad objectum sine 
fine, ubique tamem finiendo, contendit, sicut infinitus 
est Deus immensus, ubique totus.* 



* Translation. — A wise spirit does not fear death, nay, 
sometimes, (as in cases of voluntary martyrdom) seeks and 
goes forth to meet it. of lis own accord. Tor there awaits 
all actual beings, for duration and eternity, for place immen- 
sity, for action omniformity. Wc pursue, therefore, a sppciea 
of contemplation not light or futile, but the weightiest and 
most worthy of an accomplished man, while we examine and 
seek for the splendor, the interfusion, and communication of 
the Divinity and of Nature, not in meats or drink, or in any 
yet ignobler matter, with the race of the Ihiinilrrstrickcn ; 
but in the august palace of the Omnipotent, in the illimitable 
elherial space, in the infinite power, that creates all things, 
and is the abiding being of all things. 

There wo may contemplate Ihe Host of Stars, of Worlds 
and their guardian Deities, numbers without number, each in 
its appointed sphere, singing together, and dancing in adora- 
tion of the One Most High. Thus from the perpetual, im- 
mense, and innumerable goings on of Ihe visible world, that 
sempiternal and absolutely infinite Majesty is intellectually 
beheld, and is glorified according to his glory, by the attend- 
ance and choral symplionies of innumerable gods, who utter 
forth the glory of their inelTable Creator in the expressive lan- 
guage of Vi.=ion ! To him illimitable, a limitod temple will 
not correspond— to the acknowledgement and due worship of 
Ihe Plenitude of his Majesty there would be no proportion in 
any numerable army of ministrnnt spirits. Let us then cast 
our eyes upon Ihe omniform image of the Attributes of the 
all-creating Supreme, nor admit any representation of his 
Excellency but the living Universe, which he has created! — 
Thence was man entitled by Trismegislus, " the great Mira- 
cle," inasmuch as he has been made capable of entering into 
union with God, as if ho were himself a divine nature ! tries 
to become all things, even as in God all thincs art ; ami in 
limitless progression of limited Slates of lieing, urtea onward 
to the ultimate aim, even as God is simultaneously infinite, 
and everywhere All I 

In Ihe last volume of the work, announced and its naturo 
and objects explained, at the close of Ihe present, I purpose 
to give an account of the life of Giordano liruiio, the friens 
of Sir Philip Sidney, who was burnt under pretence of Athe- 
ism, at Uomo, in Ihe year f(KK) ; and of his works, which are 

407 



398 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



If this be regarded as the fancies of an enthusiast, 
by such as 

deem themselvcB most free, 
When they within this gross arid visible sphere 
Chain down the winged soul, scoffing assent. 
Proud in their meanness, 

by such as pronounce every man out of his senses 
who has not lost his reason ; even such men may find 
some weight in the historical fact that from persons, ' 
who had previously strengthened their intellects and 
feelings by the contemplation of PRiNCirLES — Prin- 
ciples, the actions correspondent to which involve 
one half of their consequences, by their ennobling 
influence on the agent's own soul, and have omnipo- 
tence, as the pledge for the remainder — we have de- 
rived the surest and most general maxims of pru- 
dence. Of high value are they all. Yet there is one 
among them worth all the rest, which in the fullest 
and primary sense of the word, is indeed the Maxim, 
(i. e. the Maximum) of human Prudence ; and of 
which History itself in all that makes it most worth 
studying, is one continued comment and exemplifica- 
tion. It is this : that there is a Wisdom higher than 
Prudence, to which Prudence stands in the same re- 
lation as the Mason and Carpenter to the genial and 
scientific Architect ; and from the habits of thinking 
and feeling, that in this Wisdom had their first forma- 
tion, our Nelsons and Wellingtons inherit that glori- 
nus hardihood, which completes the undertaking, ere 
the contemptuous calculator (who has left nothing 
omitted in his scheme of probabilities, except the 
might of the human mind) has finished his pretended 
proof of its impossibility. You look to Fads and 
profess to take Experience for your guide. Well ! I 
too appeal to Experience : and let Farfs be the ordeal 
of my position ! Therefore, although I have in this 
and the preceding Numbers quoted more frequently 
and copiously than I shall permit myself to do in fu- 
ture, I owe it to the cause I am pleading, not to deny 
myself the gratification of supporting this connexion 
of practical heroism with previous habits of philoso- 
phic thought, by a singularly appropriate passage 
from an author whose works can be called rare only 
from their being, I fear, rarely read, however com- 
monly talked of It is the instance of Xenophon as 
stated by Lord Bacon, who would himself iurnish 
an equal instance, if there could be found an equal 
commentator. 

"It is of Xenophon the Philosopher, who went 



perhaps the scarcest books ever printed. They are singularly 
interesting as portraits of a vigorous mind struggling after 
truth, amid many prejudices, wtiich from the slate of the Ro- 
man Church, in which he was horn, have a claim to much 
indulgence. One of them (entitled Ember Week) is curious 
for its lively accounts of the rude state of London, at that 
time, both as to the streets and the manm^rs of the citizens. 
The most industrious Historians of speculative Philosophy, 
have not been able to procure more than a few of his works. 
Accidentally I have been more fortunate in this respect, than 
those who have written hitherto on the unhappy Philosopher 
of JVula: as out ofcloven works, the titles of which are pre- 
served to us, I have bad an opportunity of perusing six. I 
was told, when in Germany, that there is a complete collec- 
tion of them in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. If so, it 
is unique. 



from Socrates's School into Asia, in the expedition ot 
Cyrus the younger, against King Artaxerxes. This 
Xenophon, at that time, was very young, and never 
had seen the wars before ; neither had any command 
in the army, but only followed the war as a volun- 
teer, for the love and conversation of Proxenus, his 
friend. He was present when Falinus came in mes- 
sage from the king to the Grecians, after that Cyrus 
was slain in the Field, and they, a handful of men, 
left to themselves in the midst of the King's territo- 
ries, cut off from their coimtry by many navigable 
rivers, and many hundred miles. The message im- 
ported, that they should deliver up their arms and 
submit themselves to the King's mercy. To which 
message, before answer was made, divers of the army 
conferred familiarly with Falinus, and amongst the 
rest Xenophon happened to say: Why, Falinus! we 
have now but two things left, our arms and our vir- 
tue ; and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make 
use of our virtue? Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, 
said, 'If I be not deceived. Young Gentleman, you 
are an Athenian, and I believe, you study Philoso- 
phy, and it is pretty that you say ; but you are much 
abused, if you think your virtue can withstand the 
King's power.' Here was the scorn : the vionder 
followed — which was, that this young Scholar or 
Philosopher, after all the Captains were murdered 
in parley, by treason, conducted those ten thousand 
foot through the heart of all the King's high coun- 
tries from Babylon to Grecia, in safety, in despite of 
all the King's forces, to the astonishment of the world, 
and the encouragement of the Grecians, in times suc- 
ceeding, to make invasion upon the kings of Persia; 
as was afterwards purposed by Jason the Thessalian, 
attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved 
by Alexander the Macedonian, all xipon the ground 
of the act of that yming Scholar." 

Often have I reflected with awe on the great and 
disproportionate power, which an individual of no ex- 
traordinary talents or attainments may exert, by mere- 
ly throwing off all restraint of conscience. What 
then must not be the power, where an individtial, of 
consummate wickedness, can organize into the unity 
and rapidity of an individual will all the natural and 
artificial forces of a populous and wicked nation ? 
And could we bring within the field of imagination, 
the devastation elTecled in the moral world, by the 
violent removal of old customs, familiar sympathies, 
willing reverences, and habits of subordination almost 
naturalized into instinct ; of the mild influences of 
reputation, and the other ordinary props and aidances 
of our infirm virtue, or at least, if virtue be too high 
a name, of our well-doing ; and above all, if we could 
give form and body to all the effects produced on the 
principles and dispositions of nations by the infectious 
feelings of insecurity, and the soul-sickening sense of 
tmsteadiness in the whole edifice of civil society; the 
horrors of battle, though the miseries of a whole war 
were brought together before our eyes in one disas- 
trous field, would present but a tame tragedy in com- 
parison. Nay, it would even present a sight of com- 
fort and of elevation, if this field of carnage were 
the sign and result of a national resolve, of a genera. 

408 



THE FRIEND. 



399 



will, $0 to (lie, that neither deluge nor fire siioiild 
take away the namo of Countrv from their graves, 
Miher than to tread tlie clods of earth, no longer a 
loiinlry, and themselves alive in nature, but dead in 
iniaiiiy. What is Greece at this present moment? 
Ii is the t'ou.N'TRV of the heroes from Cotlrus to I'hi- 
lii|xcnien ; and so it would be, though all llie sands 
(if Africa should cover its corn-iiolds and olive gar- 
dens, and not a (lower were left on llynieltus for a 
bee to murmur in. 

If tlien the power with which wickedness can in- 
vest the human being be thus tremendous, greatly 
does it behove us to enquire into iis source and causes. 
So doing we shall (]uickly discover that it is not vice, 
as vice, which is thus mighty ; but systemalic vice ! 
Nice self-consistent and entire ; crime corresponding 
to crime ; villany entrenched and barricadocd by viU 
lany ; this is the condition and main constituent of its 
jKiwer. The abandonment of all principle of right 
cnaljles the soul to choose and act upon a jmnciple 
(if wrong, and to suljordinate to this one principle all 
tiie various vices of human nature. For it is a mourn- 
ful truth, that as devastation is incomparably an easier 
work than production, so may all its means and in- 
Firuments be more easily arranged into a scheme and 
system. Kven as in a siege every building and gar- 
den, which the faithful governor must destroy, as im- 
peding the defensive means of the garrison, or fur- 
nishing means of offence to the besieger, occasions a 
wound in feelings which virtue herself has fostered ; 
and virtue, because it is virtue, loses perforce part of 
lior energy in the reluctance with which she proceeds 
to a business so repugnant to her wishes, as a choice 
of evils. But He, who has once said with his whole 
heart. Evil, be thou my Good ! has removed a world 
of obstacles by the very decision, that he will have 
no obstacle^ but those of force and brute matter. The 
road of Justice 

"Curves round the corn-fiold nnd the hill of vines 
IloQoriog the holy bounds of property !" 

Rut the path of the lightning is straight: and straight 
the fearful jiath 

" Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flics and rapid, 
Shatt'rins that it may reach, and shalt'ring what it reach- 
es."* 

Happily for mankind, however, the obstacles which 
a consistently evil mind no longer finds in itself, it 
finds in its own unsnitableness to human nature. A 
hmit is fixed to its power: but within that limit, Iwth 
IIS to the extent and duration of ii.s influence, there is 
little hope of checking its career, if giant and united 
vices are opposed only by mixed and scattered vir- 

* Wallcnstcin, from Schiller, by S. T. Coleridge. I return 
my thanks to the unknown Author of Wavorley, Guy Man- 
n'.Ting, &c., for having quoted this free Translation from 
Schiller's best (and therefore most neglected) Drama with ap- 
plause : and am not ashamed to avow, that [ have derived a 
peculiar gratification, that the first men of our apo have uni- 
ted in giving no ordinary praise to a work, which our anony- 
mous critics were equally unanimous in abusing as below all 
eriticism : Ihoujh ihey charitably added, that the fault was, 
diu!btles3. chiefly if not wholly, in the Translator's dullness 
and incapacity. 

27 



tues: and those too, probably, from the want of some 
combining Pki.nciple, which assigns to each its due 
place and rank, at civil war with themselves, or at 
best perplexing and counteracting each other. In our 
laic agony of glory and of [Kiril, did wo not loo often 
hear even good men declaiming on the horrors and 
crimes of war, and softening or staggering the minds 
of ihcir brethrrn by dclaiLs of individual wrclrhed- 
ncss ? Thus imdcr pretence of avoiding bl(XKl, they 
were withdrawing the will from the defence of the 
very source of those blessings without which the blcwd 
would flow idly in our veins! thus lest a fijw sliould 
fall on the bulwarks in glory, they were preparing us 
to give up the whole state to baseness, and the child- 
ren of free ancestors to become slaves, and the fathers 
of slaves ! 

Machiavelli has well observed, " Sono di tre gene- 
razimie Cervelli : I'uno inknde per se ; I'altro inlende 
quanto da altri gli e moslro ; il lerzo nou intcnde ni 
per sc slesiio nc jier demonslrazione d'altri." " There 
are brains of three races. The one understands of 
itself; the second understands as much as is shown 
it by others ; the third neither understands of itself 
nor what is shown it by others." I should have no 
hesitation in placing that man in the third Class of 
Brains, for whom the History of the last twenty years 
has not supplied a copious comment on the preceding 
Text. The widest maxims oi prudence arc like arms 
without hearts, disjoined from those feelings which 
flow forth from principle as from a fountain. So little 
are even the genuine maxims of expedience likely to 
be perceived or acted upon by those \\ho have been 
habituated to admit nothing higher than expedience, 
that I dare hazard the assertion, that in the whole 
Chapter-of-Contents of European Ruin, every article 
might be unanswerably deduced from the neglect of 
some maxim that had been repeatedly laid down, de- 
monstrated, and enforced with a host of illustrations, 
in some one or other of the works of Machiavelli, Ba- 
con, or Harrington.t Indeed I can remember no one 
event of im|X)rtance which was not distinctly fore- 
told, and this not by a lucky prize drawn among a 
thousand blanks out of the lottery-wheel of conjec- 
ttire, but legitimately deduced as certain consequences 
from established premises. It would be a melancho 
ly, but a very profitable employment, for some vigo- 
rous mind, intimately acquainted with the recent his- 
tory of Europe, to collect the weightiest Aphorisms 
of Maciiiavelli alone, and illustrating by appropriate 
facts the breach or observation of each, to render less 
mysterious the present triumph of lawless violence. 
The apt motto to such a work would be, — "The 
Children of Darkness are wiser in their Generation 
than the Children of Light." 

So grievously, indeed, have men been deceived by 
the showy mock theories of unlearned mock thinkers, 
that there seems a tendency in the public mind to 
shun all thought, and to expect help from any quar- 
ter rather than from seriousness and reflection : as if 
some invisible power would think for us, when we 



t See The Statesman's Manual: a I<uyScrmon by the 
Author. 

409 



400 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



gave up the pretence of thinking for ourselves. But 
in the first place, did those, who opposed the theories 
of invocators, conduct their unfheoreiic opposition with 
more wisdom or to a happier result? And secondly, 
are societies now constructed on principles so few 
and so simple, that we could, even if we wished it, 
act as it were by instinct, like our distant Forefathers 
in the infancy of States ? Doubtless, to act is nobler 
than to think : but as the old man doth not become a 
child by means of his second childishness, as little 
can a nation exempt itself from the necessity of think- 
ing, which has once learned to think. Miserable was 
the delusion of the late mad Realizerof mad Dreams, 
in his belief that he should ultimately succeed in 
transforming the nations of Europe into the unreason- 
ing hordes of a Babylonian or Tartar Empire, or even 
in reducing the age to the simplicity, (so desirable for 
tyrants) of those times, when the sword and the 
plough were the sole implements of human skill. 
Those are epochs in the history of a people which 
having been can never more recur. Extirpate all 
civilization and all its arts by the sword, trample 
down all ancient Institutions, Rights, Distinctions, and 
Privileges, drag us backward to our old Barbarism, 
as beasts to the den of Cacus — deemed you that thus 
you could re-create the unexamining and boisterous 
youth of the world when the sole questions were — 
" What is to be conquered? and who is the most fa- 
mous leader ?" 

In an age in which artificial knowledge is received 
almost at the birth, intellect and thought alone can 
be our upholder and judge. Let the importance of 
this Truth procure pardon for its repetition. Only by 
means of seriousness and meditation and the free in- 
fliction of censure in the spirit of love, can the true 
philanthropist of the present time, curb-in himself 
and his contemporaries ; only by these can he aid in 
preventing the evils which threaten us, not from the 
terrors of an enemy so much as from our fears of our 
own thoughts, and our aversion to all the toils of re- 
flection? For all must now be taught in sport — Sci- 
ence, Morality, yea. Religion itself. And yet few 
now sport from the actual impulse of a believing fancy 
and in a happy delusion. Of the most influensive 
class, at least, of our literary guides, (the anonymous 
authors of periodical publications) the most part as- 
sume this character from cowardice or mahce, till 
having begun with studied ignorance and a premedi- 
tated levity, they at length realize the lie, and end 
indeed in a pitiable destitution of all intellectual 
power. 

To many I shall appear to speak insolently, be- 
cause the PUBLIC, (for that is the phrase which has 
succeeded to " The Town," of the wits of the reign 
of Charles the second) — the public is at present ac- 
customed to find itself appealed to as the infallible 
J udge, and each reader complimented with excellen- 



cies, which if he really possessed, to what purpose is 
he a reader, unless, perhaps, to remind himself of his 
own superiority! I confess that I think widely dif- 
ferent. I have not a deeper conviction on earth, than 
that the principles both of Taste, Morals, and Reli- 
gion, which are taught in the commonest books of re- 
cent composition, are false, injurious, and debasing. 
If these sentiments should be just, the consequences 
must be so important, that every well-educated man, 
who professes them in sincerity, deserves a patient 
hearing. He may fairly appeal even to those whose 
persuasions are most opposed to his own, in the words 
of the Philosopher of i\ola : " Ad ist here qncrso vos, 
qvaliacimque primo videanlnr aspeclu, adtendile, ut 
qui t'obis forsan insanire videar, saltern quibus insa- 
niam rationibiis cognosratis.'' What I feel deeply, 
freely will I utter. Truth is not detraction ; and as- 
suredly we do not hate him, to whom we tell the 
Truth. But w'ith whomsoever we play the deceiver 
and flatterer, him at the bottom we despise. We are, 
indeed, under a necessity to conceive a vileness in 
him, in order to diminish the sense of the wrong we 
have committed by the worthlessness of the object. 

Through no excess of confidence in the strength of 
my talents, but with the deepest assurance of the jus- 
tice of my cause, I bid defiance to all the flatterers of 
the folly and foolish self-opinion of the half-instructed 
Many ; to all who fill the air with festal explosions 
and false fires sent up against the lightnings of Hea- 
ven, in order that the people may neither distinguish 
the warning flash nor hear the threatening thunder! 
How recently did we stand alone in the world ! And 
though the one storm has blown over, another may 
even now be gathering: or haply the hollow murmur 
of the Earthquake within the Bowels of our own 
Commonweal may strike a direr terror than ever did 
the Tempest of foreign Warfare. Therefore, though 
the first quatrain is no longer applicable, yet the mo- 
ral truth and the sublime exhortation of the following 
Sonnet can never be superannuated. With it I con- 
clude this Number, thanking Heaven! that I have 
communed with, honored, and loved its wise and 
high-minded author. To know that such men are 
among us, is of itself an antidote against despondence. 

Another year : — another deadly blow ! 
Another mighty Empire overthrown ! 
And we are left, or shall be left, alone ; 
The last that dares to struggle with the Foe. 
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know 
That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; 
That by our own right hands it must be wrought; 
That we must stand unpropt or be laid low. 
O Pastard ! whom such foretaste doth not cheer'. 
We shall exult, if They, who rule the land. 
Be Men who hold its many blessings dear. 
Wise, upright, valiant; not a venal Band, 
Who are to judge of danger which ihey fear, 
And honor, which they do not understand. 

WORDSWORTH. 
410 



^Mt Hantrlnu-JJlJice: 



ESSAYS INTERPOSED FOR AMUSEMENT, RETROSPECT, AND PREPARATION. 



MISCELLANY THE FIRST. 



Etiam a muni's ei quando animum pauliaper abducamus, apud Musas nihilominue reiiamur : at reclines quidem, at otiosai, 
at de his et illas inter se libere colloqueates. 



ESSAY I. 



O blessed Letters '. that combine in one 
All ages past, and make one live witb all : 
By you wo do confer with who are gone 
And the Dead-living unto Council call I 
By you the Unborn shall have communion 
Of what we feel and what doth us befall. 

Since Writings are the Veins, the Arteries, 
And undecaying Life-strings of those Hearts, 
That still shall pant and still shall exercise 
Their mightiest powers when Nature none imparts . 
And the strong constitution of their Praise 
Wear out the infection of distemper'd days. 

DANIEL'S Musophilus. 



The Intelligence, which produces or controls hu- 
man actions and occurrences, is often represented by 
the Mystics under the name and notion of the su- 
preme Harmonist. I do not myself approve of these 
metaphors : they seem to imply a restlessness to un- 
derstand that which is not among the appointed 
objects of our comprehension or discursive faculty. 
But certainly there is one excellence in good music, 
to which, without mysticism, we may fmd or make 
an analogy in the records of History. I allude to 
that sense of recognition, which accompanies our 
sense of novelty in the most original passages of a 
great composer. If we listen to a Symphony of 
Cimahosa, the present strain still seems not only to 
recal, but almost to renev), some past movement, 
another and yet the same ! Each present movement 
bringing back, as it were, and embodying the spirit 
of some melo<ly that had gone before, anticipates and 
eeems trying to overtake something that is to come : 
and the musician has reached the summit of his art, 
when having thus modified the Present by the Past, 
he at tne same time weds the Past in the Present 
to some prepared and corresponsive Future. The 
auditor's thoughts and feelings move under the same 
influence : retrospect blends with anticipation, and 
Hope and Memory (a female Janus) become one 
power with a double aspect. A similar effect the 
reader may produce for himself in the pages of His- 
tory, if he will be content to substitute an iiitellec- 
53 



tual complacency for pleasurable sensation. The 
events and characters of one age, like the strains in 
music, recal those of another, and the variety by 
which each is individualized, not only gives a charm 
and poignancy to the resemblance, but likewise ren- 
ders the whole more intelligible. Meantime ample 
room is afforded for the exercise both of the judgment 
and the fancy, in distinguishing cases of real resem- 
blance from those of intentional imitation, the analo- 
gies of nature, revolving upon herself, from the 
masquerade figures of cunning and vanity. 

It is not from identity of opinions, or from similar- 
ity of events and outward actions, that a real resem- 
blance can be deduced. On the contrary, men of 
great and stirring powers, who are destined to mould 
the age in which they are born, must first mould 
themselves upon it. Mahomet born twelve centuries 
later, and in the heart of Europe, would not have 
been a false Prophet ; nor would a false Prophet of 
the present generation have been a Mahomet in the 
sixth century. I have myself, therefore, derived the 
deepest interest from the comparison of men, whose 
characters at the first view appear widely dissimilar 
who yet have produced similar effects on their differ- 
ent ages, and this by tiie exertion of powers which 
on examination will be found far more alike, than 
the altered drapery and costume would have led us 
to suspect. Of the heirs of fame few are more re- 
spected by me, though for very different qualities, 
than Erasmus and Luther : scarcely any one has a 
larger share of my aversion than Voltaire ; and even 
of the better-hearted Rousseau I was never more 
than a very lukewarm admirer. I should perhaps 
too rudely affront the general opinion, if I avowed 
my whole creed concerning the proportions of real 
talent between the two purifiers of revealed Religion, 
now neglected as obsolete, and the two modern con- 
spirators against its authority, who are still the Alpha 
and Omega of Continental Genius. Yet when 1 ab- 
stract the questions of evil and good, and measure 
only the effects produced and the mode of producing 
them, I have repeatedly found the idea of Voltaire, 
Rousseau, and Robespierre, recal in a similar cluster 
and comiection that of Erasmus, Luther, and Mun- 
Bter. 

411 



402 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Those who are familiar with the works of Erasmus, 
and who know the influence of his wit, as the pio- 
neer of the reformation ; and who likewise know, 
that by his wit, added to the vast variety of know- 
ledge communicated in his works, he had won over 
by anticipation so large a part of the polite and let- 
tered world to the Protestant party ; will be at no loss 
in discovering the intended counterpart in the life 
and writings of the veteran Frenchman. They will 
see, indeed, that the knowledge of the one was solid 
through its whole extent, and that of the other exten- 
sive at a cheap rate, by its superficiality ; that the wit 
of the one is always bottomed on sound sense, peo- 
ples and enriches the mind of the reader with an 
endless variety of distinct images and living inte- 
rests: and that his broadest laughter is every where 
translatable into grave and weighty truth; while the 
wit of the Frenchman, without imagery, without cha- 
racter, and without that pathos which gives the ma- 
gic charm to genuine humor, consists, when it is most 
perfect, in happy turns of phrase, but far too often 
in fantastic incidents, outrages of the pure imagina- 
tion, and the poor low trick of combining the ridicu- 
lous with the venerable, where he, who does not 
laugh, abhors. Neither will they have forgotten, that 
the object of the one was to drive the thieves and 
mummers out of the temple, while the other was 
propelling a worse banditti, first to profane and pil- 
lage, and ultimately to raze it. Yet not the less will 
they perceive, that the effects remain parallel, the cir- 
cumMances analogous, and tiie inslriiments the same. 
In each case the effects extended over Europe, were 
attested and augmented by the praise and patronage 
of thrones and dignities, and are not to be explained 
but by extraordinary industry and a life of literature ; 
in both instances the circumstances were supplied by 
an age of hopes and promises — the age of Erasmus 
restless from the first vernal influences of real know- 
ledge, that of Voltaire from the hectic of imagined 
superiority. In the voluminous works of both, the 
instruments employed are chiefly those of wit and 
amusive erudition, and alike in both the errors and 
evils (real or imputed) in Religion and Politics are 
the objects of the battery. And here we must stop. 
The two Men were essentially different. Exchange 
mutually their dates and spheres of action, yet Vol- 
taire, had he been ten-fold a Voltaire, could not have 
made up an Erasmus ; and Erasmus must have emp- 
tied himself of half his greatness and all his good- 
iiess, to have become a Voltaire. 

Shall vje succeed belter or worse with the next 
pair, in this our new dance of death, or rather of the 
shadows which we have brought forth — two by two 

from the historic ark ? In our first couple we have 
at least secured an honorable retreat, and though wo 
failed as to the agents, we have maintained a fair 
analogy in the actions and the objects. But the he- 
roic Luther, a Giant awaking in his strength ! and 
the crazy Rousseau, the Dreamer of love-sick Tales, 
and the spinner of speculative Cobwebs ; shy of light 
as the Mole, but as quick-eared too for every whisper 
of the public opinion ; the Teacher of stoic Pride in 
his principles, yet the victim of morbid Vanity in his 



feelings and conduct. From what point of likeness 
can we commence the comparison between a Luther 
and a Rousseau ? And truly had I been seeking for 
characters that, taken as they really existed, closely' 
resemble each other, and this too to our first appre- 
hensions, and according to the common rules of bio- 
graphical comparison, I could scarcely have made a 
more unlucky choice : unless I had desired that my 
parallel of the German " Son of Thunder" and the 
Visionary of Geneva, should sit on the same bench 
with honest Fluellen's of Alexander the Great and 
Harry of Monmouth. Still, however, the same ana- 
logy would hold as in my former instance ; the ef- 
fects produced on their several ages by Luther and 
Rousseau, were commensurate with each other, and 
were produced in both cases by (what their contem- 
poraries felt as) serious and vehement eloquence, and 
an elevated tone of moral feeling : and Luther, not 
less than Rousseau, was actuated by an almost super- 
stitious hatred of superstition, and a turbulent preju- 
dice against prejudices. In the relation too which 
their writings severally bore to those of Erasmus and 
Voltaire, and the way in which the latter co-operated 
with them to the same general end, each finding its 
own class of admirers and Proselytes, the parallel is 
complete. 

I cannot, however, rest here ! Spite of the apparent 
incongruities, I am disposed to plead for a resem- 
blance in the Men themselves, for that similarity in 
their radical natures, which I abandoned all pretence 
and desire of showing in the instances of Voltaire 
and Erasmus. But then my readers must think of 
Luther not as he really was, but as he might have 
been, if he had been born in the age and under the 
circumstances of the Swiss Philosopher. For this 
purpose I must strip him of many advantages which 
he derived from his own times, and must contemplate 
him in his natural weaknesses as well as in his origi- 
nal strength. Each referred all things to his own 
ideal. The ideal was indeed widely different in the 
one and in the other : and this was not the least of 
Luther's many advantages, or (to use a favorite 
phrase of his own) not one of his least favors of pre- 
venting grace. Happily for him he had derived his 
standard from a common measure already received 
by the good and wise : I mean the inspired writings, 
the study of which Erasmus had previously restored 
among the learned. To know that we are in sympa- 
thy with others, moderates our feelings, as well as 
strengthens our convictions: and for the mind, which 
opposes itself to the faith of the mullitude, it is more 
especially desirable, that there should exist an object 
out of itself, on which it may fix ils attention, and 
thus balance its own energies. 

Rousseau, on the contrary, in the inauspicious spi- 
rit of his age and birth-place,* had slipped the cable 



* Infidelity was so common in Geneva about that time, that 
Voltriiio in one of his Letters exults, that in this, (Jalvin's 
own Cily, some half dozen only of the most ignoi:vnt believ- 
eti in Christianity under any form. This was, no doubt, one 
of Voltaire's usual lies of exaggeration : it is not however to 
be denied, that hero, and throughout Switzerland, he and the 
dark Master in whose service he employed himself, had am* 
pie grounds of triumph. 

412 



THE FRIEND. 



403 



of his fnilh, and steered by the compnss of unaided 
rensoii, ignorant of the hiilden currents that were 
bearing liim out of his course, and too proud to con- 
sult the faithful charts prized and held sacred by his 
forefathers. l?ut the strange inlluences of his bodily 
temperament on his understanding; his constitutional 
melanchitlv pampered into a morbid excess by soli- 
tude; his wild dreams of suspicion ; his by|>o('hon- 
driacal liincies of hosts of conspirators nil leagued 
against him and his cause, and headed by some arch- 
enemy, to whose machinations he attributed every 
trifling mishap, (all as much the creatures of his ima- 
gination, as if instead of Men he had conceived them 
to be infernal Spirits and Beings preternatural) — 
these, oral least the predisposition to them, existed in 
the ground-work of his nature: they were parts of 
Rousseau himself And what corresponding in kind 
to these, not to speak of degree, can we delect in the 
character of his supposed parallel ? This diflicully 
will suggest itself at the first thought, to those who 
derive all their knowledge of Luliier from the mea- 
gre biography met with in " The Lives of eminent 
Reformers," or even from the ecclesiastical Histories 
of Mosheim or Milner: for a life of Luther, in extent 
and style of execution proportioned to the grandeur 
and interest of the subject, a Life of the Man Luther, 
as well as of Luther the Theologian, is still a deside- 
ratum in English Literature, though perhaps there is 
no subject for which so many unused materials are 
extant, both printed and in manuscript.* 



ESSAY II. 



Is it, 1 ask, most important to the best interests of Man- 
kind, temporal as well as spiritual, that certain Work-i, the 
names and number orwliich are fl.ved and unalterable, sbiiuld 
be dislingnirhed from all other Works, not in a degree only 
but even in ii'nrf ? And that these colJTtively should form 
the hook, to which in all the concerns of Faith and Morality 
the last recourse is to bo made, and from the decisions of 
which no man dare appeal ? If the mere existence of a Book 
80 called and charactered be, as the Koran itself suffices to 
evince, a ini^hiy Bond of Union, among nation; whom all 
other causes lend to separate ; if moreover ihe Book revered 
by us and our forefathers has been the Foster-nurse of Learn- 
inir in the darkest, and of Civilization in the rudest, times: 
and lastly, if this so vast and wide a Blessing is not to be 
founded in a Delusion, and doomed therefore to the Impcr- 
mancncc and Scorn in which sooner or later all delui^inns 
mutt end ; how, I pray you, is it conceivable that tins should 
be brouaht about and secured, otherwise than by a special 
vouchsafement to this one Book, ezclusively, of that Divine 
Mean, that uniform and perfect middle way, which in all 
points is at safe and equal distance from all errors whether 
of excess or defect ? But again if this be true, (and what 

*The afTf-ciionatc respect in which I hold the name of Dr. 
Jorlin (one of Ihe many illustrious Nurslings of the College 
lo which I deem it no small honor to have belonged — Jesus. 
Cambridk'p) renders it piiinful lo me lo assert, that the above 
remaik holds almost equally true of a Life of Erasmus. But 
every Scholar well read in the writings of Erasmus and his 
illustrious Contemporaries, must have discovered, that Jortin 
had neither collected sufTicienl, nor the best, materials for his 
work: an.! (perhaps from that vcy caus'j) he grew weary 
of his task, hcl'ure he had made a full use of the scanty ma- 
ttirials which he had collucted. 



Protestant Christian worthy of his baptismal dedication will 
deny its truth) surely wo oughl not lo be hard and over-stern 
in our censures of the mislakes and infirmities of llinsc, who 
pretending lo no warrant of extraordinary Inspiration have 
been raised up by God's providence to be of highest power 
anil eminence in the reformation of his Church. Far rather 
does it behove us to consider, in how many instances Ihe pec- 
cant lumior native to the man had been wrought ui)on by Ihe 
faithful study of that only faullh'Ss Model, and corrected into 
an unsinnini;, or at least a venial, I'redomimance in Ihe 
Writer or Preacher. Yea, that not seldom the Infirmity of 
a zealous Soldier in the Warfare of Christ has been mode 
Ihe very mould and ground-work of that man's peculiar gifts 
and virtues. Grateful too we should be, that the very Faults 
of famous Men have been fitted to the age on which they 
were lo act : and that tlius the folly of man has proved the 
wisdom of God, and been ni.idc the instrument of his mercy 
to mankind. ANON. 



Whoever has sojourned in Eisenach,* will as- 
suredly have visited the Warteburg, interesting by 
so many historical associations, which stands on a 
high roc k. about two miles to the south from the City 
Gale. To this Caslle Luther was taken on his re- 
turn from the Imperial Diet, where Charles the Fifth 
had pronounced the ban upon him, and limited his 
safe convoy to one-and-twenty days. On the last but 
one of these days, as he was on his way to VValfer- 
shausen (a town in the dutchy of Saxe Goiha, a few 
leagues to the south-east of Eisenach) he was stop- 
ped in a hollow behind the Castle Allcnslein, and 
carried to the Warteburg. The Elector of Saxony, 
who could not have refused to deliver up Luther, aa 
one put in the ban by the Emperor and the Diet, had 
ordered .John of Berleptsch the governor of the War- 
teburg and Burckhardt von Hundt, the governor of 
Altenstein, to take Luther to one or other of these 
Castles, without acquainting him which; in order 
that he might be able, with safe conscience, to de- 
clare, thai he did not know whore Luther was. Ac- 
cordingly they took him to the Warteburg, under the 
name of the Chevalier (Ritter) George. 

To this friendly imprisonment the reformation 
owes many of Luther's most important labors. In 
this place he wrote his works against auricular con- 
fession, against Jacob Latronum, the tract on the 
abuse of Masses, that against clerical and monastic 
vows, composed his Exposition of the 2'2, 27, and 68 
Psalms, finished his Declaration of the Magnificat, 
began to write his Church Homilies, and translated 
the New Testament. Here too, and during this time, 
he is said to have hurled his ink-sland at the Devil, 
the black spot from which yet remains on the slone 
wall of the room he studied in ; which surely, no 
one will have visited the Warteburg without having 
had pointed out lo him by the good Catholic who is, 
or at least some few years ago was, the Warden ol 
the Castle, lie must have been either a very super- 
cilious or a very incurious traveller if he did not, (or 
the gratification of his guide at least, inlbrni iiimscH 
by means of his pen-knife, that the said marvellous 
blot bids defiance to all the toils of the scrubbing 
brush, and is to remain a sign for ever ; and with 



* Durchfluge durch Duelrhland, die Niederlande und YtHfii 
reich : zwcit.— Theil. p. 126. 

4ia 



404 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



this advantage over most of its kindred, that being 
capable of a double interpretation, it is equally flat- 
tering to the Protestant and the Papist, and is regard- 
ed by the wonder-loving zealots of both parties, with 
equal faith. 

Whether the great man ever did throw his ink- 
stand at his Satanic Majesty, whether he ever boasted 
of the exploit, and himself declared the dark blotch 
on his Study-Wall in the Warteburg, to be the result 
and relict of this author-like hand grenado, (happily 
for mankind he used his ink-stand at other times to 
better purpose, and with more effective hostility 
against the arch-fiend) I leave to my reader's own 
judgment; on condition, however, that he has previ- 
ously perused Luther's table-talk, and other writings 
of the same stamp, of some of his most illustrious 
contemporaries, which contain facts still more strange 
and whimsical, related by themselves and of them- 
selves, and accompanied with solemn protestations 
of the Truth of their statements. Luther's table-talk, 
which to a truly philosophic mind, will not be less 
interesting than Rousseau's confessions, I have not 
mysell'the means of consulting at present, and cannot 
therefore say, whether this ink-pot adventure is, or is 
not, told or referred to in it; but many considerations 
incline me to give credit to the story. 

Luther's unremitting literary labor and his seden- 
tary mode of life, during his confinement in the 
Warteburg, where he was treated with the greatest 
kindness, and enjoyed every liberty consistent with 
his own safety, had begun to undermine his former 
unusually strong health. He suffered many and 
most distressing effects of indigestion and a deranged 
state of the digestive organs. Melancthon, whom he 
had desired to consult the Physicians at Erfurth, sent 
him some de-obstruent medicines, and the advice to 
take regular and severe exercise. At first he fol- 
lowed the advice, sate and laboured less, and spent 
whole days in the chase ; but like the young Pliny, 
he strove in vain to form a taste for this favorite 
amusement of the " Gods of the earth," as appears 
from a passage in a letter to George Spalatin, which 
J translate for an additional reason : to prove to the 
admirers of Rousseau, (who perhaps will not be less 
affronted by this biographical parallel, than the zeal- 
ous Lutherans will be offended) that if my comparison 
should turn out groundless on the whole, the failure 
will not have arisen either from the want of sensibil- 
ity in our great reformer, or of angry aversion to those 
m high places, whom he regarded as the oppressors 
of their rightful equals. " I have been," he writes, 
" employed for two days in the sports of the field, and 
was willing myself to taste this bitter-sweet amuse- 
ment of the great heroes : we have caught two hares, 
and one brace of poor little partridges. An employ- 
ment this which does not ill suit quiet leisurely folks : 
for even in the midst of the ferrets and dogs, I have 
had theological fancies. But as much pleasure as the 
general appearance of the scene and the mere look- 
ing on occasioned me, even so much it pitied me to 
think of the mystery and emblem which lies beneath 
It. For what does this symbol signify, but that the 
Devi], through his godless huntsman and dogs, the 



Bishops and Theologians to wit, doth privily chasa 
and catch the poor little innocent beasts ? Ah ! the 
simple and credulous souls came thereby far too plain 
before my eyes. Thereto comes a yet more frightfu. 
mystery : as at my earnest entreaty we had saved 
alive one poor little hare, and I had concealed it in 
the sleeve of my great coat, and had strolled off a 
short distance from it, the dogs in the mean time found 
the poor hare. Such, too, is the fury of the Pope with 
Satan, that he destroys even the souls that had been 
saved, and troubles himself little about my pains and 
entreaties. Of such hunting then I have had enough." 
In another passage he tells his correspondent, " you 
know it is hard to be a Prince, and not in some de- 
gree a Robber, and the greater a Prince the more a 
Robber." Of our Henry the Eighth, he says, " I 
must answer the grim Lion that passes himself off for 
King of England. The ignorance in the Book is 
such as one naturally expects from a King ; but the 
bitterness and impudent falsehood is quite leonine." 
And in his circular letter to the Princes, on occasion 
of the Peasant's War, he uses a language so inflam- 
matory, and holds forth a doctrine which borders so 
near on the holy right of insurrection, that it may as 
well remain untranslated. 

Had Luther been himself a Prince, he could not 
have desired better treatment than he received during 
his eight months' slay in the Warteburg; and in con- 
sequence of a more luxurious diet than he had been 
accustomed to, he was plagued with temptations both 
from the "Flesh and the Devil." It is evident from 
his letters* that he suffered under great irritability of 
his nervous system, the common effect of deranged 
digestion in men of sedentary habits, who are at the 
same lime intense thinkers: and this irritability 
added to, and revivifying, the impressions made upon 
him in early life, and fostered by the theological sys- 
tems of his manhood, is abundantly sufficient to ex- 
plain all his apparitions and all his nightly combats 
with evil spirits. I see nothing improbable in the 
supposition, that in one of those unconscious half 
sleeps, or rather those rapid alternations of the sleep- 
ing with the half-waking state, which is the true 
witching time, 



" the season 



Wherein the spirits hold their wont to walk," 
the fruitful matrix of Ghosts — I see nothing improba- 
ble, that in some one of those momentary slumbers, 
into which the suspension of all Thought in the per- 
plexity of intense thinking so often passes ; Luther 
should have had a full view of the Room in which 
he was sitting, of his writing Table and all the Im- 
plements of Study, as they really existed, and at the 
same time a brain image of the Devil, vivid enough 
to have acquired apparent Outness, and a distance 



*I can scarcely conceive a more deliglitful Volume than 
might be made from Luther's Letters, especially from those 
that were written from the Warteburg, if tiiey were trans- 
lated in the simple, sinewy, idiomatic, hcartu mother-tongue 
of the original. A difficult task I admit— and scarcely possi- 
ble for any man, however great his talents in other respects, 
whose favorite reading has not lain long among the English 
writers from Edward the Sixth to Charles the First. 
414 



THE FRIEND. 



405 



regulated by the proportion of its distinctness to that 
of the objects really impressed on the outward senses. 
If this t'iirisiian Hercules, this heroic Cleanser of 
the Auirean Stable of Apostasy, had been born ami 
educated in the present or ihe precediiitr generation, 
he would, doubtless, have held himself for a man of 
genius and original power. Bui with this faiih alone 
he would scarcely have removed the mountains 
which he did remove. The darkness and supersti- 
tion of the age, which required such a Reformer, had 
moulded his mind (or the reception of ideas concern- 
ing himself better suited to inspire tlie strength and 
enthusiasm necessary for the task of reformation, 
ideas more in sympathy with the spirits whom he was 
to inlluencc. He deemed himself gifled with super- 
natural influxes, an especial servant of Heaven, a 
chosen Warrior, fighting as the O'eneral of a small 
but faithful troop, against an Army of evil Beings 
headed by the Prince of the Air. These were no 
metaphorical Beings in his apprehension. Fie was a 
Poet indeed, as great a Poet as ever lived in any age 
or country; but his poetic images were so vivid, that 
Ihey mastered the Poet's own mind ! He was pos- 
sessed with them, as with substances distinct from 
himself: Luther did not wrile, he acled Poems. 
The Bible was a spiritual indeed but not afguradvc 
armoury in his belief; it was the magazine of his 
warlike stores, and from thence he was to arm him- 
seli', and supply both shield and sword, and javelin, 
to the elect. Methinks 1 see him sitting, the heroic 
Student, in his Chamber in Ihe Warteburg, with his 
midnight Lamp before him, seen by the late Travel- 
ler in the distant Plain of Bisclmfsroda, as a Star on 
the ^^)untain ! Below it lies the Hebrew Bible open, 
on which he gazes, his brow pressing on his palm, 
brooding over some obscure Text, which he desires 
to make plain to the simple Boor and to the humble 
Artizan, and to transfer its whole force into their own 
natural and living Tongue ! And he himself does 
not understand it! Thick darkness lies on the origi- 
nal Te.xt, he counts Ihe letters, he calls up the roots 
of each separate word, and questions them as the fa- 
miliar Spirits of an Oracle. In vain! thick darkness 
continues to cover it ! not a ray of meaning dawns 
through it With sullen and angry hope he reaches 
for the Vui>GATE, his old and sworn enemy, the 
treacherous confederate of the Roman Antichrist, 
which he so gladly, when he can, re-rebukes for 
idolatrous falsehoods, that had dared place 

" Within the saocluary itself their shrines. 
Abominations ;" 

Now — O thought of humiliation — he must intreat its 
aid. See ! there has the sly spirit of apostasy W'ork- 
ed-in a phrase which favors the doctrine of purgatory, 
the intercession of Saints, or the efficacy of Prayers 
for the Dead. And w-hat is worst of all, the interpre- 
tation is plausible. The original Hebrew might be 
forced into this meaning : and no other meaning 
seems to lie in it, none to hover n/wDc it in Ihe heights 
of Allegory, none to lurk beneath it even in the depths 
of Cabala! This is the work of Ihe Tempter! it is a 
cloud of darkness conjured up between the truth of 



the sacred letters and the eyes of his understanding, 
by the malice of Ihe evil one, and f()r a trial of his 
fiiiih ! Must he then at length conli'ss, must he sub- 
scribe Ihe name of Lutiikr to an ExiKisition which 
consecrates a weajwn for the hand of the idolatrous 
Ilienirchv? Never ! never ! 

Tiicre still remains one auxiliary in reserve, the 
translation of the seventy. The Alexandrine Greeks, 
anterior to the Church itself, could extend no support 
to its corruptions — the Septuagint will have profaned 
the Altar of Truth with no incense for the Nostrils 
of the universal Bi.shop to smifl'up. And hero again 
his hopes are baffled ! Kxactly at this perplexed 
passage had the CIrcek Translator given his under- 
standing a holiday, and made his pen supply its place. 
O honored Luther ! as easily mightest thou convert 
the whole City of Rome, with the Pope and the con- 
clave of Cardinals inclusive, as strike a spark of light 
from the words, and nothing hut words, of ihe Alex- 
andrine Version. Disappointed, despondent, enraged, 
ceasing to thinl;, yet continuing his brain on the 
stretch in solicitation of a thought; and gradually 
giving himself up to angry fancies, to recollections of 
past persecutions, to uneasy fears and inward defi- 
ances and floating Images of the evil Being, their 
supposed personal .aulhor; he sinks, without perceiv- 
ing it, into a trance of slumber: during which his 
brain retains its waking energies, excepting that w hat 
would have been mere thoughts before now (the action 
and counterweight of his senses and of their impres- 
sions being withdrawn) shape and condense them- 
selves into things, into realities! Repeatedly half- 
wakening, and his eye-lids as often re-closing, the 
objects which really surrounded him form the place 
and scenery of his dream. All at once he sees Ihe 
Arch-ficnd coming forth on the wall of Ihe room, 
from Ihe very spot perhaps, on which his eyes had 
been fixed vacantly during the perplexed moments 
of his former meditation : the Ink-stand, which he 
had at the same time been using, becomes associated 
with it : and in that struggle of rage, which in these 
distempered dreams almost constantly precedes the 
helpless terror by the pain of which we are fully 
awakened, he imagines that he hurls it at the intru- 
der, or not improbably in the first instant of awaken- 
ing, while yet both his imagination and his eyes are 
possessed by the dream, he actually hurls it. Some 
weeks after, perhaps, during which interval he had 
often mused on the incident, undetermined whether 
to deem it a visitation of Satan to him in the body or 
out of the body, he discovers for the first lime the 
dark spot on his wall, and receives it as a sign and 
pledge vouchsafed to him of the event having ac- 
tually taken place. 

Such was Luther under the influences of the age 
and country in and for which he was bom. Conceive 
him a citizen of Geneva, and a contemporary of Vol- 
taire : supjwse the French language his mother- 
tongue, and the political and moral philosophy of En- 
glish Free-thinkers re-modelled by Parisian Fort 
Esprits, to have been the objects of his study ;— con- 
ceive this change of circumstances, and Luther will 
no longer dream of Fiends or of Antichrist — bui 
415 



406 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



will we have no dreams in their place ? His melan- 
choly will have changed its drapery ; but will it find 
no new costume wherewith to clothe itself? Plis 
impetuous temperament, his deep-working mind, his 
busy and vivid imaginations — would they not have 
been a trouble to him in a world, where nothing was 
to obey his power, to cease to be that which had 
been, in order to realize his pre-conoeptions of what 
.t ought to be ? His sensibility, which found objects 
for itself, and shadows of human suffering in the 
harmless Brute, and even the Flowers which he trod 
upon — might it not naturally, in an unspiritualized 
age, have wept, and trembled, and dissolved, over 
scenes of earthly passion, and the struggles of love 
with duty? His pity, that so easily passed into rage, 
would it not have found in the inequalities of man- 
kind, in the oppressions of governments and the mi- 
series of the governed, an entire instead of a divided 
object? And might not a perfect constitution, a gov- 
ernment of pure reason, a renovation of the social 
contract, have easily supplied llie place of the reign 
of Christ in the new Jerusalem, of the restoration of 
the visible Church, and the union of all men by one 
faith in one charity ? Henceforw ard tiien, we will 
conceive his reason employed in building up anew 
the edifice of earthly society, and his imagination as 
pledging itself for the possible realization of the 
structure. We will lose the great reformer, who 
was born in an age which needed him, in the Philo- 
sopher of Geneva, w ho was doomed to misapply his 
energies to materials the properties of which he mis- 
understood, and happy only that he did not live to 
witness the direful effects of his system. 



ESSAY III. 

Pectora cui ciedam f quis me Icnire docibit 
Mordaces curaa, quis longas fallero noctes 
Ex quo summa dies (ulerit Dainona sul) umbras? 
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ajlas, 
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo. 
Ite tamcn, lactymas ! purum colis a^tbera, Damon I 
Nee mihi conveniunt lacrymae. Non omnia teriE 
Obruta ! vivit amor, vivitdolorl ora npgatur 
Dulcia conspicere: Here et meminissc relictum est. 

The two following Essays I devote to elucidation, 
the first of the theory of Luther's Apparitions stated 
perhaps too briefly in the preceding Number : the 
second for the purpose of removing the only difficul- 
ty, which I can discover in the next section of the 
Friend to the Reader's ready comprehension of the 
principles, on which the arguments are grounded. 
First, I will endeavor to make my Ghost-Theory 
more clear to those of my readers, who are fortunate 
enough to find it obscure in consequence of their ov\n 
good health and unshattered nerves. The window 
of my library at Keswick is opposite to the fire-place, 
and looks out on the very large garden that occupies 
the whole slope of the hill on which the house 
stands. Consequently, the rays of the light transmit- 
ted through the glass, (i. e. the rays from the garden, 
Jie opposite mountains, and the bridge, river, lake, 
and vale interjacent) and the rays reflected from 



it, (of the fire-place, &c.) enter the eye at the same 
moment. At the coming on of evening, it was my 
frequent amusement to watch the image or reflection 
of the fire, that seemed burning in the bushes or be- 
tween the trees in different parts of the garden or the 
fields beyond it, according as there was more or less 
light; and which still arranged itself among the real 
objects of vision, with a distance and magnitude 
proportioned to its greater or lesser faintness. For 
still as the darkness increased, the image of the fire 
lessened and grew nearer and more distinct; till the 
twilight had deepened into perfect night, when all 
outward objects being excluded, the window became 
a perfect looking-glass : save only that my books on 
the side shelves of the room were lettered, as it were, 
on their backs with stars, more or fewer as the sky 
was more or less clouded, (the rays of the stars being 
at that time the only ones transmitted.) Now substi- 
tute the Phantom from Luther's brain for the images 
ol'rejlected light (the fire for instance) and the forms of 
his room and his furniture for the transinilted rays, 
and you have a fair resemblance of an apparition, 
and a just conception of the manner in which it is 
seen together with real objects. I have long wished 
to devote an entire work to the subject of Dreams, 
Visions, Ghosts, Witchcraft, &c. in which I might 
first give, and then endeavor to explain the most in- 
teresting and best attested fact of each, which has 
come within my knowledge, either from books or 
from personal testimony. I might then explam in a 
more satisfactory way the mode in which our thoughts 
in states of morbid slumber, become at times perfect- 
ly dramatic (for in certain sorts of dreams the dullest 
Wight becomes a Shakspeare) and by what law the 
Form of the vision appears to talk to us its own 
thoughts in a voice as audible as the shape is visible ; 
and this too oftentimes in connected trains, and not 
seldom even with a concentration of power which 
may easily impose on the soundest judgments, unin- 
structed in the Optics and Acoustics of the inner 
sense, for Revelations and gifts of Prescience. In aid 
of the present case, I will only remark, that it would 
appear incredible to persons not accustomed to these 
subtle notices of self observation, what small and re- 
mote resemblances, what mere hints of likeness from 
some real external object, especially if the shape be 
aided by color, will suffice to make a vivid thought 
consubstantiale with the real object, and derive from 
it an outward perceptibility. Even when we are 
broad awake, if we are in anxious expectation, how 
often will not the most confused sounds of nature be 
heard by us as inarticulate sounds ? For instance, 
the babbling of a brook will appear for a moment the 
voice of a Friend, for whom we are wailing, calling 
out our own names, &c. A short meditation, there- 
fore, on the great law of the imagination, that a like- 
ness in part tends to become a likeness of the whole, 
will make it not only conceivable but probable, that 
the ink-sland itself, and the dark-colored stone on the 
wall, which Lulher perhaps had never till then no- 
ticed, might have a considerable influence in the pro- 
duction of the Fiend, and of the hostile act by which 
his obtrusive visit was repelled. 

416 



THE FRIEND. 



407 



A la<ly once asked me if I believed in ghosts and 
apimritions. I answered with truth and simplicity: 
No, madam! T have seen far loo manij mtjsvlf. I have 
indeed a whole memorandum book (illcd with records 
of these rhenoinona, many of them interesting as facts 
and data for Psychology, and aflbrding some valuable 
materials for a theory of perception and its depend- 
ence on the memory and imagination. " In oninem 
actum Perceptionis imaginalio influet efllcienter." 
\V'oLFF.. Bui He is no more, who would have real- 
ized this idea : who had already established the found- 
ations and the law of the theory ; and fiir whom I had 
so often fbutui a pleasure and a comfort, even during 
the wretched and restless nights of sickness, in watch- 
ing and instantly recording these experiences of the 
world within us, of the "gemina natura, qua; fit et 
facit, et creat et creatur!" He is gone, my friend! 
my munificent co-patron, and not less the benefactor 
of my intellect! — He who, beyond all other men 
known to mo, added a fine and ever-wakeful sense 
of beauty to the most patient accurary in experimental 
Philosophy and the prouder researches of metaphys- 
ical science ; he who united all the play and spring 
of fancy with the subtlest discrimination and ieiexorn- 
ble judgment; and who controlled an almost painful 
ex(iuisitencss of taste by a warmth of heart, which in 
the practical relations of life made allowances for 
laults as quick as the moral taste detected them ; a 
warmth of heart, which was indeed noble and pre- 
eminent, for alas! the genial feelings of health con- 
tributed no spark toward it ! Of these qualities I may 
speak, for they belonged to all mankind. — The high- 
er virtues, that were blessings to his friends, and the 
still higher that resided in and for his own soul, are 
themes for the energies of solitude, for the awfulness 
of prayer! — virtues exercised in the barrenness and 
desolation of his animal being ; while he thirsted with 
the full stream at his lips, and yet with unwearied 
goodness poured out to all around him, like the mas- 
ter of a feast among his kindred in the day of his own 
gladness! Were it but for the remembrance of him 
alone and of his lot here below, the disbelief of a fu- 
ture state would sadden the earth around me, and 
blight the very grass in the field. 



ESSAY IV. 



XaXtro^v, o)" (^ni/Ko'vis, nn" napaitiyixaai ^pto'ficvov 
lKavii)~; evitiKvva^al Tt ru v jiCi^o'voyv. KivSvvcv'ci 
yap fi'ft(i)V ticag-os o7ov "ovap, itSui^s '^airavro, navir' 
a'v jra'Xiv u)"a7rep "ujrap a'yvoe7v. 

Plato, Polil. p. 47. Ed. Bip. 

Translation. — It is (lifUcult, excellent friend I to make any 
comprehensive truth completely intelligible, unless we avail 
ouriielve^ of an example. Otherwise we may a? in a dream, 
seem lo know all, and then a» it were, awaking find that 
we know nothing. PLATO. 

Among my earliest impressions I still distinctly re- 
member that of my first entrance into the mansion of 
a neighboring Baronet, awfully known to me by the 
LI2 



name of The Great House, its exterior having oeen 
long connected in my childish imagination with the 
feelings and fancies stirred up in me by the perusal 
of the Arabian JNights' Entertainments.* Beyond 
all other objects, I was most struck with the magnifi- 
cent staircase, relieved at well proportioned intervals 
by spacious landing-places, this adorned with grand or 
showy plants, the next looking out on an extensive 
prospect through the stately window with its side- 
panes of rich blues and saturated amber or orange 
tints: while from the last and highest the eye com- 
manded the whole spiral ascent with the marbled 
pavement of the great hall from which it seemed to 
spring up as if it merely iifcd the ground on which it 
rested. My readers will find no difllculty in trans- 
lating these forms of the outward senses into their in- 
tellectual analogies, so as to understand the purport 
of the Friend's Landing-Places, and the objects, he 
proposed to himself, in the small groups of l^ssays in- 
terposed under this title between the main divisions 
of the work. 

My best powers would have sunk within me, had 
I not soothed my solitary toils with the anticipation 
of many readers — (whether during the Writer's life, 
or when his grave shall have shamed his detractors 
into a sympathy with its own silence, formed no part 
in this self-flattery) who would submit to any reason- 
able trouble rather than read " as in a dream seeming 
to know all, to find on awaking that they know 
nothing." Having, therefore, in the three preceding 
numbers selected from my conservatory a few plants, 
of somewhat gayer petals and a livelier green, though 
like the Geranium tribe of a sober character in the 
whole physiognomy and odor, I shall first devote a 
few sentences to a catalogue raisonnc of my intro- 
ductory lucubrations, and the remainder of the 
Essay to the prospect, as far as it can be seen distinct- 
ly from our present site. Within a short distance 
several ways meet: and at that point only does it 
ap|)ear to me that the reader will be in danger of 
mistaking the road. Dropping the metaphnr, I would 
say that there is one term, the meaning of which has 
become unsettled. To difTereat persons it conveys a 
different idea, and not seldom to the same person at 
different times ; while the force, and to a certain e.\. 
tent, the intelligibility of the following sections de- 
pend on its being interpreted in one sense exclusivelv- 

Essays from I. to IV'. inclusive convey the design 
and conteiiis of the work: the P'kie.nd's jiidgnieiit 
respecting the style, and his defence of himself from 
the charges of Arrogance and presanipiiuii. .Say 
rather, that such are the personal threads of the di.-;- 
course; for it will not have escai)ed the lieader's 



* As I had read one volume of these tales over and over 
again before my firth birth-day, it may be readily coiijeclun-d 
of what sort these fancies and feelings must have been. The 
book, I well remember, used to lie in a certain corner of the 
purlour-window at my dear Father's Vicaragc-hi»»!-e: and I 
can never forget wiih what a strange mixture of obscure dread 
and intense desire I used to look al the volume and watch it, 
till the mornins sunshine had reached and nearly covered it, 
when, and not before, I felt the courage given me to seize the 
precious treasure and hurry off with it to some sunny corner 
in our play-ground. 

417 



408 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



observation, that even in these prefatory pages prin- 
ciples and truths of general interest form the true 
contents, and that amid all the usual compliments 
and courtesies of The Friend's first presentation of 
himself to the Reader's acquaintance the substantial 
object is still to assert the practicability, without dis- 
guising the difficulties, of improving the morals of 
mankind by a direct appeal to their Understandings : 
and to show the distinction between Attention and 
Thought, and the necessity of the former as a habit 
or discipline without which the very word, Thinking, 
must remam a thoughtless substitute for dreaming 
with our eyes open ; and lastly, the tendency of a 
certain fashionable style with all its accommodations 
to paralyse the very faculties of manly intellect by a 
series of petty stimulants. After this preparation. 
The Friend proceeds at once to lay the foundations 
common to the whole work by an inquiry into the 
duty of conimtinicating Truth, and the conditions 
under which it may be communicated with safety, 
from the Fifth to the Sixteenth Essay inclusive. 
Each Essay will, he believes, be found complete in 
itself, yet an organic part of the whole considered as 
one disquisition. First, the inexpediency of pious 
Frauds is proved from History, the shameless asser- 
tion of the indifference of Truth and Falsehood ex- 
posed to its deserved infamy, and an answer given 
to the objection derived from the impossibility of 
conveying an adequate notion of the truths we may 
attempt to communicate. The conditions are then 
detailed, under which, right though inadequate no- 
tions may be taught without danger, and proofs given, 
both from facts and from reason, that he, who fulfils 
the conditions required by Conscience, takes the 
surest way of answering the purposes of Prudence. 
This is, indeed, the main characteristic of the moral 
system taught by the Friend throughout, that the dis- 
tinct foresight of Consequences belongs exclusively 
to that infinite Wisdom which is one with that Al- 
mighty Will, on which all consequences depend ; 
but that for Man — to obey the simple unconditional 
commandment of eschewing every act that implies 
a self-contradiction, or in other words, to produce and 
maintain the greatest possible Harmony in the com- 
ponent impulses and faculties of his nature, involves 
the effects of Prudence. It is, as it were. Prudence 
in short-hand or cypher. A pure Conscience, that 
inward something, that ^cof okciof, which being ab- 
solute unique no man can describe, because every 
man is bound to know, and even in the eye of the 
Law is held to be a person no longer than he may 
be supposed to know it — the Conscience, I say, bears 
the same relation to God, as an accurate Time-piece 
bears to the Sun. The Time-piece merely indicates 
the relative path of the Sun, yet we can regulate our 
plans and proceedings by it with the same confidence 
as if It was itself the efficient cause of light, heat, 
and the revolving seasons ; on the self-evident axiom, 
that in whatever sense two things (for instance, A. 
and C. D. E.) are both equal to a third thing (B.) 
they are in the same sense equal to each other. 
Cunning is circuitous folly. In plain English, to act 
the knave, is but a roundabout way of playing the 



fool ; and the man, who will not permit himself to 
call an action by its proper name without a previous 
calculation of all its probable consequences, may be 
indeed only a coxcomb, who is looking at his fingers 
through an opera-glass; but he runs no small risk of 
becoming a knave. The chances are against him. 
Though he should legin by calculating the conse- 
quences in regard to others, yet by the mere habit of 
never contemplating an .action in its own proportions 
and immediate relations to his moral being, it is 
scarcely possible but that he must end in selfishness : 
for the YOU, and the they will stand on different oc- 
casions for a thousand different persons, while the I 
is one only, and recurs in every calculation. Or 
grant that the principle of expediency should prompt 
to the same outward deeds as are commanded by the 
law of reason ; yet the doer himself is debased. 
But if it be replied, that the re-action on the agent's 
own mind is to form a part of the calculation, then 
it is a rule that destroys itself in the very propound- 
ing, as will be more fully demonstrated in the second 
or ethical division of the Friend, when we shall have 
detected and exposed the equivoque between an 
action and the series oi motions by which the determi- 
nations of the Will are to be realized in the world 
of the senses. What modification of the latter cor- 
responds to the former, and is entitled to be called by 
the same name, will often depend on time, place, 
persons, and circumstances, the consideration of 
which requires an exertion of the judgment ; but 
the action itself remains the same, and like all other 
ideas pre-exists in the reason,* or (in the more ex 
pressive and perhaps more precise and philosophical 
language of St. Paul) in the spirit, unalterable be- 
cause unconditional, or with no other than that most 
awful condition, as sure as God liveth, it is so! 
These remarks are inserted in this place, because 
the principle admits of easiest illustration in the in- 
stance of veracity and the actions connected with the 
same, and may then be intelligibly applied to other 
departments of morality, all of which Wollaston in- 
deed considers as only so many different fijrms of 
truth and fiilsehood. So far the Friend has treated 
of oral communication of the truth. The applicabil- 
ity of the same principle is then tried and affirmed in 
publications by the Press, first as between the indi- 
vidual and his own conscience and then between the 
publisher and the state : and under this head the 
Friend has considered at large the questions of a free 
Press and the law of libel, the anomalies and pecu- 
liar difficulties of the latter, and the only possible so- 
lution compatible with the continuance of the former : 
a solution rising outof and justified by the necessarily 
anomalous and unique nature of the law itself. He 
confesses, that he looks back on this discussion con- 
cerning the Press and its limits with a satisfaction 
unusual to him in the review of his own labors: and 
if the date of their first publication (September, 1809) 
be remembered, it will not perhaps be denied on an 
impartial comparison, that he has treated this most 
iinportant subject (so especially interesting in the pre- 



* See the Statesman's Manual, p 33. 
418 



THE FRIEND. 



409 



sent times) more fully and more systematically than 
it liiul httliertu boon. Iiitoriiiu turn rocli coiisfienti.^, 
turn illo me coiisolor, quod ocliinis ijuibusque cerlo 
Hon iniprobamur, lortassis unuiibus placituri, simul 
atque livor obilu oonquieverit. 

Lasily, ilie subject is concluded even as it com- 
n»Miced,and as beseemed a disquisition placed as the 
sieps and vestibule of the whole work, wilh an en- 
iorcemcnt of the absolute necessity of principles 
grounded in reason as the basis or rather as the living 
root of all genuine expedience. Where these are 
despised or at best regarded as aliens from the actual 
business of life, and consigned to the ideal world of 
speculative philosophy and Utopian (xjlitics, instead 
of slale-wisdom we shall have slate-craft, and lor the 
talent of the governor the cleverness of an eml)ar- 
rassed spendthrift — which consists in tricks to shift 
off di.'Ticuhies and dangers when they close upon us, 
and to keep them at arm's length, not in solid and 
grounded courses to preclude or subdue them. We 
must content ourselves wilh expedient-makers — with 
fire-engines against fires, Life-boais against inunda- 
tions; but no houses built lire-proof no dams that rise 
above the water-mark. The reader will have ob- 
served that already has the term, reason, been fre- 
quently contradistinguished from the understanding, 
and the judgment. If the Friend could succeed in 
fully explaining the sense in which the word Re.\son, 
is employed by him, and in satisfying the reader's 
mind concerning the grounds and importance of the 
distinction, he would feel little or no apprehension 
concerning the intelligibility of these Essays from 
first to last. The following section is in part founded 
on this distinction : the which remaining obscure, all 
else will be so as a system, however clear the com- 
ponent paragraphs may be, taken separatel)'. In the 
appendix to his first Lay Sermon, the Author has in- 
deed treated the question at considerable length, but 
chiefly in relation to the heights of Theology ond 
Metaphysics. In the next number he attempts to 
explain himself more popularly, and trusts that with 
no great expenditure of attention the reader will sat- 
isfy his mind, that our remote ancestors spoke as men 
acquainted with the constituent parts of their own 
moral and intellectual being, when they described 
one man as being out of his senses, another as out of 
his wils,or deranged in his understanding, and a third 
as having lost his reason. Observe, the understand- 
ing may be deranged, weakened, m perverted ; but the 
reason is either lost or not lost, that is, wholly present 
or wholly absent. 



, ESSAY V. 



Man m.Tjr rmher be defined a religious than a rational charac- 
ter, in reaard that in other creatures ihire may be some- 
thing of Reason, but thsre is nothing of Rc^liuion. 

HARKINGTON. 

Ii'' the Reader will substitute the word " Under- 
standing ■' for " Heason," and the word " Reason " for 
" Religion," Harrington has here completely ex- 
54 



pressed the Truth for which the Friend is contend- 
ing. But that this was Harrington's meaning is 
evident. Otherwi.se instead of comparing two facul- 
ties with each other, he would contrast a faculty with 
one of its own objects, which would involve the same 
absurdity as if he had said, that man might rather be 
defined an astronomical than a seeing animal, because 
other animals possessed the sense of Sight, but were 
incapable of beholding the satellites of Saturn, or the 
nebula? of fixed stars. If further confirmation be 
necessary, it may be supplied by the following reflec- 
tions, the leading thought of which I remember to 
have read in the works of a continental Philosopher. 
It should seem easy to give the definite distinction of 
the Reason from the Understanding, because we con- 
stantly imply it when we speak of the difference be- 
tween ourselves and the brute creation. No one, 
except as a figureof speech, ever speaks of an animal 
reason ;* but that many animals possess a share of 
Understanding, perfectly distinguishable from mere 
Instinct, we all allow. Few persons have a favorite 
dog without making instances of its intelligence an 
occasional topic of conversation. They call for our 
admiration of the individual animal, and not with ex- 
clusive reference to the Wisdom in Nature, as in the 
case of the storge or maternal instinct of beasts; or 
of the hexangular cells of the bees, and the wonder- 
ful coincidence of this form w ith the geometrical de- 
monstration of the largest possible number of rooms 
in a given space. Likewise, we distinguish various 
degrees of Understanding there, and even discover 
from inductions supplied by the Zoologists, that the 
Understanding appears (as a general rule) in an in- 
verse proportion to the Instinct. We hear little or 
nothing of the instincts of " the half-reasoning ele- 
phant," and as little of the Understanding of Cater- 
pillars and Butterflies. (N. B. Though reasoning 
does not in our language, in the lax use of w-ords na- 
tural in conversation or popular writings, imply sci- 
entific conclusion, yet the phrase " half-reasoning " is 
evidently used by Pope as a poetic hyperbole.) But 
Reason is wholly denied, equally to the highest as to 
the lowest of the brutes; otherwise it must be wholly 
attributed to them, and with it therefore Self-consci- 
ousness, and personality, or Moral Being. 

I should have no objection to define Reason with 
Jacobi, and with his friend Hemsterhuis, as an organ 



* I have this moment looked over a Translation of Blumen- 
bach's Physiology by Dr. Elliotson, which forms a glaring 
exception, p. 4.5. I do not know Dr. Elliolson, but f do know 
Professor Blunienbach, and was an assiduous attendant on 
the Lectures, of which this classical work was the te.\l-book : 
and I know that that good and great man would start back 
with surprise and indignation at the gross malerialiism mor- 
ticed on to his work : the more so because during the whole 
period, in which the identification of Man with the Brute in 
kind was the fashion of Naturalists, Blumcnbach remained 
ardent and instant in controverting the opinion, and exposing 
its fallacy and falschuud, both as a man of sense and as a 
Naturalist. I may truly say, that it was uppermost in his 
heart and foremost in his speech. Therefore, and from no 
hostile feeling to Dr. Elliotson (whom 1 hear spoken of with 
great regard and respect, and to whom I myself give credit 
for his manly openness in the avotcal of his opinions) I have 
felt the present animadversion a duty of justice as well a« 
graUtude S. T. C. 8 April, 1817. 

419 



410 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



bearing the same relation to spiritual objects, the 
Universal, the Eternal, and the Necessary, as the 
eye bears to material and contingent phenomena. 
But then it must be added, that it is an organ identi- 
cal with its appropriate objects. Thus, God, the Soul, 
eternal Truth, &c., are the objects of Reason; but 
they are themselves reason. We name God the Su- 
preme Reason ; and Milton says, " Whence the Soul 
Reason receives, and Reason is her Being." What- 
ever is conscious jSe//-knowledge is Reason ; and in 
this sense it may be safely defined the organ of the 
Supersensuous ; even as the Understanding wherever 
it does not possess or use the Reason, as another and 
inward eye, may be defined the conception of the 
Sensuous, or the faculty by which we generalize and 
arrange the phenomena of perception : that faculty, 
the functions of which contain the rules and consti- 
tute the possibility of outward Experience. In short, 
the Understanding supposes something that is under- 
stood. This may be merely its own acts or forms, 
that is, formal Logic ; but real objects, the materials 
of substantial knowledge, must be furnished, we 
might safely say revealed, to it by Organs of Sense. 
The understanding of the higher Brutes has only or- 
gans of outward sense, and consequently material ob- 
jects only; but man's understanding has likewise an 
organ of inward sense, and therefore the power of 
acquainting itself with invisible reaUties or spiritual 
objects. This organ is his Reason. Again, the Un- 
derstanding and Experience may exist" without Rea- 
son. But Reason cannot exist without Understand- 
ing; nor does it or can it manifest itself but in and 
through the tinderstanding, which in our elder wri- 
ters is often called discourse, or the discursive faculty, 
as by Hooker, Lord Bacon, and Hobbes : and an un- 
derstanding enlightened by reason Shakspeare gives 
as the contra-distinguishing character of man, under 
the name discourse of reason. In short, the human 
understanding possesses two distinct organs, the out- 
ward sense, and " the mind's eye," which is reason : 
wherever we use that phrase (the mind's eye) in its 
proper sense, and not as a mere synonyme of the me- 
mory or the fancy. In this way we reconcile the pro- 
mise of Revelation, that the blessed will see God, 
with the declaration of St. John, God hath no one 
seen at any time. 

We will add one other illustration to prevent any 
misconception, as if we were dividing the human soul 
into different essences, or ideal persons. In this piece 
of steel I acknowledge the properties of hardness, brit- 
tlene.ss, high polish, and the capability of forming a 
mirror. I find all these likewise in the plate glass of 
a I'riend's carriage ; but in addition to all these, I find 
the quality of transparency, or the power of transmit- 



• Of tliis no one would feel inclined to doubt, who had seen 
the poodle dog whom the celebrated Blumenbacli, a name so 
dear to science, as a physiologist and Comparative Anatomist, 
and not less dear as a man, to all Englishmen who have ever 
resided at Gottingen in the course of iheir education, trained 
up, not only to hatch the eggs of the hen with all the mother's 
care and patience, hut to attend the chicken afterwards, and 
find the food for them. 1 have myself known a Newfound- 
and dog, who watched and guarded a family of young child- 
eo with all the intelligence of a nurse, during their walks. 



ting as well as of reflecting the rays of light. The 
application is obvious. 

If the reader therefore will take the trouble of 
bearing in mind these and the following explanations, 
he will have removed beforehand every possible dif 
ficulty from the friend's political section. For there 
is another use of the word. Reason, arising out of the 
former indeed, but less definite, and more exposed to 
misconception. In this latter use it means the under- 
standing considered as using the Reason, so far as by 
the organ of Reason only we possess the ideas of the 
Necessary and the Universal ; and this is the more 
common use of the word, when it is applied with any 
attempt at clear and distinct conceptions. In this 
narrower and derivative sense the best definition of 
Reason which I can give, will be found in the third 
member of the following sentence, in which the un- 
derstandmg is described in its three-fold operation, 
and from each receives an appropriate name. The 
sense, (vis sensitiva vel intuitiva) percei\es: Vis re- 
gulatrix (the understanding, in its own peculiar ope- 
ration) fo?iceives: Vis rationalis (the Reason or ra- 
tionalized understanding) comprehends. The first is 
impressed through the organs of sense, the second 
combines these multifarious impressions into individ- 
ual N'otions, and by reducing these notions to Rules, 
according to the analogy of all its former notices, 
constitutes Experience: the third subordinates both 
these notions and the rules of experience to absolute 
Principles or necessary Laws : and thus concerning 
objects, which our experience has proved to have 
real existence, it demonstrates moreover, in what 
way they are possible, and in doing this constitutes 
Science. Reason therefore, in this secondary sense, 
and used not as a spiritual Organ but as a Faculty 
(namely, the Understanding or Soul enlightened by 
that organ) — Reason, I say, or the scientifc Faculty, 
is the Intellection of the possibility or essential pro- 
perties of things by means of the Laws that consti- 
tute them. Thus the rational idea of a Circle is that 
of a figtire constituted by the circumvolution of a 
straight line with its one end fixed. 

Every man must feel, that though he may not be 
exerting his faculties in a different way, when in one 
instance he begins with some one self-evident truth, 
(that the radii of a circle, for instance, are all equal,) 
and in consequence of this being true sees at once, 
without any actual experience, that some other thing 
must be true likewise, and that, this being true, some 
third thing must be equally true, and so on till he 
comes, we will say, to the properties of the lever, 
considered as the spoke of a circle: which is capable 
of having all its marvellous powers demonstrated 
even to a savage who had never seen a lever, and 
without supposing any other previous knowledge in 
his mind, but this one, that there is a conceivable 
figure, all possible lines from the middle to the cir- 
cumference of which are of the same length : or 
when, in the second instance, he brings together the 
facts of experience, each of which has its own sepa- 
rate value, neither increased nor diminished by the 
truth of any other fact which may have preceded it; 
aiid making these several liicts bear u)xjn some parti- 
420 



THE FRIEND. 



411 



cular project, and finding some in favor of it, and 
siiine against the project, according as one or the 
other class of facts |)re[x)nderate : as, for instance, 
whellier it wonhl he belter to plant a particular spot 
of ground with larch, or with Scotch lir, or with oak 
in prcl'erence to cither. Surely every man will ac- 
knowlcdize, that his mind was very difli?renlly em- 
ployed in the first case fn>m what it was in the se- 
<'ond, and all men have agreed to call the results of 
the first class the truths of science, such as not only 
an^ true, hut which it is impossible to conceive other- 
wise: while the results of the second class are called 
facts, or things of experience: and as to these latter 
we must often content ourselves with the greater 
prohdbililif, that they are so, or so, rather than other- 
wise — nay, even when we have no doubt that they 
are so in the particular case, we never presume to 
assert that they must continue so always, and under 
all circumstances. On the contrary, our conclusions 
depend altogether on contingent rircumsla/tce.i. A'ow 
when the mind is employed, as in the case first men- 
tioned, I call it lieasouitig, or the use of the pure 
Reason ; but in the second case, the Understanding 
or Prudence. 

This reason applied to the motives of our conduct, 
and combined with the sense of our moral responsi- 
bility, is the conditional cause of Cmiscience, which 
is a spiritual sense or testifying state of the coinci- 
dence or discordance of the free will with the 
Re.\sox. But as the Reasoning consists wholly in a 
man's power of seeing, w'hether any two ideas, 
which happen to be in his mind, are, or are not in 
constriction with each other, it follows of necessity, 
not only that all men have reason, but that every 
man has it in the same degree. For Reasoning (or 
Reason, in this its secondary sense) docs not consist in 
the Ideas, or in their clearness, but simply, when 
they are in the mind, in seeing whether they contra- 
dict each other or no. 

.\n(l again, as in the determinations of Conscience 
the only knowledge required is that of my own inten- 
fioTi — whether in doing such a thing, instead of leav- 
iu!? it undone, I did what I should think right if any 
other person had done it; it follows that in the mere 
question of guilt or innocence, all men have not only 
Reason equally, but likewise all the materials on 
\^hich the reason, considered as Conscience, is to 
work. Rut when wo pass out of ourselves, and speak, 
not exclusively of the agent as meaning well or ill, 
but of the action in its consequences, then of course 
experience is required, judgment is making use of it, 
and all those other qualities of the mind which are 
so differently dispensed to different persons, both by 
nature and education. And though the reason itself 
is the same in all men, yet the means of exercising 
it, and the materials (i. e. the iiicts and ideas) on 
which it is exercised, being possessed in very differ- 
ent degrees by different persons, the practical Result 
is, of course, equally different — and the whole ground 
work of Rousseau's Philosophy ends in a mere No- 
thingism. — Even in that branch of knowledge, on 
which the ideas, on the congruity of which with each 



other, the Reason is to decide, are all possessed alike 
by all men, namely, in Oometry, (fiir all men in their 
senses [)a«sess all the com|X)ncnt images, viz. simple 
curves and straight lines) yet tiie power of attention 
re<iuired for the perception of linked Truths, even 
of suck Truths, is so very different in A and in B, 
that Sir Isaac Newton professed that it was in this 
power only that he was superior to ordinary men. 
In short, the sophism is as gross as if I shr)uld say — 
The Souls of all men have ihe faculti/ of sight in an 
etjual degree— forgetting to add, that this faculty can- 
not bo exercised without ti/c.s, and that some men are 
blind and others short-sighted, &c.— and should then 
take advantage of this my omission to conclude 
against the use or necessity of spectacles, micro- 
scopes, &c. — or of choosing tlie sharpest sighted men 
for our guides. 

Having exposed this great sophism, I must warn 
against an opposite error — namely, that if Reason, 
distinguishcil from Prudence, consists merely in 
knowing that Black cannot be White — or when a 
man has a clear conception of an inclosed figure, and 
another equally clear conception of a straight line, his 
Reason teaches him that these two conceptions are 
incompatible in the same object, i. e. that two straight 

lines co?)no/ include a space the said Reason must 

be a very insignificant faculty. But a moment's 
steady self-reflection will show us, that in the simple 
determination " Black is not White" — or " that two 
straight lines cannot include a sjiace" — all the pow- 
ers are implied, that distinguish Man from Animals — 
first, the power of refection — 2d. of comparison — 3d. 
and therefore of suspension of the mind — 4lh. there- 
fore of a controlling will, and the power of acting 
from notions, instead of mere images exciting appe- 
tites; from motives, and not from mere dark instincts. 
Was it an insignificant thing to weigh the Planets, to 
determine all their courses, and prophesy every pos- 
sible relation of the Heavens a thoti-sand years hence ? 
Yet all this mighty claim of science is nothing but a 
linhivg together of truths of the same kind, as the 
whole is greater than its part: — or, if A and B =C, 
then, A=B— or 3 -{-4=7, therefore 7-^-5 = 12, 
and so forth. X is to be found either in A or B, or 
C or D: It is not fijund in A, B, or C, therefore it is 
to be fiiund in D. — What can be simpler? Apply 
this to an animal — a Dog misses his master where 
four roads meet — he has come up one, smells to two 
of the others, and then with his head aloft darts for- 
ward to the fourth road without any examination. If 
this was done by a conclusion, the Dog would have 
Reason — how comes it then, that he never shows it 
in his ordinary habits ? Why does this story excite 
either wonder or incredulity ? — If the story be a fact, 
and not a fiction, I should say — the Breeze brought 
his Master's scent down the fourth Road to the Dog's 
nose, and that therefore he did not put it down to the 
Road, as in the two former instances. So awful and 
almost miraculous does the simple act of concluding, 
that talie 3 from 4, there remains one, appear to us 
when attributed to the most sagacious of all ani- 
mals, 

421 



Kfit iffvitnxf. 



SECTION THE FIRST, 



ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



Hoc potissimum pacto felicem ac magnurri regem ee fore judicans: non si quam plurimis sed si quam optimis imperet. 
Proinde parum esse putat justis prsesidiis regnum suum muniisse, nisi idem viris eruditione juxta ac vitie integritale prEecellen- 
tibus ditet atque honestet. Ninairum inlelligit, ba;c demuni esse vera regni decora, has veras opes. 



ESSAY I. 



Dum Politici sEepiuscule hominibus magis insidiantur quam 
consulunl, potius caliidi quam sapientes ; Theoretici e con- 
trario se rem divinam facere el sapienliaB culmen attingere 
credunt, quando humanam naturam, quce nullibi est, mullis 
modis laudare, et earn, quas re vera est, dictis lacessere no- 
runt. Unde factum est, ut nunquam Politicavi concepermt 
qusepossit ad usum revocari; sed qua? in Utopia vel in illo 
poetarurn aureo saeoulo, ubi scilicet minime necesse crat, 
instilui poluisset. At milii plane persuadeo, Experienliam 
omnia civitatum genera, quie concipi possunt ut homines 
concoiditer vivant, etsimul media, quibus multiludo dirigi, 
seu quibuB intra certos limites coniineri debeat, ostendisse : 
ita ut non credam, nos posse aliquid, quod ab experientia 
sive, praxi non abhorreat, cogitationc de hac re assequi, 
quod nondum expertum compertumque sit. 
Cum igitur animum ad Politicam applicuerim, nihil quod 
novum vel inauditum est ; sed tantum ea quae cum praxi 
optime conveniunt, certa et indubitata ratione demonstrare 
aut ex ipsa humanas naturse conditione deduccre, intendi. 
Et ut ea quas ad banc scientiam spectant, eadeni animi 
libertate, qua rea mathematicas solemus, inquirerem, seihdo 
curavi humanas actiones non rider c, non lugere, nrque 
dctestari ; sed intelligerc. Nee ad imperii securitatem re- 
fert quo animo homines inducantur ad res recle adminis- 
trandum, modo res recte administrentur. Animi enim 
libertas, seu fortitudo, privata virtus est ; at imperii virtus 
securitas. SPINOZA, op. Post. p. 267. 

Translation. — While the mere practical Statesman too 
often rather plots against mankind, than consults their interest, 
crafty not wise ; the mere Theorists, on the other hand, im- 
agine that Ihey are employed in a glorious work, and believe 
themselves at the very summit of earthly Wisdom, when 
they are able, in set and varied language, to extol that Human 
Nature, which exists no where (except indeed in their own 
fancy) and to accuse and vilify our nature as it really is. 
Hence it has happened, that these men have never conceived 
a practicable scheme of civil policy, but, at best, such forms 
of Government only, as might have been instituted in Utopia, 
or during the golden age of the poets : that is to say, forms 
of government excellently adapted for those who need no 
government at all. But 1 am fully persuaded, that experience 
has already brought to light all conceivable sorts of political 
Institutions under which human society can be maintained 
m concord, and likewise the chief means of directing the 
multitude, or retaining them within given boundaries: so that 

can hardly believe, that on this subject the deepest research 
would arrive at any result, not abhorrent from experience and 
practice, which has not already been tried and proved. 

When, therefore, I applied my thoughts to the study of 
Political Economy, I proposed to myself nothing original or 
(range as the fruits of my reflections ; but simply to demon- 
strate from plain and undoubted principles, or to deduce from 



the very condition and necessities of human nature, those 
plans and maxims which square the best with practice. And 
that in all things which relate to this province, I might con- 
duct my investigations with the same freedom of intellect 
with which we proceed in questions of pure science, I sedu- 
lously disciplined my mind neither to laugh at, or bewail, or 
detest, the actions of men ; but to understand them. For to 
the safety of the state it is not of necessary importance, what 
motives induce men to administer public aftairs rightly, pro- 
vided only that public affairs be rightly administered. For 
moral strength, or freedom froir. the selfish passions, is the 
virtue of individuals ; but security is the virtue of a state. 



ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL 
PHILOSOPHY. 

All the diflerent philosophical systems of political 
justice, all the Theories on the rightful Origin of 
Government, are reducible in the end to three class- 
es, correspondent to the three different points of view, 
in which the Human Being itself may be contem- 
plated. The first denies all truth and distinct mean- 
ing to the words, Right and Duty, and affirming 
that the human mind consists of nothing but manifold 
modifications of private sensation, considers men as 
the highest sort of animals indeed, but at the same 
time the most wretched ; inasmuch as their defence- 
less nature forces them into society, vthile such is the 
multiplicity of wants engendered by the social slate, 
that the wishes of one are sure to be in contradiction 
with those of some other. The asserters of this 
system consequently ascribe the origin and continu- 
ance of Government to fear, or the power of the 
stronger, aided by the force of custom. This is the 
system of Hobbes. Its statement is its confutation. 
It is, indeed, in the hteral sense of the word, prepos- 
terous : for fear pre-supposes conquest, and conquest 
a previous union and agreement between the con- 
querors. A vast Empire may perhaps be governed 
by fear; at least the idea is not absolutely incon- 
ceivable, under circumstances which prevent th 
consciousness of a common strength. A million o 
men united by mutual confidence and free intercourse 
of thoughts form one power, and this is as much a 
real thing as a steam-engine ; but a million of insu- 
lated individuals is only an abstraction of the mind, 

432 



THE FRIEND. 



413 



and but one told so many times over without addi- 
tion, as an idiot would tell the clock at noon^^ne, 
one, one, &c. liut when, in the lint instances, the 
descendants of one fiimily joined together to attack 
those of another family, it is im|K)i-'sible that their 
chief or leader should have oppcared to them strong- 
er than all the rest together: they must therefore 
liave chosen him, and this as for particular purposes, 
80 doubtless under particular conditions, expressed or 
understood. Such we know to be the case with the 
North American tribes at present; such we are in- 
formed by History, was the case with our own remote 
ancestors. Therefore, even on the system of those 
who, in contempt of the oldest and most authentic 
records, consider the savage as the first and natural 
state of man, government must have originated 
in choice and an agreement. The apparent ex- 
ceptions in Africa and Asia are, if possible, still 
more subversive of this system : for they will be 
found to have originated in religious imposture, and 
the first chiefs to have secured a willing and enthu- 
siastic obedience to themselves, as Delegates of the 
Deity. 

But the whole Theory is baseless. We are told by 
History, we learn from our experience, we know from 
our own hearts, that fear, oi' itself; is nlterly incapa- 
ble of producing any regular, continuous and calcu- 
lable effect, even on an individual ; and that the fear, 
which does act systematically ujxin the mind always 
presupposes a sense of duty, as its cause. The most 
cowardly of the European nations, the Neapolitans 
and Sicilians, those among whom the fear of death 
exercises the most tyrannous influence relatively to 
their own persons, are the very men who least fear 
to take away the life of a fellow-citizen by poison or 
assassination: while in Great Britain, a tyrant who 
has abused the power, which a vast property has 
given him, to oppress a whole neighborhood, can walk 
in safety unarmed, and unattended, amid a hundred 
men, each of whom feels his heart burn with rage 
and indignation at the sight of him. " It was this 
Man who broke my Father's heart" — or "it is 
through Him that my Children are clad in rags, and 
cry for the Food which I am no longer able to pro- 
vide for them." And yet they dare not touch a hair 
of his head I Whence does this arise ? Is it from a 
cowardice of sensibility that makes the injured man 
shudder at the thought of shedding blood ? Or from 
a cowardice of selfishness which makes him afraid 
of hazarding his own life! Neither the one or the 
other! The Field of Waterloo, as the most recent 
of an hundred equal proofs, has borne witness. 

That " bring a Briton fra his hill, 
* * * » * 

Say, such is Royal George's will. 
And there's the toe. 
He han nac thought but how to kill 

Twa at a blow. 
Nae caulcl, faint-heurtcd doublings tease him ; 
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him, 
Wi' bloody hand, a welcome gies him : 

And when he fa's 
His luteul draught o' breathin leaves him 
In faint huzzas." 
Whence then arises the diflTerence of feeling in the 



former case ? To what does the oppressor owe his 
safety? To the spirit-(iuelling thought, the laws of 
God and of my country have made his life sacred . 
I dare not touch a hair of his head! — "Tis Con- 
science that makes Cowards of us all," — but! oh! it 
is Conscience too which makes Heroes of us all. 



ESSAY II. 



Le plus fort n'est jamais assez fort pour etre toujoure la 
maitre, s'il ne Iransfurme sa force en droit et I'obeissance 
en devoir. ROUSSEAU. 

Viribus parantur provincia!, jure retinentur. Igilur breve id 
gaudium, quippe German! victi magis, quam dnmili. 

FLOR. iv. 12. 

Translation.— The strongest is never strong enough to be 
always ihc muster, unless he transform his Power into 
Right aiid Obedience into Duly. ROUSSEAU. 

Provinces are taken by force, but they arc kept by right. This 
oxultalion IhereOiro was of brief continuance, inasmuch as 
the Germans had been overcome, but not subdued. 

FLORUS. 



A TRULY great man, (the best and greatest public 
character that I had ever the opportunity of making 
myself acquainted with) on assuming the command 
of a man-of-war, found a mutinous crew, more than 
one half of them uneducated Irishmen, and of the 
remainder no small portion had become sailors by 
compromise of piinisiiment. What terror could effect 
by severity and frequency of acts of discipline, had 
been already effected. And what was this eflfect? 
Something like that of a polar winter on a flask of 
brandy. The furious sj)irit concentered itself with 
tenfold strength at the heart; open violence was 
changed into secret plots and conspiracies; and the 
consequent orderliness of the crew, as far as they 
were orderly, was but the brooding of a tempest. 
The new commander instantly commenced a system 
of discipline as near as possible to that of ordinary 
law — as much as possible, he avoided, in liis own 
person, the appearance of any will or arbitrary power 
to vary, or to remit, punishment. The rules to be 
observed were affixed to a conspicuous part of the 
ship, with the particular penalties for the breach of 
each particular rule ; and care was taken that every 
individual of the ship should know and understand 
this code. With a single exception in the case of 
mutinous behavior, a space of twenty-four hours was 
appointed between the first charge and the second 
hearing of the cause, at which time the accused per- 
son was pennitted and required to bring forward 
whatever he thought conducive to his defence or pal- 
liation. If, as was commonly the case (for the oflicers 
well knew that the commander would seriously re- 
sent in ihem all caprice of will, and by no means 
permit to others what he denied to himself) if no 
answer could be returned to the three questions — Did 
you not commit the act? Did you not know that it 
was in contempt of such a rule, and in defiance of 
such a rule, and in defiance of such a punishment ? 
423 



414 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



1 



And was it not wholly in your own power to have 
obeyed the one and avoided the other? — the sentence 
was then passed with the greatest solemnitj', and 
another, but shorter, space of time was again inter- 
posed between it and its actual execution. During 
this space the feelings of the commander, as a man, 
were so well blended with his inflexibility, as the 
organ of the law ; and how much he suffered previ- 
ous to and during the execution of the sentence was 
so well known to the crew, that it became a common 
saying with ihem, when a sailor was about to be pun- 
ished, " The captain takes it more to heart than the 
fellow himself." But whenever the commander per- 
(leived any trait of pride in the offender, or the germs 
of any noble feeling, he lost no opportunity of saying, 
" It is not the pain that you are about to suffer which 
grieves me! You are none of you, I trust, such cow- 
ards as to turn faint-hearted at the thought of that! 
but that, being a man and one who is to fight for his 
king and country, you should have made it necessary 
to treat you as a vicious beast, it is this that grieves 
me." 

I have been assured, both by a gentleman who was 
a lieutenant on board that ship at the time when the 
heroism of its captain, aided by his characteristic 
calmness and foresight, greatly influenced the deci- 
sion of the most glorious battle recorded in the annals 
of our naval glory; and very recently by a gray- 
headed sailor, who did not even know my name, or 
could have suspected that I was previously acquaint- 
ed with the circumstances — I have been assured, I 
say, that the success of this plan was such as aston- 
ished the oldest officers, and convinced the most in- 
credulous. Ruffians, who like the old Buccaneers, 
had been used to inflict torture on themselves for 
sport, or in order to harden themselves beforehand, 
were tamed and overpowered, how or why they 
themselves knew not. From the fiercest spirits were 
heard the most earnest entreaties for the forgiveness 
of their commander ; not before the pimishment, for 
it was too well known that then they would have 
been to no purpose, but days after it, when the bodily 
pain was remembered but as a dream. An invisible 
power it was, that quelled them, a power, which was 
therelbre irresistible, because it took away the very 
will of resisting. It was the awful power of Law, 
acting on natures pre-configured to its influences. A 
facully was appealed to in the Offender's own being; 
a Faculty and a Presence, of which he had not been 
previously made aware — but it answered to the ap- 
peal! its real existence therefore could not be doubt- 
ed, or its reply rendered inaudible! and the very 
struggle of the wilder passions to keep uppermost 
counteracted its own purpose, by wasting in internal 
contest that energy, which before had acted in ils 
entireness on external resistance or provocation. 
Strength may be met with strength; the power of in- 
flicting pain may be baffled by the pride of endu- 
rance; the eye of rage may be answered by the stare 
of defiance, or the downcast look of dark and re- 
vengeful resolve; and wilh all this there is an out- 
ward and dclcrmiiiod object to which the mind can 
attach its passions and purposes, and bury ils own 



disquietudes in the full occupation of the senses. 
But who dares struggle with an invisible combatant ? 
with an enemy which exists and makes us know its 
existence, but where it is, we ask in vain. — No space 
contains it — time promises no control over it — it has 
no ear for my threats — it has no substance, that my 
hands can grasp, or my weapons find vulnerable — it 
commands and cannot be commanded — it acts and is 
insusceptible of my reaction — the more I strive to 
subdue it, the more am I compelled to think of it — 
and the more I think of it, the more do I find it to 
possess a reality out of myself, and not to be a phan- 
tom of my own imagination; that all, but the most 
abandoned men, acknowledge its authority, and that 
the whole strength and majesty of my country are 
pledged to support it; and yet that /or me its power 
is the same wilh that of my own permanent Self, and 
that all the choice, which is permitted to me, consists 
in having it for my Guardian Angel or my avenging 
Fiend! This is the Spirit of Law! The Lute of 
Amphion, the Harp of Orpheus! This is the true 
necessity, which compels man into the social stale, 
now and always, by a still-beginning, never-ceasing 
force of moral cohesion. 

Thus is man to be governed, and thus only can he 
be governed. For from his creation the objects of his 
senses were to become his subjects, and the task al- 
lotted to him was to subdue the visible world within 
the sphere of action circumscribed by those senses, 
as far as they could act in concert. What the eye 
beholds the hand strives to reach ; what it reaches, 
it conquers and makes the instrunnent of further con- 
quest. We can be subdued by that alone which is 
analogous in kind to that by which we subdue : 
therefore by the invisible powers of our nature, whose 
immediate presence is disclosed to our inner sense, 
and only as the symbols and language of which all 
shapes and modifications of matter become formidable 
to us. 

A machine continues to move bj"^ the force which 
first set it in motion. If only the smallest number in 
any slate, properly so called, hold together through 
the influence of any fear that does not itself presup- 
pose the sense of duty, it is evident that the state it- 
self could not have commenced through animal fear. 
We hear, indeed, of conquests; but how does History 
represent these ? Almost without exception as the 
substitution of one set of governors for another : and 
so far is the conqueror from relying on fear alone to 
secure the obedience of the conquered, that his first 
step is to demand an oath of fealty from them, by 
which he w-ould impose upon them the belief, that 
they become subjects : for who would think of ad- 
ministering an oath to a gang of slaves? But what 
can make the difference between slave and subject, 
if not the existence of an implied contract in the one 
case, and not in the other? And to what purpose 
would a contract serve if, however it might be entered 
into through fear, it were deemed binding only in 
consequence of fear? To repeat my former illustra- 
tion — where fear alone is relied on, as in a slave ship, 
the chains that bind the poor victims must be mate- 
rial chains : for these only can act upon feelings 
424 



THE FRIEND. 



415 



whicli Imve their source wholly in ihe material or- 
ganization. Ilobbos has said that I^ws without the 
sword are but bits of piirchnu'nt. lluw fur this is 
true, every honest man's heart w ill best tell him, if 
he will content himself with asking his own heart, 
and not falsify the answer by his notions concerning 
the hearts of other men. Bui were it true, still the 
fair answer would be — Weill but without the Laws 
the sword is but a piece of iron. The wretched ty- 
rant, who disgraces the present age and human na- 
ture itself, had exhausted the whole magazine of ani- 
mal terror, in order to consolidate his truly safanic 
Ciovernment. But look at tlie new French catechism, 
and in it read the misgivings of the monster's mind, 
as to the insufficiency of terror alone I The system, 
which I have been confuting, is indeed so inconsist- 
ent with the facts revealed to us by our own mind, 
and so utterly unsupported by any facts of History, 
that I sliould be censurable in wasting my own time 
and my Reader's patience by the exposure of its 
falsehood, but that the arguments adduced have a 
value of themselves independent of their present ap- 
plication. Else it would have been an ample and 
satisfactory reply to an a.eserter of this bestial Theory 
— Government is a thing which relates to men, and 
what you say applies only to beasts. 

Before [ proceed to the second of the three Sys- 
tems, let me remove a possible misunderstanding that 
may have arisen from the use of the word Contract : 
as if I had asserted, that the whole duty of obedience 
to Governors is derived from, and dependent on, the 
fad of an original Contract. I freely admit, that to 
make this the cause and origin of political obligation, 
is not only a dangerous but an absurd Theory ; for 
what could give moral force to the Contract ? The 
same sense of Duty which binds us to keep it, must 
have pre-existed as impelling us to make it. For 
what man in his senses would regard the faithful ob- 
servation of a contract entered into to plunder a 
neighbor's house but as a treble crime ? First the 
act, which is a crime of itself; — secondly, the enter- 
ing into a contract w hich it is a crime to observe, and 
yet a weakening of one of the main pillars of human 
confidence nol to observe, and thus voluntarily 
placing ourselves under the necessity of choosing 
between two evils ; — and thirdly, the crime of 
choosing the greater of two evils, by the unlawful 
observance of an unlawful promise. But in my 
sense, the word Contract is merely synonymous with 
the sense of duty acting in a specific direction, i. e. 
determining our moral relations, as members of a body 
politic. If [ have referred to a supposed origin of 
Government, it has been in courtesy to a common 
notion: for I myself regard the supposition as no 
more than a means of simplifying to our apprehen- 
sion the ever-continuing causes of social union, even 
as the conservation of the world may be represented 
as an act of continued Creation. For, what if an 
original Contract had really been entered into, and 
formally recorded? Still it could do no more than 
bind the contracting parties to act for the general 
good in the best manner, that the existing relations 
among themselves, (state of property, religion, &c.) 
28 Mm 



on the one hand, and the external circumstances on 
the other (ambitious or barbarous neighlwrs, Arc.) re- 
quired or permitted. In after times it could be ap- 
pealed to only for the general principle, and no more 
than the ideal Contract, could it affect a question of 
ways and means. As each particular age brings 
with it its own exigencies, so must it rely on its own 
prudence for the s]iecific measures by which they 
are to be encountered. 

Nevertheless, it assuredly cannot bo denied, that 
an original (in reality, rather an ever-originating) 
Contract is a very natural and significant mode of 
expressing the reciprocal duties of subject and sove- 
reign. We need only consider Ihe utility of a real 
and formal Stale Contract, the Bill of Rights for in- 
stance, as a sort of est dcmonslratinn m politics; and 
the contempt lavished on this notion, though suffici- 
ently compatible with the tenets of a Hume, will 
seem strange to us in the writings of a Protestant 
clergyman, who surely owed some respect to a mode 
of thinking which God himself had authorized by his 
own example, in the establishment of the Jewish 
constitution. In this instance there was no necessity 
for deducing the will of God from the tendency of 
the Laws to the general happiness: his will was ex- 
pressly declared. Nevertheless, it seemed good to 
the divine wisdom, that there should be a covenant, 
an original contract, between himself as sovereign, 
and the Hebrew nation as subjects. This, I admit, 
was a wrillen and f()rmal Contract; but the relations 
of mankind, as members of a body spiritual, or reli- 
gious commonwealth, to the Saviour, as its head or 
regent — is not this too styled a covenant, though it 
would be absurd to ask for the material instrument 
that contained it, or the time w-hen it was signed or 
voted by the members of the church collectively.* 

With tills explanation, the as.?ertion of an original 
(still belter, of a 7jer/)f^(o7) Contract is rescued from 
all rational objection ; and however speciously it may 
be urged, that History can scarcely produce a single 
example of a state dating its primary establishment 
from a free and mutual covenant, the answer is 
ready: if there be any difference between a Govern- 
ment and a band of robbers, an act of consent must 
be supposed on the part of the people governed. 



ESSAY III. 



Human institutions cannot be wliolly constructed on princi- 
ples of Science, which is proper to immutable objects. In 
the government of the visible worlil the supreme Wisdom 
itself submils lo be the Author of the Better: not of the 
Best, but of the Best possible in Ihe subsisting Relations. 
Much more must all human Lei:islators give way to many 
Evils rather than encourape the Discontent that would lead 
to worse Remedies. If it is not in the power of man to 

* It is perhaps to bo regrcllcd. that Ihe words. Old and N ew 
Testament, they having lost the sense intended by the trans- 
lators of the Bible, have not been changed into Ihe Old and 
New Oovennnt. We cannot too carefully keep in sight a no- 
tion, which appeared to Ihe primilivu church the fittest and 
most scriptural mode of representing the sum of the conlenta 
of the sacred writings. 

425 



416 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



construct eve «the arch of a Bridge that shall exactly cor- 
respond in it! itrength to the calculations of Geometry, how 
much less ca > human Science construct a Constitution ex- 
cept by rendi ring itself liexible to Experience and Expedi- 
ency : where eo many things must fall out accidentally, and 
come not irit > any compliance with the preconceived ends; 
but men are forced to comply subsequently, and to strike 
in with things as they fall out, by after applications of them 
to theit paiM)ses, or by framing their purposes to them. 

SOUTH. 



The secoivd system corresponds to the second point 
of view undiBr which the human being may be con- 
sidered, namely, as an animal gifted with under- 
standing, or the faculty of suiting measures to circum- 
stances. According to this theory, every institution 
of national origin needs no other justification than a 
proof, that under the particular circumstances it is 
EXPEDIENT. Having in my former Numbers ex- 
pressed myself (so at least I am conscious I shall have 
appeared to do to many persons) with comparative 
slight of the understanding considered as the sole 
guide of human conduct, and even with something 
like contempt and reprobation of the maxims of ex- 
pedience, when represented as the only steady light 
of the conscience, and the absolute foundation of all 
morality ; I shall perhaps seem guilty of an inconsis- 
tency, in declaring myself an adherent of this second 
system, a zealous advocate for deriving the origin of 
all government from human /)r«rfence, and of deeming 
that to be just which experience has proved to be 
expedient. From this charge of inconsistency* 1 

* Distinct notions do not suppose different tfiings. When 
we make a threefold distinction in human nature, we are 
fully aware, that it is a distinction not a division, and that in 
every act of Mind the Man unites the properties of Sense, 
Understanding, and Reason. Nevertheless, it is of great 
practical importance, that these distinctions should be made 
and understood, the ignorance or perversion of them being 
alike injurious ; as the first French Constitution has most la- 
mentably proved. It was fashion in the profligate times of 
Charles the Second, to laugh at the Presbyterians, for distin- 
guishing between the Person and the King ; while in fact they 
were ridiculing the most venerable maxims of English law ;— 
(the King never dies — the King can do no wrong, &c.) and 
subverting the principles of genuine loyalty, in order to pre- 
pare the minds of the people for despotism. 

Under the term Sense, I comprise, whatever is passive in 
our being, without any reference to the questions of Material- 
ism or Immatcrialism ; all that man is in common with ani- 
mals, in kmd at least — his sensations, and impressions, whe- 
ther of his outward senses, or the inner sense of imagination. 
This in the language of the Schools, was called the vis recep- 
tiva, or recipient property of the soul, from the original con- 
stitution of which we perceive and imagine all things under 
the forms of space and time. By the understanding, I mean 
the faculty of thinking and forming j«f/^me?i(s on the notices 
furnished by the sense, according to certain rules existing in 
itself, which rules constitute its distinct nature. By the pure 
Reason, 1 mean the power by which we become possessed 
of principle, (the eternal verities of Plato and Descartes) and 
of ideas, (N. B. not images) as the ideas of a point, a line, a 
circle, in Mathematics; and of Justice, Holiness, Free- Will, 
&c. in Morals. Hence in works of pure science the defini- 
.lOns of necessity precede the reasoning, in other works they 
more aptly form the conclusion. 

To many of my readers it will, I trust, be some recommen- 
dation of these distinctions, that they are more than once 
e-xpressed, and everywhere supposed, in the writings of St. 
Paul. I have no hesitation in undertaking to prove, that 
every Heresy which has disquieted the Christian Church, 
■rom Teitheism to Socinianism, has originated in, and sup- 
ported itcclf by, arguments rendered plausible only by the 



shall best exculpate myself by the full statement of 
the third system, and by the exposition of its grounds 
and consequences. 

The third and last system then denies all rightful 
origin to government, except as far as they are deriv- 
able from principles contained in the reaso.n of Man, 
and judges all the relations of men in Society by the 
Laws of moral necessity, according to ideas (1 here 
use the word in its highest and primitive sense, and 
as nearly synonymous with the modern word ideal) 
according to archetypal ideas co-essential with the 
Reason, and the consciousness of which is the sign 
and necessary product of its full development. The 
following then is the fundamental principle of this 
theory : iS'othing is to be deemed rightful in civil so- 
ciety, or to be tolerated as such, but what is capable 
of being demonstrated out of the original laws of the 
pure Reason. Of course, as (here is but one system 
of Ceomelry, so according to this theory there can be 
but one constitution and one system of legislation, and 
this consists in the freedom, which is the common 
right of all men, under the control of that moral ne- 
cessity, which is the common duty of all men. What- 
ever is not every where necessary, is no where right. 
On this assumption the whole theory is built. To 
state it nakedly is to confute it satisfactorily. So at 
least it should seem ! But in how winning and spe- 
cious a n)anner this sj'stem may be represented even 
to minds of the loftiest order, if undisciplined and un- 
humbled by practical experience, has been proved 
by the general impassioned admiration and moraent- 
otis effects of Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, and the 
writings of the French economists, or as they more 
appropriately entitled themselves, Physiocrafic Phi- 
losophers: and in how tempting and dangerous a 
manner it may be represented to the populace, has 
been made loo evident in our own country by the 
temporarj' effects of Faine's Rights of Man. Rela- 
tively, however, to this latter work it should be ob- 
served, that it is not a legitimate offspring of any one 
theory, but a confusion of the immorality of the first 
system with the misapplied universal principles of 
the last: and in this union, or rather lawless alterna- 
tion, consists the essence of Jacobinism, as far as Ja- 
cobinism is any thing but a term of abuse, or has any 
meaning of its own distinct from democracy and sedi- 
tion. 

A constitution equally suited to China and Ameri- 

confusion of these faculties, and thus demanding for the ob 
jects of one, a sort of evidence appropriated to those of 
another facuhy. — These disquisitions have the misfortune of 
being in ill-report, as dry and unsatisfactory : but I hope, in 
the course of the work, to gain them a better character — and 
if elucidations of their practical importance from the mosf 
momentous events of History, can render them interesting, to 
give them that interest at least. Besides, there is surely 
some good in the knowledge of Truth, as Truth — (we were 
not made to live by Bread alone) and in the strengthening of 
the intellect. It is an excellent Remark of Scalingers — " Ha- 
rum indagatio Subtilitalum, ctsi nan. est uttlis ad machinas 
farinarias confieiendas, exuit animum tamcn inst.itia ru- 
bigine acuitQue ad alia." SCALIG. Exerc. U07. ^^ 3. i. e. 
The investigation of these subtleties, though it is of no use 
to the construction of machines to grind corn with, yet clears 
the mind from the rust of ignorance, and sharpens it for other 
things. 



THE FRIEND. 



417 



ca, or to Russia and Great Britain, must surely be 
e<)ually unfit for both, and deserve as little respect in 
political, as a quack's panacea in medical practice. 
Yet tliere are three weighty motives (or a distinct expo- 
sition of this theory,* and of the ground on which its 
pretea<ions are bottomed : and I dare afTirm, that fur 
the same reasons there are few siibjecls which in the 
present state of the world have a fairer claim to liie 
attention of every serious Englishman, who is likely, 
directly or indirectly, as partisan or as opponent, to 
interest himself in schemes of Reform. 

The first motive is derived from the propensity of 
mankind to mistake the feelings of disapiwintmcnt, 
disgust, and abhorrence occasioned by the unhappy 
effects or accompaniments of a particular system for 
an insight into the falsehood of its principles which 
alone can secure its permanent rejection. For by a 
wise ordinance of nature our feelings have no abid- 
ing-place in our memory, nay the more vivid they 
are in the moment of their existence the more dim 
and difficult to be remembered do they make the 
thoughts which accompanied them. Those of my 
readers who at any time of their life have been in 
the habit of reading novels may easily convince them- 
selves of this Truth by comparing their recollections 
of those stories, which most excited their curiosity 
and even painfully affected their feelings, with their 
recollections of the calm and meditative pathos of 
Shakspeare and Milton. Hence it is that human ex- 
perience, like the stern-lights of a ship at sea, illu- 
mines only the path which we have passed over. 
The horror of the Peasants' War in Germany, and 
the direful effects of the Anabaptist tenets, which 
were only nominally different from those of Jacobin- 
ism by the substitution of religious for philosophical 
jargon, struck all Europe for a time with affright. 
Yet little more than a century was sufficient to ob- 
literate all effective memory of those events: the 
same principles budded forth anew and produced the 
same fruits from the imprisonment of Charles the 
First to the restoration of his Son. In the succeeding 
generations, to the follies and vices of the European 
Courts, and to the oppressive privileges of the nobil- 
ity, were again transferred those feelings of disgust 
and hatred, which for a brief v^hile the multitude had 
attached to the crimes and extravagances of political 
and religious fanaticism : and the same principles aid- 
ed by circumstances, and dressed out in the ostenta- 
tious garb of a fashionable philosophy, once more rose 
triumphant, and effected the French Revolution. 
That man has reflected little on human nature who 
does not perceive that the detestable maxims and cor- 
respondent crimes of the existing French despotism, 
have already dimmed the recollections of the demo- 



* A3 "Metaphysics" are the ecicnce which determines 
what can, and what cannot, be known of Being and the Laws 
of Being, a priori (that is from those necessities of the mind 
or forms of thinking, which, though first revealed to us by ex- 
perience, must yet have pre-existed in order to make experi- 
ence itself possible, even as the eye mu?t exist previous to any 
particular act of seeing, though by sight only can we know 
that we have eyes) — so might the philosophy of Rousseau and 
his followers not inaptly be entitled MelapoUlics, and the 
Doctors of this School, Mctapolilicians. 
55 



cratic phrenzy in the minds of men ; by little and lit- 
tle, have drawn off to other objects the electric force 
of the feelings, which bad massed and upheld those 
recollections; and that a favorable concurrence of 
occasions is alone wanting to awaken the thunder 
and precipitate the lightning from the opposite quar- 
ter of the political Ilcavcn.t The true origin of hu- 
man events is so little susceptible of that kind of evi- 
dence which can comjKil our belief even against our 
will; and so many are the disturbing forces which 
modify the motion given by the first projection; and 
every age has, or imagines it lias, its own circum- 
stances which render past experience no longer ap- 
plicable to the present case; that there will never 
be wanting answers and explanations, and s4>ecious 
flatteries of hope. I well remember, that when the 
examples of former Jacobins, JuUus C^T-sar, Cromwell, 
&c., were adduced in France and England at the 
commencement of the French Consulate, it was ridi 
culed as pedantry and pedants' ignorance, to fear a 
repetition of such usurpation at the close of the en- 
lighleiied eighteenth century. Those who jwssess the 
Mmiiteurs of that date will find set proofs, that such 
results were little less than impossible, and that it 
was an insult to so philosophical an age, and so en- 
lightened a nation, to dare direct the public eye to- 
wards them as bghts of admonition and warning. 

It is a common foible with official statesmen, and 
with those who deem themselves honored by their 
acquaintance, to attribute great national events to the 
influence of particular persons, to the errors of one 
man and to the intrigues of another, to any possible 
spark of a particular occasion, rather than to the true 
cause, the predominant state of public opinion. I 
have known men who, with the most significant nods, 
and the civil contempt of pitying half smiles, have 
declared the natural explanation of the French Revo- 
lution, to be the mere fancies of Garretteers, and then 
with the solemnity of Cabinet Ministers, have pro- 
ceeded to explain the whole by anecdotes. It is so 
stimulant to the pride of a vulgar mind, to be per- 
suaded that it knows what few others know, and that 
it is the important depository of a sort of state secret, 
by communicating which it confers an obligation on 
others ! But I have likewise met with men of intel- 
ligence, who at the commencement of the Revolution 
were travelling on foot through the French provinces, 
and they bear witness, that in the remotest villages 
every tongue was employed in echoing and enforcing 
the doctrines of the Parisian Journalists, that the pub- 
lic highways were crowded with enthusiasts, some 
shouting the watch-words of the revolution, others 
disputing on the most abstract principles of the uni- 
versal constitution, which they fully believed, that 
all the nations of the earth were shortly to adopt; the 
most ignorant among them confident of hrs fitness for 
the highest duties of a legislator ; and all prepared 
to shed their blood in defence of the inalienable sove 
reignty of the self-governed people. The more ab- 
stract the notions were, with the closer afllnity did 
they combine with the most fervent feelings and all 



t The Reader will recollect that these Essays were lirst pu!»- 
lishcd in 1809. 

427 



418 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



the immediate impulses to action. The Lord Chan- 
cellor Bacon lived in an age of court intrigues, and 
was familiarly acquainted with all the secrets of per- 
sonal influence. He, if any man, was qualified to 
take the gauge and measurement of their compara- 
tive power, and he has told us, that there is one, and 
but one infallible source of political prophecy, the 
knowledge of the predominant opinions and the specu- 
lative principles of men in general, between the age 
of twenty and thirty. Sir Philip Sidney, the favorite 
of Queen Klizabeth, the paramount gentleman of Eu- 
rope, the nephew, and (as far as a good man could 
be) the confidant of the intriguing and dark-minded 
Earl of Leicester, was so deeply convinced that the 
principles diffused through the majority of a nation 
are the true oracles from whence statesmen are to 
learn wisdom, and that "when the people speak 
loudly it is from their being strongly possessed either 
by the godhead or the demon," that in the revolution 
of the Netherlands he considered the universal adop- 
tion of one set of principles, as a proof of the divine 
presence. " If her majesty,'" says he, " were the 
fountain, I would fear, considering what [ daily find, 
that we should wax dry. But she is but a means 
which God useth." But if my Readers wish to see 
the question of the efficacy of principles and popular 
opinions for evil and for good proved and illustrated 
with an eloquence worthy of the subject, I can refer 
them with the hardiest anticipation of their thanks, 
to the late work " concerning the relations of Great 
Britain, Spain, and Portugal, by my honored friend, 
William Wordsworth* quem quoties lego, non verba 
mihi videor audire, sed tonilrua .' 



* I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation 
of the Work above mentioned, not as a voluntary tribute of 
admiration, but as an act of mere justice both to my.self and 
to the readers of The Friend. My own heart bears me wit- 
ness, that I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth of 
the principles, which it has been and still more will be my en- 
deavor to enforce, and of their paramount iinportance to the 
well-being of Society at the present juncture ; and that the 
duty of making the attempt, and the hope of not wholly fall- 
ing in it, are, far more than the wish for the doubtful good of 
literary reputation, or any yet meaner object, my great and 
ruling motives. Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-laborer in 
the same vineyard, actuated by the same motives and teach- 
ing the same principles, but with far greater powers of mind, 
and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and ma- 
jesty of the cause. I am strengthened too by the knowledge, 
that I am not unauthorized by the sympathy of many wise and 
good men, and men acknowledged as such by the Public, in 
my admiration of hia pamphlet, — J^cque enim debet operibus 
ejus ohesse, (juod vivit. Jin si inter los, guos nunquam vidi- 
mus, fluruisset. non solum Ubros ejus, verum ctiavi imagines 
coiiquircremus, ejusdem nunc honor prascntis. et gratia qua- 
si satictate langucscet? Jit hoc pravum, malignumque est, 
non admirari hominem admiratione dignissimum, quia vi- 
dcrc, complecti, ncc laudare tantuin, verum eliam amare con- 

tingit. PL.1N. Epist. Lib. I. 

It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act un- 
der the fear that it shall be suspected by honest men of the 
vileness of praising a work to the public, merely because he 
happens to be personally acquainted with the Author. That 
this is so commonly done in Reviews, furnishes only an addi- 
tiona proof of the morbid hardness produced in the moral 
sense by the habit of writing anonymous criticisms, especially 
under the further disguise of a pretended board or association 
lif Critics, each man expressing himself, to use the words of 
Andrew Marvel, as a siinodical individuum. With regard 
iiowtrer, to the probability of the judgment being warped by 



That erroneous political notions (they having be- 
come general and a part of the popular creed) have 
practical consequences, and these, of course, of a 
most fearful nature, is a truth as certain as historic 
evidence can make it : and that when the feelings 
excited by these calamities have passed away, and 
the interest in them has been displaced by more re- 
cent events, the same errors are likely to be started 
afresh, pregnant with the same calamities, is an evil 
rooted in Human Nature in the present state of gen- 
eral information, for which we have hitherto found 
no adequate remedy. (It may perhaps, in the scheme 
of Providence, be proper and conducive to its ends, 
that no adequate remedy should exist : for the folly 
of men is the wisdom of God.) But if there be any 
means, if not of preventing, yet of palliating the dis- 
ease, and, in the more favored nations, of checking 
its progress at the first symptoms ; and if these means 
are to be all compatible with the civil and intellec- 
tual freedom of mankind ; they are to be found only 
in an intelligible and thorough exposure of the error, 
and, through that discovery, of the source, from 
which it derives its speciousness and powers of in- 
fluence on the human mind. This therefore is my 
first motive for undertaking the disquisition. 

The second is, that though the French code of 
revolutionary principles is generally rejected as a 
system, yet every where in the speeches and writings 
of the English reformers, nay, not seldom in those of 
their opponents, I find certain maxims asserted or 
appealed to, which are not tenable, except as con- 
stituent parts of that sj'Stem. Many of the most 
specious arguments in proof of the imperfection and 
injustice of the present constitution of our legislature 
will be found, on closer examination, to pre-suppose 
the truth of certain principles, from which the ad- 
ducers of these arguments loudly profess their dis- 
sent. But in political changes no permanence can 
be hoped for in the edifice, without consistency in 
the foundation. 

The third motive is, that by detecting the true 
source of the influence of these principles, we shall 
at the same time discover their natural place and 
object : and that in themselves they are not only 
Truths, but most important and sublime Truths; and 
that their falsehood and their danger consist alto- 
gether in their misapplication. Thus the dignity of 



partiality, I can only say that I judge of all Works indiffer- 
ently by certain fixed rules previously formed in my mind with 
all the power and vigilance of my judgment; and that I should 
certainly of the two apply them with greater rigor to the pro- 
duction of a friend than that of a person indifferent to me. 
But wherever I find in any Work all the conditions of excel- 
lence in its kind, it is not the accident of the Author's being 
my contemporary or even my friend, or the sneers of bad-heart- 
ed men, that shall prevent me from speaking of it, as in my 
inmost convictions I deem it deserves. 

no, friend: 

Though it be now the fashion to commend. 
As men of strong minds, those alone who can 
Censure with judgment, no such piece of man 
Makes up my spirit : where desert does live, 
There will I plant my wonder, and there give 
My best endeavors to build up his glory, 
That truly merilp ! 

Recommendatory Verses to one of the old PlayS' 
428 



THE FRIEND. 



419 



Human Nature will be secured, and at the same 
time a lesson of humility taught to each individual, 
when we are made to see that the universal neces- 
sary Laws, and pure ideas of Heason, were given us, 
not for the purpose of flattering our Pride and cn- 
aliling us to become national legislators ; but that by 
an energy of continued self-comiuest, we might es- 
tablish a free and yet absolute government in our 
own spirits. 



ESSAY IV. 



Albeit therefore, much of what wc are to spcuk in this 
present cause, may seem to a number perhaps leilious, per- 
haps obscure, (lark and intricate, (for many talk uf the Truih, 
w liich never eounded the depth from whence it springeth : 
and therefore, when they are led thereunto, they are soon 
weary, as men diawn from those beaten paths, wherewith 
they have been insured ;) yet this may not so far prevail, as 
to cut off that which the matter itself rciiuirelh, howsoever 
the nice humor of some be therewith pleased or no. They 
unio whom we shall seem tedious, are in no wise injured by 
us. because it is in their own hands to spare that labor which 
they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of ob- 
scurity, they must consider, that in these matters it cometh no 
otherwise to pass, than in sundry the works both of Art, and 
also of Nature, where that which hath greatest force in the 
very things we see, is, notwithstandin;;, itself oftentimes not 
Been. The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when 
we behold them, delighteth the eye : but the foundation 
which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto 
the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth 
concealed, and if there be occasion at any time to search 
into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant, both 
to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like 
manner, the use and benefit of good laws, all that live under 
them, may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds 
and first original causes from whence they have sprunK, be 
unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. But when 
they who withdraw their obedience, pretend that the laws 
which they should obey are corrupt and vicious: for better 
examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation 
and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them to be 
discovered. Which because we are not oftentimes accustom- 
ed to do, when we do it, the pains wc take are more needful 
a great deal than acceptable, and the matters which wo 
handle, seem by reason of newness, (till the mind grow better 
acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For 
8s much help whereof, as may be in this case, I have en- 
deavored throughout the body of this whole Discourse, that 
every former part might give strength to all that follow, and 
every latter bring some light to all before: so that if the 
judsmente of men do but hold themselves in suspense, us 
touching these first more general Meditations, till in order 
they have perused the rest that ensue, what may seem dark 
at the first, will aflerward.s be found more plain, even as the 
latter particular decisions will appear, I doubt not, more 
strong when the other have been read before. 

HOOKER'S Ecclcsiast. Polity. 



ON THE GROL'.NDS OF GOVERNME.NT AS LAID EXCLU- 
.SIVELY IN THE PURE REASON ; OR A STATE.MENT 
AND CRITIQUE OF THE THIRD SYSTE.M OF POLITI- 
CAL PHILOSOPHY, VIZ. THE THEORY OF ROUSSEAU 
AND THE FRENCH ECONO.MISTS. 

I return to my promise of developing from its em- 
bryo [irinciplcs the Tree of French Liberty, of which 
the declaration of the Rights of Man, and the Con- 
stitution of 1791 were the leaves, and the succeeding 
M m 1 



and present slate of France the fruits. Let me not 
be blamed, if, in the interixwed Essays, introductory 
to this Section, I have connected this system, though 
only in the imagination, lliotigh only as a possible 
ca.se, with a name so deservedly reverenced as that 
of Ltnher. It is some excuse, that to interweave 
with the Reader's recollection a certain life and dra- 
matic interest, during the perusal of the abstract rea- 
sonings that are to follow, is the only means I (wssess 
of bribing his attention. We have most of us, at 
some period or other of our lives, been amused with 
dialogues of the dead. Who is there that wishing to 
form a probable opinion on the grounds of hope and 
fear for an injured people warring against mighty ar- 
mies, would not be pleased with a spirited fiction, 
which brought before him an old Kumantian dis- 
coursing on that subject in Elysium, with a newly- 
arrived spirit from the streets of Saragossa or the 
walls of Gerona ? 

But I have a better reason. I wished to give every 
fair advantage to the opinions, which I deemed it of 
im(X)rtance to confute. It is bad policy to represent 
a jwlitical system as having no charms but for rob- 
bers and assassins, and no natural origin but in the 
brains of fools or madmen, when experience has pro- 
ved, that the great danger of the system consists in 
the peculiar fascination it is calculated to exert on 
noble and imaginative spirits; on all those, who in 
the amiable intoxication of youthful benevolence, are 
apt to mistake their own best virtues and choicest 
powers for the average qualities and attributes of the 
human character. The very minds, which a good 
man would most wish to preserve or disentangle from 
the snare, are by these angry misrepresentations ra- 
ther lured into it. Is it wonderful, that a man should 
reject the arguments unheard, when his own heart 
proves the falsehood of the assumptions by which 
they are prefaced ? or that he should retaliate on the 
aggressors their own evil thoughts ? I am well aware, 
that the provocation was great, the temptation almost 
inevitable; yet still I cannot repel the conviction 
from my mind, that in part to this error and in part to 
a certain inconsistency in his fundamental principles, 
we are to attribute the small number of converts 
made by Burke during his life-time. Let me not be 
misunderstood. I do not mean, that this great man 
supported different principles at different eras of his 
political life. On the contrary, no man was ever 
more like himself I From his first published speech 
on the American colonies to his last poslhtunoiis 
Tracts, we see the same man, the same doctrines, the 
same uniform wisdom of practical councils, the same 
reasoning and the same prejudices against all ab- 
stract grounds, against all deduction of Practice from 
Theory. The inconsistency to which I allude, is of a 
different kind : it is the want of congruily in the 
principles appealed to in different parts of the same 
Work, it is an apparent versatility of the principle 
with the occasion. If his opponents are Theorists, 
then every thing is to be founded on Prudence, on 
mere calculations of E.kpediency : and every man is 
represented as acting according to the slate of his 
own immediate self-interest. Ace his opponents cal- 
429 



420 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS, 



culators ? Then calculation itself is represented as a 
sort of crime. God has given us Feelings, and we 
are to obey them! and the most absurd prejudices 
become venerable, to which these Feelings have 
given consecration. I have not forgotten, that Burke 
himself defended these half contradictions, on the 
pretext of balancing the too much on the one side by 
a too much on the other. But never can I beUeve, 
but that the straight line must needs be the nearest ; 
and that where there is the most, and the most unal- 
loyed truth, there will be the greatest and most per- 
manent power of persuasion. But the liict was, that 
Burke in his public character found himself, as it 
were, in a Noah's Ark, with a very few men and a 
great many beasts! He felt how much his immedi- 
ate power was lessened by the very circumstance of 
his measureless superiority to those about him: he 
acted, therefore, under a perpetual system of compro- 
mise — a compromise of greatness with meanness ; a 
compromise of comprehension with narrowness; a 
compromise of the philosopher (who armed with the 
twofold knowledge of History and the Laws of Spi- 
rit, as with a telescope, looked far around and into 
the far distance) with the mere men of business, or 
with yet coarser intellects, who handled a truth, 
which they were required to receive, as they would 
handle an ox, which they were desired to purchase. 
But why need I repeat what has been already said 
in so happy a manner by Goldsmith of this great man : 

" Who, born for tlie universe, narrow'd his mind. 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
Tho' fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat. 
To persuade Tommy Townsend to give hira a vote ; 
Who too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining." 

And if in consequence it was his fate to " cut blocks 
with a razor," 1 may be permitted to add, that in re- 
spect of Truth though not of Genius, the weapon was 
injured by the misapplication. 

The Friend, however, acts and will continue to 
act under the belief, that the whole truth is the best 
antidote to falsehoods which are dangerous chiefly 
because they are half-truths : and that an erroneous 
system is best confuted, not by an abuse of Theory in 
general, nor by an absurd opposition of Theory to Prac- 
tice, but by a detection of the errors in the particular 
Theory. For the meanest of men has his Theory : 
and to think at all is to theorize. With these convic- 
tions I proceed immediately to the system of the 
economists and to the principles on which it is con- 
structed, and from which it must derive all its 
strength. 

The system commences with an undeniable truth, 
and an important deduction therefrom equally unde- 
niable. All voluntary actions, say they, having for 
their objects good or evil, are moral actions. But all 
morality is grounded in the reason. Every man is 
born with the faculty of Reason : and whatever is 
without it, be the shape what it may, is not a man or 
rERSON, but a thing. Hence the sacred principle, 
recognized by all Laws, human and divine, the prin- 
ciple, indeed, which is the ground-work of all law and 
i'lstice, that a person can never become a thing, nor be 



treated as such without wrong. But the distinction 
between person and thing consists herein, that the 
latter may rightfully be used, altogether and merely, 
as a means ; but the former must always be included 
in the erid, and form a part of the final cause. We 
plant the tree and we cut it down, we breed the sheep 
and we kill it, wholly as means to our own ends. The 
wood-cutter and the hind are likewise employed as 
means, but on an agreement of reciprocal advantage, 
which includes them as well as their employer in the 
end. Again : as the faculty of Reason implies free- 
agency, morality, (i. e. the dictate of Reason) gives to 
every rational being the right of acting as a free 
agent, and of finally determining his conduct by his 
own will, according to his own conscience : and this 
right is inalienable except by guilt, which is an act 
of self forfeiture, and the consequences therefore to 
be considered as the criminal's own moral election. 
In respect of their Reason* all men are equal. The 
measure of the Understanding and of all other facul- 
ties of man, is different in different persons: but Rea- 
son is not susceptible of degree. For since it merely 
decides whether any given thought or action is or is 
not in contradiction with the rest, there can be no 
reason better, or more reason, than another. 

Reason! best and holiest gift of Heaven and bond 
of union with the Giver! The high title by which 
the majesty of man claims precedence above all 
other living creatures ! Mysterious faculty, the mother 
of conscience, of language, of tears, and of smiles I 
Calm and incorruptible legislator of the soul, without 
whom all its other powers would " meet in mere op- 
pugnancy." Sole principle of permanence amid end- 
less change! in a world of discordant appetites and 
imagined self interests the one only common measure ! 
which taken away, 

" Force should be right ; or, rather right and wrong 
(Between whose endless jar justice resides) 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then every thing includes itself in power. 
Power into will, will into appetite ; 
And appetite, an universal wolf. 
So doubly seconded with will and power, 
IMust make perforce an universal prey !" 

Thrice blessed faculty of Reason ! all other gifts, 
though goodly and of celestial origin, health, strength, 
talents, all the powers and all the means of enjoy- 
ment, seem dispensed by chance or sullen caprice — 
thou alone, more than even the sunshine, more than 
the common air, art given to all men, and to every 
man alike! To thee, who being one art the same in 
all, we owe the privilege, that of all we can become 
one, a living whole ! that we have a Country ! Who 
then shall dare prescribe a law of moral action for 
any rational Being, which does not flow immediately 
from that Reason, which is the fountain of all moral- 
ity? Or how without breach of conscience can we 
limit or coerce the powers of a free agent, except by 
coincidence with that law in his own mind, which is 
at once the cause, the condition, and the measure, of 
his free agency? Man must he free ; or to what pur- 

* This position has been already explained, and the sophis- 
try grounded on it detected and e\pc>sed, in the last Essay of 
the Landing-Place, in this volume. 

430 



THE FRIEND. 



421 



pose was he made a Spirit of Reason, and not a Ma- 
chine of Instinct ? Man must obey ; or wherefore 
lins he a conscience ? The [wwcrs, which create this 
dillicuily, contain its solution Hivewise: for tlieir ser- 
vice is perfect freedom. And whatever law or sys- 
tem of law compels any oilier service, disennobles 
our nature, leagues itself with the animal agamst the 
ginllike, kills in us the very principle of joyous well- 
doing, and fights against humanity. 

Hy the application of these principles to the social 
state there arises the following system, which as far 
as res|iects its first grounds is developed the most 
fully by J. J. Rousseau in his work Dii L'oiilrat Social. 
If then no individual [wssesses the right of prescril> 
ingany thing to another individual, the rule of which 
is not contained in their common Reason, Society, 
which is but an aggregate of individuals, can com- 
municate this right to no one. It cannot jjossibly make 
that rightful which the higher and inviolable law of 
human nature declares contradictory and unjust. 
But concerning Right and Wrong, the Reason of 
each and every man is the competent judge : for how 
else could he be an amenable Being, or the proper 
subject of any law ? This Reason, therefore, in any 
one man, cannot even in the social state be rightfully 
subjugated to the Reason of any other. Neither an 
individual, nor yet the whole multitude which con- 
stitutes the state, can possess the right of compelling 
him to do any thing, of which it cannot be demon- 
strated that his own Reason must join in prescribing 
it. If therefore society is to be under a rightful con- 
stitution of government, and one that can impose on 
rational Beings a true and moral obligation to obey 
It, it must be framed on such principles that every 
individual follows his own Reason while he obeys 
the laws of the constitution, and performs the will 
of the state while he follows the dictates of his own 
Reason. This is expressly asserted by Rousseau, 
who states the problem of a perfect constitution of 
government in the following words: Trouver une 
forme d' Association — par laquelle chacun s' imicsajit 
dtous.ii'obeisse potirtaiU qu'ii lui meme, et resle aussi 
lihere qu'auparavant, i. e. To find a form of society 
according to which each one uniting with the whole 
shall yet obey himself only and remain as free as 
before. This right of the individual to retain his 
whole natural independence, even in the social state, 
is absolutely inalienable. He cannot jwssibly concede 
or compromise it : for this very Right is one of his 
most sacred Duties. He would sin against himself, 
and commit high treason against the Reason which 
the Almighty Creator has given him, if he dared 
abandon its exclusive right to govern his actions. 

Laws obligatory on the conscicn 3, can only there- 
fore proceed from that Reason which remains always 
one and the same, whether it speaks through this or 
that person : like the voice of an external Ventrilo- 
quist, it is indifferent from whose lips it appears to 
come, if only it be audible. The individuals indeed 
are subject to errors and passions, and each man has 
his own defects. But when men are assembled in 
person or by real representatives, the actions and re- 
actions of individual Self-love balance each other; 



errors are neutralized by opposite errors ; and the 
winds rushing from all quarters at once with equal 
force, produce for the time a deep calm, during which 
the general will arising from the general Reason dis- 
plays itself. "It is fittest," says Burke himself, (see 
his iNote on his Motion relative to the Speech from 
the Throne, Vol. II. Page 647, 4to. Edit.) " It is fit- 
test that sovereign authority should be exerciseil 
where it is most likely to be attended with the most 
effectual correctives. These correctives are furnish- 
ed by the nature and course of parliamentary pm- 
ceedings, and by the infinitely diversified characters 
who compose the two Houses. The fulness, the 
freedom, and publicity of discussion, leave it easy to 
distinguish what are acts of power, and what the 
determinations of equity and reason. There preju- 
dice corrects prejudice, and the different asperities 
of party zeal mitigate and neutralize each other." 

This, however, as my readers will have already 
detected, is no longer a demonstrable deduction from 
Reason. It is a mere probability, against which other 
probabilities may be weighed : as the lust of authority, 
the contagious nature of enthusiasm, and other of 
the acute or chronic diseases of deliberative assem- 
blies. But which of these results is the more proba- 
ble, the correction or the contagion of evil, must 
depend on circumstances and grounds of expediency ; 
and thus we already find ourselves beyond the 
magic circle of the pure Reason, and within the 
sphere of the understanding and the prudence. Of 
this important fact Rousseau was by no means una- 
ware in his theory, though with gross inconsistency 
he takes no notice of it in his application of the 
theory to practice. He admits the possibility, he is 
compelled by History to allow even the prohahility, 
that the most numerous popular assemblies, n.iy even 
whole nations, may at times be hurried away by the 
same passions, and under the dominion of a common 
error. This will of all is linn of no more value, 
than the humors of any one individual: and must 
therefore be sacredly distinguished from the pure 
will which Hows from universal Reason. To this 
point then I entreat the Reader's particular attention : 
for in this distinction, established by Rousseau him- 
self between the Volonti de Tons and the Volenti 
generale, (i. e. between the collective will, and a 
casual overbalance of wills) the falsehood or nothing- 
ness of the whole system becomes manifest. For 
hence it follows, as an inevitable consequence, that 
all which is said in the Contrat Social of that sove- 
reign will, to which the right of universal legislation 
appertains, applies to no one Human Being, to no 
Society or assemblage of Human Beings, and least 
of all to the mixed multitude that makes up the 
PEOPLE: but entirely and exclusively to Reason 
itself, which, it is true, dwells in every man poten- 
tially, but actually and in perfect purity is found in no 
man and in no body of men. This distinction the 
latter disciples of Rousseau chose completely to for- 
get and, (a far more melancholy case !) the constituent 
legislators of France forgot it likewise. With a 
wretched parrotry they wrote and harangued with- 
out ceasing of the Voloyile generale — tlie inalienablt 

431 



422 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



sovereignly of the people : and by these high-sound- 
ing phrases led on the vain, ignorant, and intoxicated 
populace to wild excesses and wilder expectations, 
which entailing on them the bitterness of disappoint- 
ment cleared the way for military despotism, for the 
isatanic Government of Horror under the Jacobins, 
and of Terror under the Corsican. 

Luther lived long enough to see the consequences 
of the doctrines into which indignant pity and abstract 
ideas of right had hurried him — to see, to retract, and 
to oppose them. If the same had been the lot of 
Rousseau, I doubt not that his conduct would have 
been the same. In his whole system there is be- 
yond controvery much that is true and well reasoned, 
if only its application be not extended farther than 
the nature of the case permits. But then we shall 
find that little or nothing is won by it for the institu- 
tions of society : and least of all for the constitution 
of Governments, the Theory of which it was his wish 
to ground on it. Apply his principles to any case, in 
which the sacred and inviolable Laws of Morality 
are immediately interested, all becomes just and per- 
tinent. No power on earth can oblige me to act 
against my conscience. No magistrate, no monarch, 
no legislature, can without tyranny compel me to do 
anything which the acknowledged laws of God have 
forbidden me to do. So act that thou mayest be able, 
without involving any contradiction, to will that the 
maxim of thy conduct should be the law of all intel- 
ligent Beings — is the one universal and sufficient 
principle and guide of morality. And why? Be- 
cause the ohject of morality is not the outward act, 
but the internal maxim of our actions. And so far it 
is infallible. But with what show of Reason can we 
pretend, from a principle by which we are to deter- 
mine the purity of our motives, to deduce the form 
and matter of a rightful Government, the main office 
of which is to regulate the outward actions of parti- 
cular bodies of men, according to their particular cir- 
cumstances ? Can we hope "better of constitutions 
framed by ourselves, than of that which was given 
by Almighty Wisdom itself? The laws of the He- 
brew commonwealth, which flowed from the pure 
Reason, remain and are immutable ; but the regula- 
tions dictated by Prudence, though by the Divine 
prudence, and though given in thunder from the 
Mount, have passed away ; and while they lasted, 
were binding only for that one state, the particular 
circumstances of which rendered them expedient. 

Rousseau indeed asserts, that there is an inaliena- 
ble sovereignty inherent in every human being pos- 
sessed of Reason : and from this the framers of the 
constitution of 1791 deduce, that the people itself is 
its own sole rightful legislator, and at most dare only 
recede so far from its right as to delegate to chosen 
deputies the power of representing and declaring the 
general will. But this is wholly without proof: for 
it has already been fully shown, that according to the 
principle out of which this consequence is attempted 
to be drawn, it is not the actual man, but the abstract 
Reason alone, that is the sovereign and rightful Law- 
giver. The confusion of two things so different is so 
gross an error, that the Constituent Assembly could 



scarce proceed a step in their declaration of rights, 
without some glaring inconsistency. Children are 
excluded from all political power — are they not hu- 
man beings in whom the faculty of Reason resides ! 
Yes! but in them the faculty is not yet adequately 
developed. But are not gross ignorance, inveterate 
superstition, and the habitual tyranny of passion and 
sensuality, equal preventives of the developement, 
equal impediments to the rightful exercise of the 
Reason, as childhood and early youth ? Who would 
not rely on the judgment of a well-educated English 
lad, bred in a virtuous and enlightened family, in 
preference to that of a brutal Russian, who believes 
that he can scourge his wooden idol into good humor, 
or attributes to himself the merit of perpetual prayer, 
when he has fiistened the petitions, which his priest 
has written for him, on the wings of a windmill ? 
Again : women are likewise excluded — a full half, 
and that assuredly the most innocent, the most amia- 
ble half, of the whole human race, is excluded, and 
this too by a constitution which boasts to have no 
other foundations but those of universal Reason ? Is 
Reason then an affair of sex? No! but women are 
commonly in a state of dependence, and are not likely 
to exercise their Reason with freedom. Well ! and 
does not this ground of exclusion apply with equal or 
greater force to the poor, to the infirm, to men in em 
barrassed circumstances, to all in short whose main- 
tenance, be it scanty or be it ample, depends on the 
will of others ? How far are we to go ? Where 
must we stop? What classes should we admit? 
Whom must we disfranchise ? The objects, concern- 
ing whom we are to determine these questions, are 
all human beings and differenced from each other by 
degrees only, these degrees too oftentimes changing. 
Yet the principle on which the whole system rests is, 
that Reason is not susceptible of degree. Nothing 
therefore, which subsists wholly in degrees, the 
changes of which do not obey any necessary law, can 
be subjects of pure science, or determinable by mere 
Reason. For these things we must rely on our Un- 
derslandiyigs, enlightened by past experience and 
immediate observation, and determining our choice 
by comparisons of expediency. 

It is therefore altogether a mistaken notion, that 
the theory which would deduce the social Rights of 
Man and the sole rightful form of government from 
principles of Reason, involves a necessary preference 
of the democratic, or even the representative, consti- 
tutions. Accordingly, several of the French econo- 
mists, although devotees of Rousseau and the physio- 
cratic system, and assuredly not the least respectable 
of their party either in morals or in intellect; and 
these too, men who lived and wrote under the un- 
limited monarchy of France, and who were therefore 
well acquainted with the evils connected with that 
system ; did yet declare themselves for a pure mon- 
archy in preference to the aristocratic, the popular, 
or the mixed {i)rm. These men argued, that no other 
laws being allowable but those which are demonstra- 
bly just, and founded in the simplest ideas of Reason, 
and of which every man's reason is the competent 
judge, it is indifferent whether one man, or one or 
432 



THE FRIEND. 



4S{ 



more assemblies of men, give ibrm ami publicity to 
Ihcin. For being matters t)f pure and simple science, I 
tliey require no ex|)erience in order to sec iheir Truth, 
and among an enlightened people, by whom this sys- 
tem had been once solemnly adopted, no sovereign 
would dare to make other laws than those of Reason. 
'J'licy further contend, that if the people were not en- 
ligliieiied, a purely jiopular govenment could not co- 
exist with tiiis system of absolute justice; and if it 
were adeipiately enlightened, the influence of public 
opinion would supply the place of formal representa- 
tion, while Ihe form oi'the government would be in 
harmony with the unity and simplicity of its princi- 
ples. This they entitle Ic Vespotisme hgal sous I' Em- 
pire de VEiidence. (The best statement of the the- 
ory thus modilied, may be found in Mercier de la Ri- 
viere, Vordre iiaturel et esseriliel des societts polidques.) 
FVom the proofs adduced in the preceding paragraph, 
to w hich many others might be added, I have no hesi- 
tation in airirming that this latter party are the more 
consistent reasoners. 

It is worthy of remark, that the influence of these 
writings contributed greatly, not indeed to raise the 
present emperor, but certainly to reconcile a numer- 
ous class of politicians to his unlimited authority : and 
as far as his lawless passion lor war and conijuest al- 
lows him to govern according to any principles, he 
favors those of the physiocratic philosophers. His 
early education must have given him a predilection 
for a theory conducted throughout with mathematical 
precision ; its very simplicity promised the readiest 
and most commodious machine for despotism, for it 
moulds a nation into as calculable a power as an 
army ; while the stern and seeming greatness of the 
whole, and its mock-elevation above human feelings, 
flattered his pride, hardened his conscience, and aid- 
ed the eflJ)rts of self-delusion. Reason is the sole 
sovereign, the only rightful legislator: but Reauon to 
act on man must be impersonated. The Providence 
which had so marvellously raised and supported him, 
had marked him out for the representative of Reason, 
and had armed him with irresistible force, in order to 
realize ils laws. In Ilim therefore Might becomes 
Right, and his cause and that of destiny (or as the 
wretch now chooses to word it, exchanging blind 
nonsense for staring blasphemy) his cause and the 
cause of God are one and the same. Excellent pos- 
tulate (or a choleric and self-willed tyrant! What 
avails the impoverishment of a few thousand mer- 
chants and manufacturers? What even the general 
wretchedness of millions of perishable men, lor a 
.short generation ? Should these stand in the way of 
the chosen conqueror, the " Innovnlor Mimdi, el Stu- 
por Sffcidorum," or prevent a constitution of things, 
which erected on intellectual and perfect foundations, 
"groweth not old," but like the eternal Justice, of 
which It is the living image, 

" may despise 

The strokes of Fate, and Bee the World's last hour!" 

For Justice, austere unrelenting Justice, is every 
where held up as the one thing needful: and the 
only duty of the citizen, in fulfilling which he obeys 
all the laws, is not to encroach on another's sphere 



of action. The greatest jxissible happiness of a peo- 
ple is not, according to this system, the object of a 
governor ; but to preserve the freedom of all, by co- 
ercing within the requisite bounds the freedom of 
each. Whatever a government does more than this, 
comes of evil: and its best employment is the repeal 
of laws and regulations, not the establishment of them. 
Each man is the best judge of his own happiness, 
and to himself must it therefore be entrusted. Re- 
move all the interferences of [Xjsitive statutes, all mo- 
nopoly, all bounties, all prohibitions, and all encour- 
agements of importation and exportation, of particular 
growth and imrticular manufactures: let the Reve 
niies of the State be taken at once from the Produce 
of the Soil; and all things will find their level, al^ 
irregularities will correct each other, and an inde- 
structible cycle of harmonious motions t^ike place in 
the moral eiiually as in the natural world. The bu- 
siness of the Governor is to watch incessantly, that 
the State shall remain comiwscd of individuals, act- 
ing as individuals, by which alone the freedom of all 
can be secured. Its duty is to take care that itself 
remain the sole collective power, and that all the 
citizens should enjoy the same rights, and without 
distinction be subject to the same duties. 

Splendid promises! Can any thing appear more 
equitable than the last proposition, the equality of 
rights and duties? Can any thing be conceived more 
simple in the idea? But the execution — ? let the 
four or five quarto volumes of the Conscript Code be 
the comment! Put as briefly as pfissible 1 shall prove, 
that this system, as an exclusive total, is under any 
form impracticable; and that if it were realized, and 
as far as it were realized, it would necessarily lead 
to general barbarism and the most grinding oppres- 
sion; and that the final result of a general attempt to 
introduce it, must bo a military despotism inconsistent 
with the peace and safety of mankind. That Reason 
should be our guide and governor is an undeniable 
Truth, and all our notion of right and wrong is built 
thereon: for the whole moral natureof man originated 
and subsists in his Reason. P'rom Reason alone can 
we derive the principles which our Understandings 
are to apply, the Ideal to which by means of our Un- 
derstandings we should endeavor to approximate. 
This however gives no proof that Reason alone ought 
to govern and direct human beings, either as Individ- 
uals or as Slates. It ought not to do this, because it 
cannot. The Law^s of Reason are unable to satisfy 
the first condifions of Human Society. We will ad- 
mit that the shortest code of law is the best, and that 
the citizen finds himself most at ease where the Go- 
vernment least intermeddles with his afl^iirs, and 
confines its efforts to the preservation of public tran- 
quillity — wo will suffer this to pass at present undis- 
puted, though the examples of England, and before 
the late events, of Holland and Switzerland, (surely 
the three haj^piest nations of the world) to which per- 
haps we might add the major part of the Ibrmer Ger- 
man free towns, furnish stubborn liicts in presump- 
tion of the contrary — yet still the proof is wanting 
that the first and most general ajiplications and exei 
tions of the power of man can be definitely regulated 
433 



424 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



by Reason unaided by the positive and conventional 
laws in the formation of which the Understanding 
must be our guide, and which become just because 
they happen to be expedient. 

The chief object for which men first formed them- 
eelves into a State was not the protection of iheir 
lives but of their property. Where the nature of the 
soil and climate precludes all property but personal, 
and permits that only in its simplest forms, as in 
Greenland, men remain in the domestic state and 
form Neighborhoods, but not Governments. And in 
North America, the Chiefs appear to exercise govern- 
aient in those tribes only which possess individual 
anded property. Among the rest the Chief is their 
General ; but government is exercised only in Fami- 
lies by the Fathers of Families. But where individ- 
ual landed property exists, there must be inequality 
of property: the nature of the earth and the nature 
of the mind unite to make the contrary impossible. 
But to suppose the Land the property of the State, 
and the labor and the produce to be equally divided 
among all the Members of the State, involves more 
than one contradiction : for it could not subsist with- 
out gross injustice, except where the Reason of all 
and of each was absolute master of the selfish pas- 
sions of sloth, envy, &c. : and yet the same state 
would preclude the greater part of the means by 
which the Reason of man is developed. In what- 
ever state of society you would place it, from the 
most savage to the most refined, it would be found 
equally unjust and impossible ; and were there a race 
of men, a coimtry,and a climate, that permitted such 
an order of things, the same causes would render all 
Government superfluous. To properly, therefore, and 
to its inequalities, all human laws directly or indi- 
rectly relate, which would not be equally laws in the 
state of Nature. Now it is impossible to deduce the 
Right of Property* from pure Reason. The utmost 
which Reason could give would be a property in the 
forms of things, as far as the forms were produced by 
individual power. In the matter it could give no 
property. We regard angels, and glorified spirits as 
Beings of pure Reason : and whoever thought of pro- 
perty in Heaven? Even the simplest and most moral 
form of ii, nmnely. Marriage, (we know from the 
highest authority) is excluded from the state of pure 
reason. Rousseau himself expressly admits, that Pro- 
perty cannot be deduced from the Laws of Reason 
and Nature ; and he ought therefore to have admitted 
nt the same time, that his whole theory was a thing 
of air. In the most respectable point of view he 
could regard his system as analogous to Geometry. 
(If indeed it be purely scientific, how could it be 
otherwise?) Geometry holds forth an Ideal which 
can never be fully realized in Nature, even because 



* I mean, practically and with the inequalities inseparable 
from the actuitl existence of Property. Abstractedly, the 
Right to Property is dediicible from the Free-agency of man. 
If to act freely be a Right, a sphere of action must be so too. 



it is Nature : because bodies are more than extension, 
and to pure extension of space, only the mathematical 
theorems wholly correspond. In the same manner the 
moral laws of the intellectual world, as far as they are 
deducible from pure Intellect, are never perfectly apv 
plicable to our mixed and sensitive nature, because 
Man is something besides Reason ; because his Reason 
never acts by itself, but must clothe itself in the sub- 
stance of individual Understanding and specific Incli- 
nation, in order to become a reality and an object of 
consciousness and experience. It will be seen here- 
after that together with this, the key-stone of the arch, 
the greater part and the most specious of the popular 
arguments in favor of universal suffrage, fall in and 
are crushed. I will mention one only at present. 
Major Cartwright, in his deduction of the Rights of 
the Subject from Principles, "not susceptible of proof, 
being self-evident — if one of which be violated all 
are shaken," affirms (Principle 98lh ; though the 
greater part indeed are moral aphorisms, or blank 
assertions, not scientific principles) " that a power 
which ought never to be used ought never to exist." 
Again he affirms that " Laws to bind all must be as- 
sented to by all, and consequently every man, even 
the poorest, has an equal right to suffrage :" and this 
for an addiiional reason, because " all without excep- 
tion are capable of feeling happiness or misery, ac- 
cordingly as they are well or ill-governed." But are 
they not then capable of feeling happiness or misery 
according as they do or do not possess the means of a 
comfortable subsistence ? and who is the judge, what 
is a comfortable subsistence, but the man himself? 
Might not then, on the same or equivalent principles, 
a Leveller conslruct a right to equal property ? The 
inhabitants of this country without property form, 
doubtless, a great majority : each of these has a right 
to a suffrage, and the richest man to no more : and the 
object of this suffrage is, that each individual may 
secure himself a true efficient Representative of his 
Will. Here then is a legal power of abolishing or 
equalizing property: and according to himself, a 
power which ought never to be used ought not to 
exist. 

Therefore, unless he carries his system to the 
whole length of common labor and common posses- 
sion, a right to universal suffrage cannot exist ; but if 
not to universal suffrage, there can exist no natural 
right to suffrage at all. In whatever way he would 
obviate this objection, he must admit expedience 
founded on experience and particular circumstances, 
which will vary in every different nation, and in the 
same nation at different times, as the maxim of all 
Legislation and the ground of all Legislative Power. 
For his universal principles, as for as ihey are princi- 
ples and universal, necessarily suppose uniform and 
perfect subjects, which are to be f )nnd in the Ideas 
of pure Geometry and (I trust) in the Realities of 
Heaven, but never, never in creatures of flesh and 
blood. 



434 



^Ut iFvicntr. 



ESSAY I.* 

ON THE ERRORS OF PARTV SPIRIT: 
EXTREMES MEET. 



OR 



" And if wns no wonder if some good and innocent men, es- 
I>eciully such as he (l.ishtfuol) who wns iienerally more 
c.'UCiTned nboul whut wns done in Judea many centurii-g 
net), than what was transaciod in his own lime in his own 
Ciiuntry — it is no wonder it" some such were tor awhile 
borne uwuy to the u|iprovul of opinions which they ul'ter 
more sedate reflection disowned. Yot his innoceiicy from 
any self-in;ercst or design, to(!ethcr with his learning, so- 
cured him fiom the extravagancies of demni,'ogue3, the peo- 
ple's oracles." LIGHTFOOT'S IVorUs, Publisher's 

Preface to the Reader. 

I HAVE never seen Major Cartwright, much less en- 
joy the honor of his acquaintance ; but I know 
enotigh of his character from the testimony of others 
and from his own writings, to respect his talents, and 
revere the purity of his motives. I am fully per- 
suaded, that there are few hetler men, few more fer- 
vent or disinterested adherents of their country or 
the laws of their country, of whatsoever things are 
lovely, of whatsoever things are honorable ! It would 
give me great pain should I be stipjiosed to have in- 
Irudaced, disrespectfully, a natne, which from my 
enrly youth I never heard mentioned without a feel- 
ing of affectionate admiration. I have indeed quoted 
from this venerable patriot, as from the most respect- 
able English advocate for the Theory which derives 
the rights of government, and the duties of obedi- 
ence to it, exclusively from principles of pure Rea- 
son. It was of consequence to my cause that I 
should not be thought to have been waging war 
against a straw image of my own setting up, or even 
against a foreign idol that had neither worshippers 
nor advocates in our own country; and it was not 
less my object to keep my discii.s.«ion aloof from those 
passions, which more unjiopular names might have 
excite<l. I therefore introduce the name of Cart- 
wright, as I had previously done that of Luther, in 
order to give every fair advantage to a theory, which 
I thought it of imjwrtance to confute ; and as an in- 
slatice that though the system might be made tempt- 
ing to the V'ulgar, yet that, taken immixedand entire, 
it was chiefly fascinating for lofty and imaginative 
spirits, who mistook their own virtues and jxjwers for 
the average character of men in general. 



• With this Essay commences the second volume of the 
En^lisli tililion of T/ic Friend, to which the followinR quo- 
tation is pn fi.YeU as a motto : 

Insolens, mehercule foret, omnia urbis alicujus aidificia di- 
ruere, ad hoc solum ut, iisdem postcn meliori ordine ct forma 
extructis, ejus platca; pulchiores evaderent. .\t certo non in- 
solens eai dominum unius domus ail illnm dostruendam adhor- 
larj, ul cjis loco moliorem a;rfificet. Immo sa^pe multi hoc 
fncero co^unter nempe cum a^des hahent veluslate jam fatis- 
cenies, vel qua; inlirmi" fundament is supersirucliB ruinain 

minunlur. CARTliSlUS dc Mcthodo. 

56 



Neither by fair statements nor by fair reasoning, 
should I ever give offence to Major Cartwright him- 
self, nor to his judicious friends. If I am in danger 
of odending them, it must arise from one or other of 
two causes; either that I have falsely represented his 
principles, or his motives and the tendency of his 
writings. In the book from which I quoted , ' The 
People's Barrier against undue Influence, &c." the 
oidy one of Major Cartwright's which I posses.s) I am 
conscious that there are six foundations stated of con- 
stitutional Government. Therefore, it may be urged, 
the .Author cannot be justly classed with those who 
deduce our social Rights and correlative Duties ex- 
clusively from principles of pure Reason, or unavoid- 
able conclusions from such. My answer is ready. 
Of these six foundations three are but different words 
for one and the same, viz. the Law of Reason, the 
Law of God, and first Principles: and the three that 
remain cannot be taken as different, inasmuch as they 
are afterwards affirmed to be of no validity excejit as 
far as they are evidently deduced from the former ; 
that is, from the Principles implanted by God in the 
universal Reason of man. These three latter foun- 
dations are, the general customs of the realm, parti- 
cular customs, and acts of Parliament. It might be 
supiwsed that the Author had not used his terms in 
the precise and single sense in which they are defined 
in my former Essay: and that self-evident Principles 
may be meant to include the dictates of manifest 
Expedience, the Inductions of the Understanding as 
well as the Prescripts of the pure Reason. But no I 
INIajor Cartwright has guarded against the possibility 
of this interpretation, and has expressed himself as de- 
cisively, and with as much warmth, against founding 
Governments on grounds of Expedience, as the Edi- 
tor of The F'riend has done against founding Morality 
on the same. Euclid himself cotdd not have defined 
his words more sternly within the limit of pure Sci- 
ence : For instance, see the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th pri- 
mary Rules. "A Principle is a manifest and simple 
proposition comprehending a certain Truth. Princi- 
ples are the proof of every thing : but are not sus- 
ceptible of external proof, being self-evident. If one 
Principle be violated, all are shaken. Against him, 
who denies Principles, all dispute is useless, and rea- 
son unintelligible, or disallowed, so far as he denies 
them. The Laws of Nature are immtitable." Nei- 
ther could Rousseau himself (or his predecessors, the 
fifth-Monarchy Men) have more nakedly or emphati- 
cally identified the foundations of government in the 
concrete with those of religion and morality in the 
abstract: see Major Cartwright's Primary Rules from 
31 to 39, and from 44 to 83. In these it is affirmed : 
that the legislative Rights of Every Citizen are in- 
herent in his nature; that being natural Rights they 
must be equal in all men ; that a natural right is that 
right which a Citizen claims as being a Man, and 
435 



426 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



that it hath no other foundation but his Personality or 
Reason ; that Property can neither increase or modify 
any legislative Right; that every one Man, however 
rich, to have any more than one Vote, is against na- 
tural Justice, and an evil measure ; that it is better 
for a nation to endure all adversities, than to assent 
to one evil measure ; that to be free is to be governed 
by Laws, to which we have ourselves assented, either 
in Person or by Representatives, for whose election 
we have actually voted ; that all not having a right 
of Suffrage are Slaves, and that a vast majority of 
the People of Great Britain are Slaves ! To prove 
the total coincidence of Major Cartwright's Theory 
with that which I have stated (and I trust confuted) 
m the preceding Number, it only remains for me to 
prove, that. the former, equally with the latter, con- 
founds the sufficiency of the conscience to make 
every person a moral and amenable Being, with the 
sufficiency of judgment and experience requisite to 
the exercise oi political Right. A single quotation 
will place this out af all doubt, which from its length 
I shall insert in a Note.* 

Great stress, indeed, is laid on the authority of our 
ancient Laws, both in this and the other works of our 
patriotic author; and whatever his system may be, it 
is impossible not to feel, that the author himself pos- 
sesses the heart of a genuine Englishman. But still 
his system can neither be changed nor modified by 
these appeals : for among the primary maxims, which 
form the ground-work of it, we are informed not only 



* " But the equality (observe, tliat Major Cartwfight is here 
speaking of the natural right to universal SuftVage and con- 
sequently of the universal right of eligibility, as well as of 
election, independent of character or property)— the equality 
and dignity of human nature in all men, whether rich nr poor, 
is placed in the highest point of view by St. Paul, when he 
reprehends the Corinthian believers for their litigations one 
with another, in the Courts of Law where unbelievers pre- 
sided ; and as an argument of the competency of all men to 
judge for themselves, he alludes to that elevation in the king- 
dom of heaven which is promised to every man who shall be 
virtuous, in the language of that time, a Saint. Do ye not 
know,' says he, ' that the Saints sliall judge ihe world 7 And 
if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to 
judge the smallest matters 7 Know ye not that ye shall judge 
the angels'! How much more things that pertain to this 
life?' If after such authorities, such manifestations of truth 
as these, any Christian, through those prejudices which are 
theefFeclsof long habits of injustice and oppression, and teach 
us to ' despise the poor,' shall still think it right to exclude 
that part of Ihe commonalty, consisting of ' Tradesmen, Jir- 
tificers, and Laborers,' or any of them, from voting in elec- 
tions of members to serve in parliament, I must sincerely 
lament such a persuasion as a misfortune both to himself and 
his country. And if any man, (not having given himself the 
trouble to consider whether or not the Scripture be an auhor- 
ity, but who, nevertheless, is a friend to the rights of mankind) 
upon grounds of mere prudence, policy, or expediency, shall 
think it advisable to go against the whole current of our con- 
Blilutional and law maxims, by which it is self-evident that 
every man, as being a man, is created free, born to freedom, 
and, without it, a Thing, a Slaiie, a Beast ,• and shall contend 
for drawing a line of exclusion at freeholders of forty po^inds 
a year, or forty shillings a year, or house-holders, or pot- 
boilers, so that all who are below that line shall not have a 
vote in the election of a legislative guardian, — which is taking 
from a citizen the power even of self-preservation,— sueh a 
man, I venture to say, is bolder than he who wrestled with the 
angel; for he wrestles with God himself, who established 
those principles in the eternal lutes of nature, never to be 
violated, by any of his Creatures." 



that Law in the abstract is the perfection of Reason 
but that the Law of God and the Law of the Land 
are all one ! What ? The statutes against Witches ? 
Or those bloody Statutes against Papists, the abolition 
of which gave rise to the infamous Riots in 1780? 
Or (in the author's own opinion) the Statutes of Di& 
franchisement and for making Parliaments septen- 
nial ? — Nay ! but (Principle 28) " an unjust Law is no 
Law :" and (P. 22.) against the Law of Reason neither 
prescription, statute, nor custom, may prevail ; and if 
any such be brought against it, they be not prescrip- 
tions, statute, nor customs, but things void: and (P. 
29.) " What the Parliament doth shall be holdeii for 
7}aiight, when.soever it shall enact that which is con- 
trary to a natural Right!" We dare not suspect a 
grave writer of such egregious trifling, as to mean no 
more by these assertions, than that what is wrong is 
not right ; and if more than this be meant, it must be 
that the subject is not bound to obey any Act of Par- 
liament, which according to his own conviction en- 
trenches on a Principle of Natural Right; which na- 
tural Rights are, as we have seen, not confined to the 
man in his individual capacity, but are made to con- 
fer universal legislative privileges on every subject 
of every state, and of the extent of which every man 
is competent to judge, who is comjietent to be tlie 
object of Law at all, i. e. every man who has not lost 
his Reason. 

In the statement of his principles therefore, I have 
not misrepresented Major Cartwright. Have I then 
endeavored to connect public odium with his honored 
name, by arraigning his motives, or the tendency of 
his Writings ? The tendency of his Writings, in my 
inmost conscience I believe to be perfectly harmless, 
and I dare cite them in confirmation of the opinions 
which it was the object of my introductory Essays to 
establish, and as an additional proof, that no good man 
communicating what he believes to be the Truth fiir 
the sake of Truth and according to the rules of Con- 
science, will he finmd to have acted injuriously to the 
peace or interests of Society. The veneiable Slate- 
Moralist (for this is his true character, and in this 
title is conveyed the whole error of his syslem) is in- 
capable of aiding his arguments by the poignant con- 
diment of personal slander, incapable of appealing to 
the envy of the mullitude by bitter declamation 
against the follies and oppressions of the higher 
classes! He would shrink with horror from the 
thought of adding a false and unnatural influence to 
the cause of Truth and Justice, by details of present 
calamity or immediate suffering, fitted to excite tlie 
fury of the multitude, or by promises of turning the 
current of the public Revenue into the channels! of 
individual Distress and Poverty, so as to bribe the 
populace by selfish hopes I It does not belong to men 



t I must again remind the Reader, that these Essays were 
written October, I80P. If Major Cartwright, however, since 
then acted in a different spirit, and tampered personally with 
the distresses, and consequent irritability of the ignorant, the 
inconsistency is bis, not the Author's. If what I then be- 
lieved and avowed should now appear a severe satire in the 
shape of a false prophecy, anyshiime I might feel for my lack 
of penetration would be lost in tJie sincerity of my regret. 
436 



THE FRIEND. 



427 



of his characlcr to delude the uninstructcil into tlie 
belief that their shortest way of obtaining the good 
tilings of tiiis life, is to commence busy Politicians, 
instead of remaining industrious Lnlxirers. He 
knows, and acts on the knowleilge, that it is the duly 
of the eidiiihieucd I'liilanthnipist to plead for the 
the poor and ignorant, not to them. 

iVoI — From Works written and published under 
the control of austere principles, and at the impulse 
of a lofty and generous enthusiasm, from Works ren- 
dered attractive only by the fervor of sincerity, and 
iin(X)sing only by the Majcsttt of Plain Dtulitig, no 
danger will be apprehended by a wise man, no of- 
fence received by a good man. I could almost ven- 
ture to warra?it our Patriot's publications innoxious, 
from the single circumstance of their perfect freedom 
from jursonal themes in this age of ff.rson.vlity, 
this age of literary and political Goggiping, when 
the meanest insects are worshipped with a sort of 
Egyptian superstition, if only the brainless head be 
atoned for bv tlie sting of ^crsoMo/ malignity in the 
tail ; when the most vapid satires have become the 
objects of a keen public interest purely from the 
number of contemporary characters named in the 
patch-work Notes (which possess, however, the com- 
parative merit of being more poetical than the Text,) 
and because, to increase the stimulus, the Author has 
sagaciously left his own name for whispers and con- 
jectures! — In an age, when even Sermons are pub- 
lished with a double Appendix stuffed with names — 
in a generation so transformed from the characteris-- 
tic reserve of Britons, that from the ephemeral sheet 
of a London Newspaper to the everlasting Scotch 
Professorial Quarto, almost every publication exhibits 
<ir flatters the epidemic distemper : that the very 
•' Last year's Rebuses" in the Lady's Diary, are an- 
swered in a serious Elegy " On my Father's Death," 
with the name and habitat of the elegiac CEdipus 
subscribed: — and "other ingenious solutions were 
likewise giiten" to the said Rebuses — not, as heretofore, 
by Crito, Philander, A B, X Y, &c.. but by fifty or 
sixty plain English surnames at full length, with their 
several places of abode ! In an age, when a bashful 
Fhilulethes or Phileleutheros is as rare on the title- 
pages and among the signatures of our Magazines, as 
a real name used to be in the days of our shy and 
notice-shunning grandfathers! When (more exquisite 
than all) I see an Epic Poem (Spirits of Maro and 
RIaeonldes, make ready to welcome your new com- 
peer!) advertised with the special recommendation, 
that the said Epic Poe.m contains more than a hun- 
dred names of living persons! No — if Works as 
abhorrent, as those of Major Cartwright, from all un- 
worlhy provocatives to the vanity, the envy, and the 
selfish passions of mankind, could acquire a sufTicient 
influence on the public mind to be mischievous, the 
jilans proposed in his pamphlets woulil cease to be 
nliogethor visionary: though even then they could 
not ground their claims to actual adoption on self-evi- 
dent principles of pure Reason, but on the happy ac- 
cident of the virtue and good sense of that public, 
for whose suffrages they were presented. (Indeed 
with Major Cartwright's plans I have no present 
N n 



concern ; but w ith the principles, on which he 
grounds the obligations to ailopt them.) 

But I must not sacrifice Truth to my reverence lor 
individual purity of intention. The tendency of one 
good man's writings is altogether a difl!erent thing 
from the tendency of the system il.self, when seasoned 
and served up for the unreasoning multitude, as it 
has been by men whose names I would not honor by 
writing them in the same sentence with Major Cart- 
wright's. For this system has two sides, and holds 
out very different attractions to ils admirers that ad- 
vance towards it from difllerent points of the com- 
pass. It possesses qualities, that can scarcely fail of 
winning over to its banners a numerous host of shal- 
low heads and restless tempers, men who without 
learning (or, as one of my Friends has forcibly ex- 
pressed it, " Strong BooJi-mindrdiiess") live as alms- 
folks on the opinions of their contemporaries, and who, 
(well pleased to exchange the humility of regret for 
the self-complacent feelings of contempt) reconcile 
themselves to the sans-culotterie of their Ignorance, 
bv scoffing at the useless fox-brush of Pedantry.* 
The attachment of this numerous class is owing nei- 
ther to the solidity and depth o{ foundation in this 
theory, or to the strict coherence of its arguments; 
and still less to any genuine reverence of humanity 
in the abstract. The physiocratic system promises 
to deduce all things, and everything relative to law 
and government, with malhemalical exactness and 
certainty, from a few individual and self-evident 
principles. But who so dull, as not to be capable of 
apprehending a simple self-evident principle, and of 
following a short demonstration ? By this system, 
THE SYSTEM, as its admirers were wont to call it, even 
■IS they named the writer who first applied it in sys- 
tematic detail to the whole constitution and adminis- 
tration of civil policy, D. Quesnoy to wit, le Docteur, 
or THE Te.^cher ; by tliis system the observation of 
Times, Places, relative Bearings, History, national 
Customs and Character, is rendered superfluous : all, 
in siiort, which according to the common notion makes 
Ihe attainment of legislative prudence a work of dif- 
ficulty and long-continued efTort, even for the acutcst 
and most comprehensive minds. The cautious bal 
ancing of comparative advantages, ihe painful cal 
culation of forces and counter-forces, the preparation 
of circumstances, the lynx-eyed watching for oppor- 
tunities, are all superseded ; and by the magic ora- 
cles of certain axioms and definitions it is revealed 
how the world with all its concerns should be mech- 
anized, and then let go on of itself. All the positive 



• " He (Charles Brandon, Dvkc of SulTolk) knowing that 
learning halh no enemy but Ipnornnce, did suspect alw-nys 
Iho want of it in those men who derided the hahit of il in 
others: like the Fox in the Pablu. who being wilhout a Tail, 
would persuade others to cut olT theirs as a hurlhun. But ho 
liked well the I'liihisopher's division of men into three ranks 
—some who knew pood and were willinpr to tench others ; 
these he said were like Gods among men— others who though 
they know not much yet wore willing to learn ; those he said 
were like Men anioni,' Beasts— and some who knew not good 
and yet despised such as should teach them ; those he es- 
teemed as Beasts among Men." 

Lloyd's State Worthies, p. 33. 

437 



428 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Institutions and Regulations, whicii the prudence of 
our ancestors had provided, are declared to be erro- 
neous or interested perversions of the natural rela- 
tions of man : and the whole is delivered over to the 
faculty, which all men possess equally, i. e. the com- 
mon sense or universal Reason. The science of Poli- 
tics, it is said, is but the application of the common 
sense, which every man possesses, to a subject in 
which every man is concerned. To be a Musician, 
an Orator, a Painter, a Poet, an Architect, or even to 
be a good Mechanist, presupposes Genius ; to be an 
excellent Artizan or Mechanic, requires more than 
an average degree of Talent ; but to be a legislator 
requires nothing but common Sense. The commonest 
numan intellect therefore suffices for a perfect insight 
.n the whole science of civil Polity, and qualifies the 
possessor to sit in judgment on the constitution and 
administration of his own country, and of all other 
nations. This must needs be agreeable tidings to the 
great mass of mankind. There is no subject, which 
men in general like better to harangue on, than Poli- 
tics : none, the deciding on which more flatters the 
sense of self-importance. For as to what Doctor 
Johnson calls plebeian envy, I do not believe that the 
mass of men are justly chargeable with it in their 
political feelings ; not only because envy is seldom 
excited except by definite and individual objects, but 
etiil more because it is a painful passion, and not 
likely to co-exist with the high delight and self-com- 
placency with which the harangues on States and 
Statesmen, Princes and Generals, are made and lis- 
tened to in ale-house circles or promiscuous public 
meetings. A certain portion of this is not merely de- 
sirable, but necessary in a free country. Heaven 
forbid! that the most ignorant of my countrymen 
should be deprived of a subject so well fitted to 

" impart 

An hour's importance to the poor man's heart I" 

But a system which not only flatters the pride and 
vanity of men, but which in so plausible and intelli- 
gible a manner persuades them, not that this is wrong 
and that that ought to have been managed otherwise ; 
or that Mr. X. is worth a hundred of Mr. Y. as a Min- 
ister or Parliament Man, &c. &c. ; but that all is 
wrong and mistaken, nay, all most unjust and wick- 
ed, and that every man is competent, and in contempt 
of all rank and property, on the mere title of his Per- 
sonalitij, possesses the Right, and is under the most 
solemn moral oUigation, to give a helping hand to- 
ward overthrowing it : this confusion of political with 
religious claims, this transfer of the rights of Religion 
disjoined from the austere duties of self-denial, with 
which religious rights exercised in their proper sphere 
cannot fail to be accompanied ; and not only disjoin- 
ed from self-restraint, but united with the indulgence 
of those passions (self-will, love of power, &c.,) which 
it is the principal aim and hardest task of Religion to 
correct and restrain — this, I say, is altogether differ- 
ent from the Village Politics of yore, and may be 
pronounced alarming and of dangerous tendency by 
the boldest Advocates of Reform not less consistently 
than the most timid eschewers of popular disturbance. 
Still, however, the system hati its golden side for 



the noblest minds: and I should act the part of a 
coward, if I disguised my convictions, that the errors 
of the Aristocratic party were full as gross, and tar 
less excusable. Instead of contenting themselves 
with opposing the real blessings of English law to the 
splendid promises of untried theory, too large a part 
of those, who called themselves Anti-Jacobins, did all 
in their power to suspend those blessings ; and thus 
furnished new arguments to the advocates of innova- 
tion, when they should have been anivvering the old 
ones. The most prudent, as well as the most honest 
mode of defending the existing arrangements, would 
have been, to have candidly admitted what could not 
with truth be denied, and then to have shown that, 
though the things complained of were evils, they 
were necessary evils; or if they were removable, yet 
that the consequences of the heroic medicines recom- 
mended by the Revolutionists would be far more 
dreadful than the disease. Now either the one or 
the other point, by the double aid of History and a 
sound Philosophy, they might have established with 
a certainty little short of demonstration, and with such 
colors and illustrations as would have taken strong 
hold of the very feelings which had attached to the 
democratic system all the good and valuable men of 
the party. But instead of this they precluded the 
possibility of being listened to even by the gentlest 
and most ingenuous among the friends of the French 
Revolution, denying or attempting to palliate facts, 
that were equally notorious and unjustifiable, and 
supplying the lack of brain by an overfiow of gall. 
While they lamented with tragic outcries the injured 
Monarch and the exiled Noble, they displayed the 
most disgusting insensibility to the privations, suffer- 
ings, and manifold oppressions of the great mass of 
the Continental population, and a blindness or cal- 
lousness still more offensive to the crimes* and unut- 
terable abominations of their oppressors. Not only 
was the Bastile justified, but the Spanish Inquisition 
itself— -and this in a pamphlet passionately extolled 
and industriously circulated by the adherents of the 
then ministry. Thus, and by their infatuated pane- 
gyrics on the former state of France, they played into 
the hands of their worst and most dangerous antago- 
nists. In confounding the conditions of the English 
and the French peasantry, and in quoting the author- 
ities of Milton, Sidney, and their immortal compeers, 
as applicable to the present times and the existing go- 
vernment, the Demagogues appeared to talk only the 
same language as the Anti-jacobins themselves em- 
ployed. For if the vilest calumnies of obsolete big- 
ots were applied against these great men by the one 
party, with equal plausibility might their authorities 
be adduced, and their arguments for increasing the 
power of the people be re-applied to the existing go- 
vernment, by the other. If the most disgusting forms 
of despotism were spoken of by the one in the same 
respectful language as the executive power of ou 

* I do not mean the Sovereigns, but the old Nobility of boih 
Germany and France. The extravagantly false and flattering 
picture, which Burke gave of the French Nobility and Hier- 
archy, has always appeared to me the greatest defect of his, 
ia so many respects, invaluable Work. 

438 



THE FRIEND. 



429 



own country, what wonder if the irritated partizans 
of the other were able to impose on the populace the 
converse of the proposition, and to conloiuui the exe- 
cutive branch of the Encrlish sovereignly with the 
despotisms of less happy lands ? The first duly of a 
wise advocate is to convince his opponents, tiiat he 
understands their arguments and sympatlnzes with 
their just feehncs. But instead of this, these pretend- 
ed Constitutionalists recurred to the language of in- 
sult, and to measures of j«?rsecution. In order to op- 
|K>se Jacobinism, they imitated it in its worst features ; 
HI personal slander, in illegal violence, and even in 
the thirst for blood. They justified ihe corruptions 
of the state in the same spirit of sophistry, by the 
same vague arguments of general Kcason. and the 
same disregartl of ancient ordinances and established 
opinions, with which the state itself had been attack- 
ed by the Jacobins. The wages of state-dependence 
were represented as sacred as the properly won by 
industry or derived from a long line of ancestors. 

Ft was, indeed, evident to thinking men, that both 
parties were playing the same game with different 
counters. If the Jacobins ran wild with the Rights 
of Man, and the abstract sovereignly of the people, 
their antagonists flew ofT as extravagantly from the 
sober good sense of our forefathers, and idolized as 
mere an al)straction in the Rights of Sovereigns. 
iVor was this confined to Sovereigns. They defend- 
ed the exemptions and privileges of all privileged 
orders on the presumption of their inalienable right 
to them, however inexpedient they might have been 
found, as universally and atistraetly as if these privi- 
leges had been decreed by the Supreme Wisdom, 
mstead of being the offspring of chance or violence, 
or the inventions of human prudence. Thus, while 
they deemed themselves defending, they were in 
reality blackening and degrading the uninjurious and 
useful privileges of our English nobility, which 
(thank Heaven!) rest on nobler and securer grounds. 
Thus too, the necessity of compensations for de- 
throned princes was affirmed as familiarly, as if 
kingdoms had been private estates : and no more 
disapprobation was expressed at the transfer of five 
or ten millions of men from one proprietor to another, 
than of as many score head of cattle. This most de- 
grading and superannuated superstition, or rather 
this ghost of a defunct absurdity raised up by the 
necromancy of a violent re-action (such as the ex- 
treme of one system is sure to occasion in the ad- 
herents of its opposite) was more than once allowed 
to regulate our measures in the conduct of a war on 
which the independence of the British empire and 
the progressive civihzation of all mankind depended. 
I could mention possessions of paramount and indis- 
pensable importance to first-rale national interests, 
the nominal sovereign of which had delivered up all 
his sea-ports and strong-holds to the French, and 
maintained a French army in his dominions, and had 
therefore, by the law of nations, made his territories 
French dependencies — which possessions were not to 
be touched, though the natural inhabitants were 
eager to place themselves under our permanent pro- 
tection — and why ? — They were the property of the 



king of ! All the grandeur and majesty of the 

law of nations, which taught our ancestors to distin- 
guish between a European sovereign and the miser- 
able despots of oriental barbarism, and to consider 
the former as the representative of the nation which 
ho governed, and as inextricably connected with its 
fortunes as Sovereign, were merged in the basest 
personality. Instead of the interest of mighty nations, 
it seemed as if a mere law-suit were carrying on be- 
tween John Doe and Richard Roe ! The haj)pines8 
of millions was light in the balance, weighed against 
a theatric compassion for one individual and his fam- 
ily, who, (I speak from facts that 1 myself know) 
if they feared the French more, hated us v\(»rse. 
Though the restoration of gootl sense commenced 
during the interval of the peace of Amiens, yet it 
was not till the Spanish insurrection that Englishmen 
of all parties recurred, m toto, to the old English 
principles, and spoke of their Hampdens, Sidneys, 
and Miltons, with the old enthusiasm. During the 
last war, an acquaintance of mine (least of all a po- 
litical zealot) had christened a vessel which he had 
just built — The Liberty ; and was seriously admon- 
ished by his aristocratic friends to change it for some 
other name. What ? replied the owner very inno- 
cently — should I call it The Freedom ? That fit 
was replied) would be far better, as people might 
then think only of Freedom of Trade ; Whereas 
Liberty has a Jacobinical sound with it ? Alas ! (and 
this is an observation of Sir J. Denham and of Burke) 
is there no medium between an ague-fit and a fren- 
zy-fever. 

I have said that to withstand the arguments of the 
lawless, the Anti-jacobins proposed to suspend the 
Law, and by the interposition of a particular statute 
to eclipse the blessed light of the universal Sun, that 
spies and informers might tyrannize and escape in 
the ominous darkness. Oh I if these mistaken men, 
intoxicated with alarm and bewildered by that panic 
of property, which they themselves were the chief 
agents in exciting, had ever lived in a country where 
there was indeed a general disposition to change and 
rebellion I Had they ever travelled through Sicily, 
or through France at the first coming on of the 
Revolution, or even, alas! through too many of the 
provinces of a sister-island, they could not but have 
shrunk from their own declarations concerning the 
state of feeling and opinion at that time predominant 
throughout Great Britain. There was a time (Heaven 
grant that that time may have passed by) when by 
crossing a narrow strait they might have learnt the 
true symptoms of approaching danger, and have se- 
cured themselves from mistaking the meetings and 
idle rant of such sedition as shrunk appalled from the 
sight of a constable, for the dire murmuring and 
strange consternation which precede the storm or 
earthquake of national discord. Kot only in CofTee- 
houses and public Theatres, but even at the tables 
of the wealthy, they would have heard the advocates 
of existing (Jovernment defend their cause in the 
language and with the tone of men, who are con 
scions that they are in a minority. But in England, 
when the alarm was at the highest, there was not a 

439 



430 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



city, no, not a town in which a man suspected of 
holding democratic principles could move abroad 
wiihout receiving some unpleasant proof of the 
hatred in which his supposed opinions were held by 
the great majority of the people : and the only in- 
stances of popular excess and indignation were on 
the side of the Government and the Established 
Church. But why need I appeal to these invidious 
facts ? Turn over the pages of History, and seek for 
a single instance of a revolution having been effect- 
ed without the concurrence of either the Nobles, or 
.he Ecclesiastics, or the moneyed classes, in any 
country in which the influences of property had ever 
oeen predominant, and where the interests of the 
proprietors were interlinked ! Examine the revolu- 
tion of the Belgic provinces under Philip the Second ; 
the civil wars of France in the preceding generation, 
the history of the American revolution, or the yet 
more recent events in Sweden and Spain ; and it 
will be scarcely possible not to perceive, that in Eng- 
land, from 1791 to the peace of Amiens, there were 
neither tendencies to confederacy nor actual confed- 
eracies, against which the existing Laws had not 
provided both sufficient safeguards and an ample 
punishment. But alas! the panic of property had 
been struck in the first instance for party purposes : 
and when it became general, its propagators caught 
it themselves, and ended in believing their own lie : 
even as our bulls in Burrowdale sometimes run mad 
with the echo of their own bellowing. The conse- 
quences were most injurious. Our attention was con- 
centrated to a monster which could not survive the 
convulsions in which it had been brought forth, even 
the enlightened Burke himself too often talking and 
reasoning as if a perpetual and organized anarchy had 
been a possible thing ! Thus while we were warring 
against French doctrines, we took little heed whether 
the means by which we had attempted to overthrow 
them, were not likely to aid and augment the far 
more formidable evil of French ambition. Like 
children we ran away from the yelping of a cur, and 
took shelter at the heels of a vicious war-horse. 

The conduct of the aristocratic party was equally 
unwise in private life and to individuals, especially 
to the young and inexperienced, who were surely to 
be forgiven for having had their imagination dazzled, 
and their enthusiasm kindled, by a novelty so spe- 
cious, that even an old and tried Statesman had pro- 
nounced it " a stupendous monument of human wis- 
dom and human happiness." This was indeed a 
gross delusion, but assuredly for young men at least, 
a very venial one. To hope too boldly of Human 
Nature is a fault which all good men have an interest 
in forgiving. Nor was it less removable than venial, 
if the party had taken the only way by which the 
error could be, or even ought to have been, removed. 
Having first sympathized with the warm benevolence 
and the enthusiasm for Liberty, which had conse- 
crated it, they should have then shown the young 
Enthusiasts that Liberty was not the only blessing of 
Society ; that though desirable, even for its own sake, 
yet derived its main value as the means of calling 
forth and securing other advantages and excellencies. 



the activities of Industry, the security of Life and 
Property, the peaceful energies of Genius and mani- 
fold Talent, the development of moral virtues, and 
the independence and dignity of the nation in its re- 
lations to foreign powers : and that neither these nor 
Liberty itself could subsist in a country so various in 
its soils, so long inhabited and so fully peopled as 
Great Britain, without difference of ranks and with- 
out laws which recognized and protected the privi- 
leges of each. But instead of thus winning them back 
fi-om the snare, they too often drove them into it by 
angry contumelies, which being in contradiction with 
each other could only excite contempt for those that 
uttered them. To prove the folly of the opinions, 
they were represented as the crude fancies of un- 
fledged wit and school-boy statesmen ; but when ab- 
horrence was to be expressed, the self-same unfledged 
school-boys were invested with all the attributes of 
brooding conspiracy and hoary-headed treason. Nay, 
a sentence of absolute reprobation was passed on 
them ; and the speculative error of Jacobinism was 
equalized to the mysterious sin in Scripture, which in 
some inexplicable manner excludes not only mercy 
but even repentance. It became the watch-word of 
the party, "once a Jacobin, always a Jacobin." 
And wherefore?* (We will suppose this question 
asked by an individual, who in his youth or earliest 
manhood had been enamoured of a system, which for 
Mm had combined the austere beauty of science, at 
once with all the light and colours of imagination, 
and with all the warmth of wide religious charity, 
and who, overlooking its ideal essence, had dreamt 
of actually building a government on personal and 
natural rights alone.) And wherefore ? " Is Jacob- 
inism an absurdity, and have we no understanding to 
detect it with? Is it productive of all misery and all 
horrors, and have we no natural humanity to make us 
turn away with indignation and loathing from it ? 
Uproar and confusion, insecurity of person and of 
property, the tyranny of mobs or the domination of a 
soldiery ; private houses changed to brothels, the cere- 
mony of marriage but an initiation to harlotry, and 
marriage itself degraded to mere concubinage — these, 
the wiser advocates of Aristocracy have said, and 
truly said, are the effects of Jacobinism? In private 
life, an insufferable licentiousness, and abroad an 
intolerable despotism ? " Once a Jacohin, alv-ays 
a Jacohin " — O wherefore ? Is it because the 
Creed which we have stated is dazzling at first 
sight to the young, the innocent, the disinterested, 
and those who, judging of men in general from 
their own uncorrupted hearts, judge erroneously, and 



* The passage which follows was first published in the 
Morning Post, in the year 1800, and contained, if I mistake 
not, the first philosophical appropriation of a precise import 
to the word Jacobin, as distinct from Republican, Democrat, 
and Pemagopuc. The whole Essay has a peculiar interest to 
myself at the present moment, (1 May, 1817) from the recent 
notorious publication of Mr. Southey's juvenile Drama, the 
Wat Tyler, and the consequent assault on his character by an 
M. P. in his senatorial capacity, to whom the Publishers are 
doubtless knit by the two-fold tie of sympathy and gratitude. 
The names of the Publishers are Sherwood, Nealy and JoDes 
their benefactor's name is William Smith. 

440 



THE FRIEND. 



431 



expect iinw iscly ? Is it, because it deceives the mind 
in Its purest and most llexible period ? Is it, because 
it is an error, tliat every day's experience aids to de- 
tect ? An error asrhinst which all history is full of 
warning examples ! Or is it because the experiment 
has been tried before our eyes and the error made 
palpable? 

From what source are we to derive this strange 
plienomenon, that the young and the enthusiastic, 
who. as our daily ex|ierience infi>rms us, are deceived 
ill their religious anti()athies, and grow wiser; m their 
friendships, and grow wiser; in their modes of plea- 
sure, and gww wiser; should, if once deceived in a 
question of abstract politics, cling to the error for ever 
and ever? And this too, although in addition to the 
natural growth of judgment and information with in- 
crease of years, they live in the age in which the te- 
nets have been acted upon; and though the conse- 
quences have been such, that every good man's heart 
sickens, and his head turns giddy at the retrospect. 



ESSAY II. 

Truth I pursued, as Fancy eketch'd the way. 

And wiser men than I went worse astray. MSS. 

I WAS never myself, at any period of my life, a con- 
vert to the system. From my earliest manhood, it 
w .IS an axiom in Politics with me, that in every coun- 
try where property prevailed, property must be the 
grand basis of the government; and that that govern- 
ment was the best, in which the power or political 
influence of the individual was in proportion to his 
property, provided that the free circulation of proper- 
ty was not impeded by any positive laws or customs, 
nor the tendency of wealth to accumulate in abiding 
masses unduly encouraged. I perceived, that if itie 
people at large were neither ignorant nor immoral, 
there could be no motive for a sudden and violent 
change of government ; and if they were, there 
could be no hope but of a change for the worse. 
"The Temple of Despotism, like that of the Mexican 
God, would be rebuilt with human skulls, and more 
firmly, though in a ditlerent architecture."* Thanks 
to the excellent education which I had received, ray 
reason w.as too clear not to draw this " circle of pow- 
er" round me, and my spirit too honest to attempt to 
break through it. My feelings, however, and imagi- 
nation did not remain unkindled in this general con- 
flagration ; and I confess I should be more inclined to 
be ashamed than proud of myself if they had ! I was 
a sharer in the general vortex, though my little world 
described the path of its revolution in an orbit of its 
own. What I dared not expect from constitutions of 
government and whole nations, I hoped from Reli- 
gion and a small company of chosen individuals, and 
formed a plan, as harmless as it was extravagant, of 
trying the experiment of human perfectibility on the 
banks of the Susquehannah ; where our little society. 



in its second generation, was to have combined the 
innocence of the patriarchal age with the knowledge 
and genuine refinements of European culture : and 
where I dreamt that, in the sober evening of my life, 
I should behold the Cottages of Independence in the 
nndiviiled Dale of Industry, 

" And oft. 800the<l sadly by Bontio dirgeful wind 
RIuso on the sore ills I had left behind !" 

Strange fancies! and as vain as strange! yet to the 
intense interest and impassioned zeal, which called 
forth and strained every faculty of my intellect for 
the organization and defence of this scheme, I owe 
much of whatever I at present possess, my clearest 
insight into the nature of individual man, and my 
most comprehensive views of his social relations, of 
the true uses of trade and commerce, and how far 
the wealth and relative power of nations promote or 
impede their wefftire and inherent strength. Nor 
were they less serviceable in securing myself, and 
perhaps some others, from the pitfalls of sedition: and 
when we gradually alighted on the firm ground of 
common sense, from the gradually-exhausted balloon 
of youthful enthusiasm, though the air-built castles, 
which we had been pursuing, had vanished with all 
their pageantry of shifting forms and glowing colors, 
we w'ere yet free from the stains and impurities 
which might have remained upon us, had we been 
travelling with the crowd of less imaginative mal- 
contents, through the dark lanes and foul bye-roads 
of ordinary fanaticism. 

But oh ! there were thousands as young and as in- 
nocent as myself who, not like me, sheltered in the 
tranquil nook or inland cove of a particular fancy, 
were driven along with the general current! Many 
there were, young men of loftiest minds, yea the 
prime stuff out of which manly wisdom and practi- 
cable greatness is to be formed, who had appropriated 
their hopes and the ardor of their souls to mankind at 
large, to the wide expanse of national interests, 
which then seemed fermenting in the French Repub- 
lic as the main outlet and chief crater of the revolu- 
tionary torrents ; and who confidently believed, that 
these torrents, like the lavas of Vesuvius, were to 
subside into a soil of inexhaustible fertility on the cir- 
cumjacent lands, the old divisions and mouldering 
edifices of which they had covered or swept away — 
Enthusiasts of kindliest temperament, who, to use 
the words of the Poet, (having already borrowed the 
meaning and the metaphor) had approached 
' the shield 



* To the best of my recollection, these were Mr. Southey's 
words in the year 1794. 

29 Na2 



or human nature from the golden side, 

And would have fought even to the death to attest 

The qualily of the metal which they saw." 

My honored friend has permitted me to give a value 
and relief to the present Essay, by a quotation from 
one of his unpublished Poems, the length of which I 
regret only from its forbidding me to trespass on his 
kindness by making it yet longer. I trust there 
are many of my Readers of the same age w-ith my- 
self who will throw themselves back into the state 
of thought and feeling in which they were when 
France was reported to have solemnized her first sa- 
crifice of error and prejudice on the bloodless altar 
441 



432 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS, 



of Freedom, by an oath of peace and good-will to all 
mankind. 

Oh ' pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! 

For mighty were the auxiliaries, which then stood 

Upon our side, we who were strong in love 

BUss was it in that dawn to be alive, 

But to be young was very heaven ! oh ! times 

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways 

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once 

The attraction of a country in Romance ! 

When Reason seem'd the most to assert her rights. 

When most intent on making of herself 

A prime Enchanter to assist the work. 

Which then was going forward in her name ! 

Not favor'd spots alone, but the whole earth, 

The beauty wore of promise — that which tets 

(To take an image which was felt no doubt 

Among the bowers of Paradise itself) 

The budding rose above the rose full blown. 

What temper at the prospect did not wake 

To happiness unthought of 7 The inert 

Were roused, and lively natures rapt away I 

They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, 

The play-fellows of fancy, who had made 

All powers of swiftness, subtlety, and strength 

Their ministers, used to stir in lordly wise 

Among the grandest objects of the sense. 

And deal with whatsoever they found there 

As if they had witliin some lurking right 

To yield it; — they too, who of gentle mood 

Had watch'd all gentle motions, and to these 

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild 

And in the region of their peaceful selves; — 

Now was it that both found, the Meek and Lofty 

Did both find helpers to their heart's desire. 

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish ! — 

Were call'd upon to exercise their skill 

Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields. 

Or some secreted island, heaven knows where! 

But in the very world, which is the world 

Of all of us, the place where in the end 

We find our happiness, or not at all ! 

WORDSWORTH. 

The Peace of Amiens deserved the name of peace, 
for it gave us unanimity at home, and reconciled Eng- 
lishmen with each other. Yet it would be as wild a 
fancy as any of which we have treated, to expect that 
the violence of party spirit is never more to return. 
Sooner or later the same causes, or their equivalents, 
will call forth the same opposition of opinion, and 
bring the same passions into play. Ample would be 
my recompense, could I foresee that this present Es- 
say would be the means of preventing discord and 
Liihappiness in a single family; if its words of warn- 
nig, aided by its tones of sympathy, should arm a sin- 
gle man of genius against the fiiseinations of his own 
ideal world, a single philanthropist against the enthu- 
siasm of his own heart ! Not less would be my sat- 
isfaction, dared I flatter myself that my lucubrations 
would not be altogether without effect on those who 
deem themselves Men of Judgment, faithful to the 
light of Practice, and not to be led astray by the wan- 
dering fires of Theory ! If I should aid in making 
these aware, that in recoiling with too incautious an 
abhorrence from the bugbears of innovation, they may 
sink all at once into the slough of slavishness and 
corruption. Let such persons recollect that the 
charms of hope and novelty furnish some palliation 
for the idolatry to which they seduce the mind ,■ but 
that the apotheosis of familiar abuses and of the er- 
rors of selfishness is the vilest of superstitions. Let 
hem recollect too, that nothing can be more incon- 



gruous than to combine the pusillanimity, which de- 
spairs of human improvement, with the arrogance, 
supercilious contempt, and boisterous anger, which 
have no pretensions to pardon except as the overflow- 
ings of ardent anticipation and enthusiastic faith! 
And finally, and above all, let it be remembered by 
both parties, and indeed by controversialists, on all 
subjects, that every speculative error which boasts a 
multitude of advocates, has its golden as well as its 
dark side ; that there is always some Triilh connect- 
ed with it, the exclusive attention to which has mis- 
led the Understanding, some moral beauty which has 
given it charms for the heart. Let it be remembered, 
that no Assailant of an Error can reasonably hope to 
be listened to by its Advocates, who has not proved 
to them that he has seen the disputed subject in the 
same point of view, and is capable of contemplating 
it with the same feelings as themselves: (for v\hy 
should we abandon a cause at the persuasions of one 
who is ignorant of the reasons which has attached us 
to it ?) Let it be remembered, that to write, however 
ably, merely to convince those who are already con- 
vmced, displays but the courage of a boaster; and in 
any subject to rail against the evil before we have 
inquired for the good, and to exasperate the passions 
of those who think with us, by caricaturing the opin- 
ions and blackening the motives of our antagonists, is 
to make the Understanding the pander of the pas- 
sions; and even though we should have defended 
the right cause, to gain for ourselves ultimately, from 
the good and the wise no other praise than the su- 
preme Judge awarded to the friends of Job for their 
partial and uncharitable defence of his justice : " My 
wrath is kindled against you, for ye have not spoken 
of me rightfully." 



ESSAY III. 



ON THE VULGAR ERRORS RESPECTING 
TAXES AND TAXATION.* 



'0-£p ya pht r«s iyX^^^'-^ ^ipd fitvoi ^reiTov^ai' 
'Orav jiiv 1} Xiiivfx Kara^rj, \afifid vovaiv dviiv 
Kdv i' avii) r£ Kai Kano tov (ioppopcv kvkSitiv, 
A'ipoviyi' Kat uv Aa/i|3av£ij, ijv rfiv TrdXtv Tapdrrris. 

Translation. — It is with you as with those that are hunting 
for eels. While the pond is clear and settled, they take 
nothing; but if they stir up the mud high and low, then, they 
bring up the fish : — and you succeed only as far as you can 
set the State in tumult and confusion. 



In a passage in the last Essay, I referred to the 
second part of the " Rights of Man," in which 
Paine assures his Readers that their Poverty is 
the consequence of Taxation: that taxes are ren- 
dered necessary only by wars and state corruption; 
that war and corruption are entirely owing to mon- 
archy and aristocracy; that by a revolution and 



* For the moral effects of our present System of Finance, 
and its consequences on the welfare of the Nation, as distin- 
guished from its wealth, the Reader is referred to the Author's 
Second Lay Sermon, and to the Section of Morals in a sub- 
sequent part of this Work. 

442 



THE FRIEND. 



433 



a brotherly alliance with the French Republic, 
our land and soa forces, our revenue oflicers, and 
ihree-tbiirlhs of our pensioners, placemen, &c. &e. 
would Ijc rendered supcrduous; ami that a small part 
of the expenses thus saved, would suflice lor the main- 
tenance of the poor, the infirm, and the aged, through- 
out the kingdom. Would to Heaven I ihat this infa- 
mous mode of misleading and llatlering the lower 
classes were confined to the writings of Thomas 
Paine. But how oflen do we hear, even from the 
mouthsof our parliamentary advocates for jiopularity, 
the taxes stated as so much money actually lost to the 
people; and a nation in debt represented as the same 
both in kind and consequences, as an individual 
tradesman on the brink of bankruptcy ? It is scarcely 
possible, that these men should be themselves de- 
ceived ; that they should be so ignorant of history as 
not to know that the freest nations, being at the same 
time commercial, have been at all times the most 
heavily taxed : or so void of common sense as not to 
see that there is no analogy in the case of a tradesman 
and his creditors, to a nation indebted to itself 
Surely, a much fairer instance would be that of a 
husband and wife playing cards at the same table 
against each other, where what the one loses the 
other gains. Taxes may be indeed, and often are in- 
jurious to a country: at no time, however, from their 
amount merely, but from the time or injudicious mode 
in which they are raised. A great Statesman, lately 
deceased, in one of his antiministerial harangues 
against some proposed impost, said : the nation has 
been already bled in every vein, and is faint with 
loss of blood. This blood, however, was circulating 
in the mean time through the whole body of the state, 
and what was received into one chamber of the heart 
was instantly sent out again at the other portal. Had 
he wanted a metaphor to convey the possible injuries 
of Taxation, he might have found one less opposite 
to the fact, in the known disease of aneurism, or re- 
laxation of the coats of particular vessels, by a dis- 
proportionate accumulation of blood in them, which 
sometimes occurs when the circulation has been sud- 
denly and violently changed, and causes helpless- 
ness, or even mortal stagnation, though the total quan- 
tity of blood remains the same in the system at large. 
But a fuller and fairer symlwl of Taxation, both in 
its possible good and evil effects, is to be found in the 
evaporation of waters from the surface of the planet. 
The sun may draw up the moisture from the river, 
the morass, and the ocean, to be given back in genial 
showers to the garden, the pasture, and the corn- 
field ; but it may likewise force away the moisture 
from the fields of tillage, to drop it on the stagnant 
jwol, the saturated swamp, or the unprofitable sand- 
waste. The gardens in the south of Europe supply, 
perhaps, a not less apt illustration of a system of Fi- 
nance judiciously conducted, where the tanks or re- 
.servoirs would represent the capital of a nation, and 
the hundred rills hourly varying their channels and 
directions under the gardener's s|iade,givea pleasing 
image of the dispersion of that capital through the 
whole population, by the joint effect of Taxation and 
Trade. For Taxation itself is a part of Commerce, 
57 



and the Government may be fairly considered as a 
great manuliicturing house carrying on in different 
places, by means of its partners and overseers, the 
trades of the ship-builder, the clother, the iron-found- 
er, 6ic. &c. 

There are so many real evils, so many just causes 
of complaint in the Constitution and Administration 
of Ciovemmenls, our own not excepted, that it be- 
comes the imperious Duty of every Well-wisher of 
his country, to prevent, as much as in him lies, the 
feelings and efforts of his compatriots from losing 
themselves on a wrong scent. Whether a System of 
Taxation is injurious or beneficial on the whole, is to 
be known, not by the amount of the sum taken from 
each individual, but by that which remains behind. 
A war will doubtless cause a stagnation of certain 
branches of Trade, and severe temporary distress in 
the places where those branches are carried on ; but 
are not the same effects produced in time of Peace 
by prohibitory edicts and commercial regulations of 
foreign powers, or by new rivals with superior ad- 
vantages in other countries, or in diflerer.l parts of 
the same ? Bristol has, doubtless, been injured by 
the rapid prosperity of Liverjwol and its superior 
spirit of Enterprize ; and the vast Machines of Lan- 
cashire have overwhelmed and rendered hopeless 
the domestic industry of the females in the Cottages 
and small farm-houses of Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland. But if Peace has its stagnations as well as 
War, does not War create or re-enliven numerous 
branches of Industry as well as Peace ? Is it not a 
fact, that not only our own military and naval forces, 
but even a part of those of our enemy are armed and 
clothed by British manufacturers ? It cannot be 
doubted, that the whole of our immense military 
force is better and more expensively clothed, and 
both these and our sailors better fed than the same 
persons would be in their individual capacities : and 
this forms one of the real expenses of War. Not, I 
say, that so much more money is raised, but that so 
much more of the means of comfortable existence 
are consumed, than would otherwise have been. 
But does not this, like all other luxury, act as a stim- 
ulus on the producing classes, and this in the most 
useful manner, and on the most important branches 
of production, on the tiller, on the grazier, the 
clothier, and the maker of arms ? Had it been other- 
wise, is it possible that the receipts from the Properly 
Tax should have increased instead of decreased, 
notwithstanding all the rage of our enemy? 

Surely, never from the beginning of the world 
was such a tribute of admiration paid by one power 
to another, as Bonaparte within the last years has 
paid to the British Empire! With all the natural 
and artificial powers of almost the whole of con- 
tinental Europe, with all the fences and obstacles of 
public and private morality broken down before him, 
with a mighty empire of fifty millions of men, near- 
ly two-thirds of whom speak the same language, and 
are as it were fused together by the intensesi nation- 
ality ; with this mighty and swarming empire, organ- 
ized in all its parts for war, and forming one huge 
camp, and himself combining in his own person the 

443 



434 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



two-fold power of Monarch and Commander in 
(Jhief, with ail these advantages, with all these stu- 
pendous instruments and inexhaustible resources of 
ofTence, this mighty Being finds himself imprisoned 
by the enemy whom he most hates and would fain 
despise, insulted by every wave that breaks upon his 
shores, and condemned to behold his vast flotillas as 
worthless and idle as the sea-weed that rots around 
their keels ! After years of haughty menace and 
expensive preparations for the invasion of an island, 
the trees and buildings of which are visible from 
the roofs of his naval store-houses, he is at length 
compelled to make open confession, that lie possesses 
one mean only of ruining Great Britain. And what 
is it ? The ruin of his own enslaved subjects ! To 
undermine the resources of one enemy, he reduces 
the Continent of Europe to the wretched state in 
which it was before the wide diffusion of Trade and 
Commerce, deprives its inhabitants of comforts and 
advantages to which they and their fathers had been 
for more than a century, habituated, and thus de- 
stroys, as far as his power extends, a principal source 
of civilization, the origin of a middle class through- 
out Christendom, and with it the true balance of 
society, the parent of international law, the foster- 
nurse of general humanity, and (to sum up all in one) 
the main principle of attraction and repulsion, by 
which the nations were rapidly though insensibly 
drawing together into one system, and by which 
alone they could combine the manifold blessings of 
distinct character and national independence, with 
the needful stimulation and general influences of 
intercommunity, and be virtually united without be- 
ing crushed together by conquest, in order to waste 
away under the tabes and slow putrefaction of a 
universal monarchy. This boasted Pacificator of the 
World, this earthly Providence,* as his Catholic Bish- 
ops blasphemously call him, professes to entertain no 
hope of purchasing the destruction of Great Britain 
at a less price than that of the barbarism of all 
Europe ! By the ordinaiy war of government against 
government, fleets against fleets, and armies against 
armies, he could effect nothing. His fleets might as 
well have been built at his own expense in our 
Dock-yards, as tribute-ofTerings to the masters of the 
Ocean : and his Army of England lay encamped on 
his Coasts like Wolves baying the Moon ! 

Delightful to humane and contemplative minds 
was the idea of countless individual efforts working 
together by common instinct and to a common object, 
under the protection of an unwritten code of religion, 
philosophy, and common interest which made peace 
and brotherhood co-exist with the most active hostil- 
ity. Not in the untamed Plains of Tartary, but in 

* It has been well remarked, that there is something far 
more shocking in the tyrant's pretensions to the gracious 
attributes of (he Supreme Ruler, than in his most remorseless 
cruellies. There is a sort of wild grandeur, not ungratifying 
to the imagination, in the answer of Timur Khan to one wlio 
remonstrated with him nn the inhumanity of his devastations ; 
cur me hominem putns, et nun potius iram Dei in terris agen- 
tcm ob perniciem humani generis 1 Why do you deem me 
a man, and not rather the incarnate wrath of God acting on 
'.ho earth for the ruin of mankind ? 



the very bosom of civilization, and himself indebted 
to its fostering care for his own education and for all 
the means of his elevation and power, did this genu- 
ine offspring of the old serpent warm himself into the 
fiend-like resolve of waging war against mankind and 
the quiet growth of the world's improvement, in an 
emphatic sense the enemy of the human race! By 
these means only he deems Great Britain assailable 
(a strong presumption, that our prosperity is built on 
the common interests of mankind !) — this he acknow- 
ledges to be his only hope — and in this hope he has 
been utterly baffled ! 

To what then do we owe our strength and our 
immunity ? The sovereignty of law : the incorrupt- 
ness of its administration; the number and political 
importance of our religious sects, which in an incal- 
culable degree have added to the dignity of the es- 
tablishment ; the purity, or at least the decorum of 
private morals, and the independence, activity, and 
weight, of public opinion ? These and similar ad- 
vantages are doubtless the materials of the fortress, 
but what has been the cement ? What has bound 
them together? What has rendered Great Britain, 
from the Orkneys to the Rocks of Scilly, indeed and 
with more than metaphorical propriety a bodv poli- 
tic, our Roads, Rivers, and Canals being so truly the 
veins, arteries, and nerves, of the state; that every 
pulse in the metropolis produces a correspondent pul- 
sation in the remotest village on its extreme shores ! 
What made the stoppage of the national Bank the 
conversation of a day without causing one irregular 
throb, or the stagnation of the commercial current in 
the minutest vessel? I answer without hesitation, 
that the cause and mother principle of this unexam- 
pled confidence, of this system of credit, which is as 
much stronger than mere positive possessions, as the 
soul of man is than his body, or as the force of a 
mighty mass in free motion, than the pressure of its 
separate component parts would be in a state of rest 
— the main cause of this, I say, has been our nation- 
al DEBT. What its injurious effects on the Litera- 
ture, the Morals, and religious Principles, have been, 
I shall hereafter develope with the same boldness. 
But as to our political strength and circumstantial 
prosperity, it is the national debt which has wedded 
in indissoluble union all the interests of the state, the 
landed with the commercial, and the man of inde- 
pendent fortune with the stirring tradesman and re- 
posing annuitant. It is the National Debt, which by 
the rapid nominal rise in the value of things, has 
made it impossible for any considerable number of 
men to retain their own former comforts without 
joining in the common industry, and adding to the 
stock of national produce ; which thus first necessi- 
tates a general activity, and then by the immediate 
and ample credit, which is never wanting to him, 
who has any object on which his activity can employ 
itself gives each man the means not only of preserv- 
ing but of increasing and multiplying all his former 
enjoyments, and all the symbols of the rank in which 
he was born. It is this which has planted the naked 
hills and enclosed the bleak wastes, in the lowlands 
of Scotland, not less than in the wealthier districts 
444 



THE FRIEND. 



435 



of South Britain: it is this, which leaving all tho 
other causes of patriotism and national lervor unili- 
minisiied and uninjured, has added tu our pul)lic 
duties the same ieeliuij; of necessity, the same sense 
of imniciliate self-interest, which in other countries 
actuates the members of a single family in their con- 
duct towanl each other. 

Siimowhat more than a year ago, T happened to bo 
on a visit with a friend, in a small market-town in 
tiie Souih-West of England, when one of the compa- 
ny turned the conversation to the weight of Taxes 
and the consequent hardness of the times. 1 answer- 
ed, that if the Taxes were a real weight, and that in 
proportion to their amount, we must have been ruin- 
ed long ago: for Mr. Hume, who had proceeded, as 
on a self-evident axiom, on the hypothesis, that a debt 
of a nation was the same as a debt of an individual, 
had declared our ruin arithmetically demonstrable, if 
the national debt increased beyond a certain sum. 
Since his time it has more than quintupled that sum, 
and yet — True, answered my Friend, but the princi- 
ple might be right though he might have been mis- 
taken in the time. But still, I rejoined, if the princi- 
ple were right, the nearer we came to that given 
point, and the greater and the more active the perni- 
cious cause became, the more manifest would its ef- 
fects be. We might not be absolutely ruined, but 
our embarrassments would increase in some propor- 
tion to their cause. Whereas instead of being poorer 
and poorer, we are richer and richer. Will any man 
in his senses contend, that the actual labor and pro- 
duce of the country has not only been decupled with- 
in half a century, but increased so prodigiously be- 
yond that decuple as to make six hundred millions a 
less weight to us than fifty millions were in the days 
of our grandfathers ? But if it really be so, to what 
can we attribute this stupendous progression of na- 
tional improvement, but lo that system of credit and 
paper currency, of which the National Debt is both 
the reservoir and the water-works ? A constant cause 
siiould have constant effects; but if you deem that 
this is some anomaly, some strange exception to the 
general rule, explain its mode of operation, make it 
comprehensible, how a cause acting on a whole na- 
tion can produce a regular and rapid increase of pros- 
perity to a certain point, and then all at once pass 
from an .Ancrel of flight into a Demon of Destruction ? 
That an individual house may live more and more 
luxuriously njwn borrowed funds, and that when the 
suspicions of the creditors are awakened, and their 
patience exhausted, the luxurious spendthrift may all 
at once exchange his Palace for a Prison — this I can 
tmderstand perfectly: for I understand, whence the 
luxuries could he produced for the consumption of 
the individual house, and who the creditors might he, 
and that it might be both their inclination and their 
inleresls to demand the debt, and to punish the insol- 
vent Debtor. But who are a Nation's Creditors? 
The answer is, every Man to every Man. Whose 
possible interest could it be either to demand the 
Principal, or lo refuse his share toward the means of 
paying the Interest? Not the Merchant's: for he 
would but provoke a crash of Bankruptcy, in which 



his own House would as necessarily be included, as 
a single card in a house of cards! Not the landhold- 
er's: for in the general destruction of all credit, how 
coidd he obtain payment for the Produce of his Ks- 
tates ? Not to mention the improbability that he 
would remain the undisturbed Possessor in so dire- 
ful a concussion — not to mention, that on him must 
fall the whole weight of the public necessities — not 
to mention that from the merchant's credit depends 
the ever-increasing value of his land and the readiest 
means of improving it. Neither could it be the labo- 
rer's interest : fiir he must be either thrown out of 
employ, and lie like the fish in the bed of a River 
from which the water has been diverted, or have the 
value of his labor redticed to nothing by the irrup- 
tion of eager competitors. I?ut least of all could it 
be the wish of the lovers of liberty, which must need-) 
perish or be suspended, either by the horrors of anar- 
chy, or by the absolute Power, with which the Go- 
vernment must be invested, in order to prevent them. 
In short, with the exception of men desperate from 
guilt or debt, or mad with the blackest ambition, 
there is no class or description of men who can have 
the least Interest in producing or permitting a Bank- 
ruptcy. If then, neither experience has acquainted 
us with any national impoverishment or embarrass- 
ment from the increase of National Debt, nor theory 
renders such effects comprehensible, (for the predic- 
tions of Hume wont on the false assumption, that a 
part only of the Nation was interested in the preser- 
vation of the Public Credit) on what authority are we 
to ground our apprehensions ? Does History record :i 
single Nation, in wiiich relatively to Taxation there 
were no privileged or exempted classes, in which 
there were no compulsory prices of labor, and in 
which the interest of all the different classes and all 
the different districts, were mutually dependent and 
vitally co-organized, as in Great Britain — has IIistor\', 
I say, recorded a single instance of such a Nation 
ruined or dissolved by the weight of Taxation ? In 
France there was no public credit, no communion of 
Interests: its unprincipled Government and the pro- 
ductive and taxable Classes were as two Individuals 
with separate Interests. Its Bankruptcy and the con- 
sequences of it ore siiflicienlly comprehensible. Yet 
the CaMcrs, or the instructions and complaints sent 
to the National Assembly, from the Towns and Pro- 
vinces of France, (an immense mass of documents in- 
deed, but without examination and patient perusal of 
which, no man is entitled to write a History of the 
French Revolution) these proved, beyond contradic- 
tion, that the amount of the Taxes was one only, and 
that a subordinate cause of the revolutionary move- 
ment. Indeed, if the amount of the Taxes could be 
disjoined from the mode of raising them, it might be 
fairly denied to have been a cause at all. Holland 
was taxed as heavily and as equally as ourselves; 
but was it by Taxation that Holland was reduced to 
its present miseries? 

The mode in which Taxes are supposed to act on 

the marketablencss of our manufactures in foreign 

marts, I shall examine on some future occasion, when 

I shall endeavor to explain in a more satisfactory wav 

. 445 



436 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



than has been hitherto clone, to my apprehension at 
least, the real mode in which Taxes act, and how and 
why and to what extent they affect the wealth, and 
what is of more consequence, the well-being of a na- 
tion. But in the present exigency, when the safety 
of the nation depends, on the one hand, on the sense 
which the people at large have of the comparative 
excellencies of the Laws and Government, and on 
the firmness and wisdom of the legislators and en- 
lightened classes in detecting, exposing, and removing 
its many particular abuses and corruptions on the 
other, right views on this subject of Taxation are of 
such especial importance; and I have besides in my 
inmost nature such a loathing of factious falsehoods 
and moh-sycophancy, i. e, the flattering of the multi- 
tude by informing against their betters ; that I cannot 
but revert to that point of the subject from which I 
began, namely, that the weight of Taxes is to be 

CALCULATED NOT BY WHAT IS PAID, BUT BV WHAT IS 

LEFT. What matters it to a man, that he pays six 
times more Taxes than his lather did, if, notwith- 
standing, he with the same portion of exertion enjoys 
twice the comforts which his father did ? Now this 
I solemnly affirm to be the case in general, through- 
out England, according to all the facts which I have 
collected during an examination of years, wherever 
I have travelled, and wherever I have been resident. 
(I do not speak of Ireland, or the lowlands of Scot- 
land : and if I may trust to what I myself saw and 
heard there, I must even except the Highlands.) In 
the conversation which I have spoken of as taking 
pJace in the south-west of England, by the assistance 
of one or other of the company, we went through 
every family in the town and neighborhood, and my 
assertion was found completely accurate, though the 
place had no one advantage over others, and many 
disadvantages, that heavy one in particular, the non- 
residence and frequent change of its Rectors, the 
living being always given to one of the Canons of 
Windsor, and resigned on the acceptance of better 
preferment. It was even asserted, and not only as- 
serted but proved, by my friend (who has from hi.s 
earliest youth devoted a strong, original understand- 
ing, and a heart warm and benevolent even to enthu- 
siasm, to the service of the poor and the laboring 
class,) that every sober Laborer, in that part of Eng- 
land at least, who should not marry till thirty, might, 
without any hardship or extreme self-denial, com- 
mence house-keeping at the age of thirty, with from 
a hundred to a hundred and twenty pounds belong- 
ing to him. I have no doubt, that on seeing this 
Essay, my iiiend will communicate to me the proof 
in detail. But the price of labor in the south-west 
of England is full one-third less than in the greater 
number, if not all, of the Northern Counties. What 
then is wanting ? Not the repeal of Taxes ; but the 
increased activity both of the gentry and clergy of the 
land, in securing the instruction of the lower classes. 
A system of education is wanting, such a system as 
that discovered, and to the blessings of thousands 
realized, by Dr. Bell, which I never am, or can be 
weary of praising, while my heart retains any spark 
of regard for Human Nature, or of reverence for 



Human Virtue — A system, by which in the very act 
of receiving knowledge, the best virtues and most 
useful qualities of the moral character are awakened, 
developed, and formed into habits. Were there a 
Bishop of Durham (no odds whether a temporal or a 
spiritual Lord) in every county or half county, and a 
Clergyman enlightened with the views and animated 
with the spirit of Dr. Bell, in every parish, we might 
bid defiance to the present weight of Taxes, and 
boldly challenge the whole world to show a Pea 
santryas well fed and clothed as the English, or with 
equal chances of improving their situation, and of se- 
curing an old age of repose and comfort to a life of 
cheerful industry. 

I will add another anecdote, as it demonstrates, in- 
controvertibly, the error of the vulgar opinion, tffat 
Taxes make things really dear, taking in the whole of 
a man's expenditure. A fi-iend of mine, who had 
passed some years in America, was questioned by an 
American Tradesman, in one of their cities of the se- 
cond class, concerning the names and number of our 
Taxes and rates. The answer seemed perfectly to 
astound him : and he exclaimed, " How is it possible 
that men can live in such a country ? Jn this land of 
liberty we never see the face of a Tax-gatherer, nor 
hear of a duty except in our seaports." My friend, 
who was perfect master of the question, made sem- 
blance of turning off the conversation to another sub- 
ject ; and then, without any apparent reference to 
the former topic, asked the American, for what sum 
he thought a man could live in such and such a style, 
with so many servants, in a house of such dimensions 
and such a situation (still keeping in his mind the 
situation of a thriving and respectable shopkeeper 
and householder in different parts of England,) first 
supposing him to reside in Philadelphia or New 
York, and then in some town of secondary impor- 
tance. Having received a detailed answer to these 
questions, he proceeded to convince the American, 
that notwithstanding all our Taxes, a man might live 
in the same style, but with incomparably greater 
comforts, on the same income in London as in N^evv 
York, and on a considerably less income in Exeter or 
Bristol, than in any American provincial town of the 
same relative importance. It would be insulting my 
Readers to discuss on how much less a person may 
vegetate or brutalize in the back settlements of the 
republic, than he could live as a man, as a rational 
and social being, in an English village ; and it would 
be wasting time to inform him, that where men are 
comparatively few, and unoccupied land is in inex- 
haustible abundance, the Laborer and common Me- 
chanic must needs receive (not only nominally but 
really) higher wages than in a populous and fully-oc- 
cupied country. But that the American Laborer is 
therefore happier, or even in possession of more com- 
forts and conveniences of life than a sober or indus 
trious English Laborer or Mechanic, remains to be 
proved. In conducting the comparison we must not 
however exclude the operation of moral causes, when 
these causes are not accidental, but arise out of the 
nature of the country and the constitution of the Go- 
vernment and Society. This being the case, take 
446 



THE FKlJlilNU. 



437 



oway from the American's wages all ihe Taxes 
which Ills insolence, sloih, and allachment to sjurit- 
ous hqiiors im|H)se on liim, and jiulgo of ilie remain- 
der by his house, his houseliold furniture and utensils 
— and il" 1 have not been grievously deceived by 
those whose veracity and good sense I have iound 
inniuesiiunable in all other respects, the cottage of an 
honest I'nglish husbandman, in the service of an en- 
lightened and liberal Farmer, who is paid (or his la- 
bor at tlie price usual in Yorkshire or IVorthuniber- 
land, would in the mind of a man in the same rank 
of life, who had seen a true account of America, ex- 
cite no ideas favorable to emigration. This however, 
I confess, is a balance of morals rather than of cir- 
cumstances ; it proves, however, that where foresight 
and goiid morals exist, the Taxes do not stand in the 
way of an industrious man's comforts. 

Dr. Price almost succeeded in persuading the En- 
glish nation (for it is a curious fact, that the fancy of 
our calamitous situation is a sort of necessary sauce 
without which our real prosperity would become in- 
sipid to us) Dr. Price, I say, alarmed the country with 
pretended proofs that the island was in a rapid state 
of dejjopulation, that England nt iho Revolution had 
been. Heaven knows how much ! more populous ; 
and that in Queen Elizabeth's time, or about the Re- 
formation, (II!) the number of inhabitants in England 
might have been greater than even at the Revolu- 
tion. My old mathematical master, a man of an un- 
commonly clear head, answered this blundering book 
of the worthy Doctor's, and left not a stone unturned 
of the pompous cenotaph in which the effigy of the 
still-living and bustling English prosperity lay inter- 
red. And yet so much more suitable was the Doc- 
tor's book to the purposes of faction, and to the No- 
Yember mood of (what is called) the Public, that 
Mr. Wales's pamphlet, though a master-piece of per- 
spicacity as well as perspicuity, was scarcely heard 
of This tendency to political nightmares in our 
countrymen reminds me of a superstition, or rather 
nervous disease, not uncommon in the highlands of 
Scotland, in which men, though broad awake, im- 
agine they see themselves lying dead at a small dis- 
tance from them. The act of Parliament for ascer- 
taining the population of the empire has laid forever 
this uneasy ghost: and now, fiirsooth I we are on the 
brink of ruin from the excess of population, and he 
who would prevent the poor from rotting away in 
disease, misery, and wickedness, is an enemy to his 
country ! A lately deceased miser, of immense 
wealth, is reported to have been so delighted with 
this splendid discovery, as to have offered a hand- 
some annuity to the Author, in part of payment, for 
this new and welcome piece of hrarl-armor. This, 
however, we may deduce from the fact of our in- 
creased population, that if clothing and food had ac- 
tuallij become dearer in projwrtion to the means of 
procuring them, it would be as absurd to ascribe this 
eflect to increased Taxation, as to attribute the scan- 
tiness of fare, at a public ordinary, to the landlord's 
bill, when twice the usual number of guests had sat 
down to the same number of dishes. But the fact is 
notoriously otherwise, and every man has the means 



of discovering it in his own house and in that of his 
: neightxir, provided that he makes the proper allow- 
j nnces (or the disturbing fitrces of individual vice and 
imprudence. If this Ik; the case, I put it to the con- 
sciences of our literary demagogues, whether a lie, 
(or the purposes of creating public disunion and de- 
jection, is not as much a lie, as one for the purpose 
of exciting discord among individuals. I entreat my 
readers to recollect, that the present question does 
I not concern the effects of taxation on the public inde- 
pendence and on the sup|X)sed balance of the free 
constitutional powers, (from which said balance, os 
well as from the balance of trade, I own, I have 
never been able to elicit one ray of common sense.) 
That the nature of our constitution has been greatly 
modified by the funding system, I do not deny : whe- 
ther iot good or for evil, on the whole, will form part 
of my Essay on the British Constitution as it actually 
exists. 

There are many and great public evils, all of 
which are to be lamented, some of which may be, 
and ought to be removed, and none of which can 
consistently with wisdom or honesty be kept con- 
cealed from the public. As far as these originate in 
false Prixciples, or in the contempt or neglect of 
right ones (and as such belonging to the plan of The 
Frie.vd,) I shall not hesitate to make known my opi- 
nions concerning them, with the same fearless sim- 
plicity with which 1 have endeavored to expose the 
errors of discontent and the artifices of fiiction. But 
for the very rea.son that there are great evils, the 
more does it behove us not to open out on a false 
scent. 

I will conclude this Essay with the examination of 
an article in a provincial paper of a recent date, 
which is now lying before me ; the accidental peru- 
sal of which, occasioned the whole of the preceding 
remarks. In order to guard against a possible mis- 
take, I must premise, that I have not the most distant 
intention of defending the plan or conduct of our late 
expeditions, and should bo grossly calumnialed if I 
were represented as an advocate for carelessness or 
prodigality in the management of the public purse. 
The money may or may not have been culpably 
wasted. I confine myself entirely to the general 
falsehood of the principle in the article here cited ; 
for I am convinced, that any hopes of reform origina- 
ting in such notions, must end in disappointment and 
public mockery. 

"ONLY A FEW MILLIONS! 

We have unrorttinately of" late been so much accustomed 
to read of millions being spent in one expedition, and millions 
bcin;; spent in another, that a comparative insignificnnce Is 
altiirhed to an immen5e sum of money, by calling it only a 
few miUinns. Perhaps some of our readers may have their 
judgment a little Improved by makini» a few calculations, 
like those below, on the millions which it has been estimated 
will be lost to the nation by the late e.\pedition to Holland : 
and then perhaps, ihcy will be led to reflect on the many mil- 
lions which are annually expended in expeditions, which have 
almost invariably ended in absolute loss. 

In the first place, with less money than it cost Ihe nation to 
talio VValcheren, &c. with the view of taking or destroying 
the French fleet at Antwerp, consisting of nine sail of the 
line, we could have completely built and equipped, ready for 
sea, a fleet of upwards of one hundred sail of the line. 
447 



438 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Or, secondly, a new town could be built in every county of 
England, and each town consist of upwards of 1,000 substan- 
tial houses, for a less sum. 

Or. thirdly, it would have been enough to give WOl. to 
2,000 poor families in every county in England and Wales. 

Or, fourthly, it would be more than sufficient to give a 
handsome marriage portion to 200,000 young women, who 
probably, if they had even less than 50/. would not long re- 
main unsolicited to enter the happy state. 

Or, fifthly, a much less sum would enable the legislature to 
establish a life boat in every port in the United Kingdom, and 
provide for 10 or 1'2 men to be kept in constant attendance 
on each ; and 100, OCO/. could be funded, the interest of which 
to be applied in premiums, to those who should prove to be 
particularly active in saving lives from wrecks, &c. and to 
provide for the widows and children of those men who may 
accidentally lose their lives in the cause of humanity. 

This interesting apprnpriatinn of 10 millions sterling, may 
lead our readers to think of the great good that can be done 
by onli/ a few millions." 

The exposure of this calculation will require but a 
lew sentences. These ten luillions were expended, 
I prestime, in arms, artillery, atnmiinition, clothing, 
provision, &c. &c. for about one hundred and twenty 
thousand British subjects: and 1 presume that all 
these cnnsumaUes were produced by, and purchased 
from, other British subjects. Now during the build- 
ing of these new towns for a thousand inhabitants 
each in every county, or the distribution of the hun- 
dred pound bank notes to the two thousand poor fa- 
milies, were the industrious ship-builders, clothiers, 
charcoal-burners, gunpowder-makers, gunsmiths, cut- 
lers, cannon-founders, tailors, and shoemakers, to be 
left unemployed and starving? or our brave soldiers 
and sailors to have remained without food and rai- 
ment ? And where is the proof, that these ten mil- 
lions, which (observe) all remain in the kingdom, do 
not circulate as beneficially in the one way as they 
would in the other? Which is better? To give 
money to the idle, the houses to tho.se who do not ask 
for them, and towns to counties which have already 
perhaps too many ? Or to affiird opportunity to the 
industrious to earn their bread, and to the enterprising 
to better their circumstances, and perhaps found new 
families of independent proprietors ? The only mode, 
not absolutely absurd, of considering the subject, 
would be, not by the calculation of the money ex- 
pended, but of the lahor, of which the money is a 
symbol. But then the question would be removed 
altogether from the expedition : for assuredly, neither 
the armies were raised, nor the fleets built or manned 
for the sake of conquering the Isle of Walcheren, nor 
would a single regiment have been disbanded, or a 
single sloop paid off, though the Isle of Walcheren 
had never existed. The whole dispute, therefore, 
resolves itself to this one question : whether our sol- 
diers and sailors would not be better employed in 
making canals for instance, or cultivating waste lands, 
than in fighting or in learning to fight ; and the 
tradesman, &c. in making grey coats instead of red 
or blue — and ploughshares, &c, instead of arms. 
When I reflect on the state of China and the moral 
character of the Chinese, I dare not positively affirm 
that it would be better. When the fifteen millions, 
which form our present population, shall have at- 
tained to the same purity of morals and of primitive 
Christianity, and shall be capable of being governed 



by the same admirable discipline, as the Society of 
the Friends, I doubt not that we should all be Qua 
kers in this as in the other points of their moral doc- 
trine. But were this transfer of employment desira- 
ble, is it practicable at present, is it in our power i 
These men know, that it is not. What then does a^'_ 
their reasoning amount to ? Nonsense ! 



ESSAY IV. 



have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the Truth, 
like an advocate ashamed of his client, or a bribed ac- 
comptant who falsifies the quotient to make the bnnkrupt'B 
ledger square with the creditor's inventory. JMy conscience 
forbids the use of falsehood and the arts of concealment ; 
and were it otherwise, yet I am persuaded, that a system 
which has produced and protected so great prosperity, can- 
not stand in need of them. If therefore Honesty and the 
Knowledge of the whole Truth be the things you aim at, 
you will find my principles suited to your ends: and as 1 
like not the democratic forms, so am 1 not fond ofany others 
above the rest. That a succession of wise and godly men 
may bo secured to the nation in the highest power is that 
to which I have directed your attention in this Essay, which 
if you will read, perhaps you may see the error of those 
principles which have led you into errors of practice. 1 
wrote it purposely for the use of the niultilude of well-mean- 
ing people, that are tempted in these times to usurp author- 
ity and meddle with government before they have any call 
from duty or tolerable understanding of its principles. I ne- 
ver intended it for learned men versed in politics; but for 
such as will be practitioners before they have been students." 
BAXTER'S Holy Commonwealth, or Political Apho- 
risms. 



The metaphysical (or as I have proposed to call 
them, metapolitical) reasonings hitherto discussed, be- 
long to Government in the abstract. But there is a 
second class of Reasoners, who argue for a change 
in our Government from former usage, and from sta- 
tutes still in force, or which have been repealed, (so 
these writers affirm) either through a corrupt influ- 
ence, or to ward off temporary hazard or inconve- 
nience. This class, which is rendered illustrious by 
the names of many intelligent and virttious patriots, 
are advocates for reform in the literal sense of the 
word. They wish to bring back the Government of 
Great Britain to a certain form, which they affirm it 
to have once possessed ; and would melt the bullion 
anew in order to recast it in the original mould. 

The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvi- 
ous, and to my understanding appears decisive. 
These Reformers assume the character of Legislators 
or of Advisers of the Legislature, not that of Law- 
Judges or appellants to Courts of Law. Sundry sta- 
tutes concerning the rights of electors (we will sup- 
pose) still exist ; so likewise do sundry statutes on 
other subjects (on witchcraft for instance) which 
change of circumstances has rendered obsolete, or 
increased information shown to be absurd. It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that the expediency of the regulations 
prescribed by them, and their suitableness to the ex- 
isting circumstances of the kingdom, must first bo 
proved : and on this proof must be rested all rational 
claims for the enforcement of the statutes that have 
448 



THE FRIEND. 



439 



not, no Ipss ilinn for the re-aciing of those that liavo 
been, repealed. If the aulhorily of the men, wlio 
first enacted the Laws in (|uostioii, is to weigh with 
us, it niiisi ho on the presumption that they were wise 
men. Hut the v\isdoni of Legislation consists in the 
adaptation of I^aws to circumstances. If then it can 
be proved, that the circumstances, under whicli those 
laws were enacted, no longer exist; and that other 
circumstances altogether different, and in some iii- 
Piances opposite, have taken their place ; we have 
the best grounds for supposing, that if the men were 
now alive, Ihey would not pass the same statutes. In 
other words, ilio spirit of the statute interpreted by 
the inleiitioii of the Legislator would annul the letter 
of it. It is not indeed imjK)ssible, that by a rare feli- 
city of accident the same law may apply to two sets 
of circumstances. But surely Ihe presiaiij)lion is, that 
regulations well adapted for the manners, the social 
distinctions, and the state of properly, of opinion, and 
of external relations of England in the reign of Al- 
fred, or even in that of Edw-ard the First, will not be 
well suited to Great Britain at the close of the reign 
of George the Third. For instance: at the time 
when the greater part of the cottagers and inferior 
farmers were in a state of villcnage, when Sussex 
alone contained seven thousand, and the Isle of Wight 
twelve hundred families of bondsmen, it was the law 
of the land that every freemaii should vote in the As- 
sembly of the Nation personally or by his representa- 
tive. .\n act of Parliament in the year 16G0 confirm- 
ed what a concurrence of causes had previously ef- 
fected : — every Englishman is now born free, the laws 
of the land are the birth-right of every native, and 
with the exception of a few honorary privileges all 
classes obey the same Laws. IVow, argues one of 
our political writers, it being made the constitution 
of the land by our Saxon ancestors, that every free- 
man should have a vote, and all Englishmen being 
now born free, therefore, by the constitution of the 
land, every Englishman has now a right to vote. How 
shall we reply to this without breach of that respect. 
Id which the Reasoner at least, if not the Reasoning, 
IS entitled ? If it be the definition of a pun, that it is 
the confusion of two different meanings, under the 
same or similar sound, we might almost characterize 
this argument as being grounded on a grave pun. 
f)iir ancestors eslahlished the right of voting in a par- 
ticular class of men, forming at that time the middle 
rank of sociely, and known to be all of them, or al- 
most all, legal proprietors — and these were then call- 
ed the Freemen of England : therefore they establish- 
ed it in the lowest classes of society, in those who pos- 
sess no properly, because these too are now called by 
the same name ! ! Under a similar pretext, grounded 
on the same precious logic, a Mameluke Bey extort- 
ed a large contribution from the Egyptian Jews; 
"These books (the Pentateuch) are authentic?" — 
Ye? ! " Well, the debt then is acknowledged : — and 
now the receipt, or the money, or your heads! The 
Jews Iwrrowed a large treasure from the Egyptians; 
but you are Ihe Jetvs, and on you, therefore, I call for 
the repayment." Besides, if a law is to be interpret- 
ed by the known intention of its makers, the Parlia- j 
Oo 



ment in 1000, which declared all the natives of Eng- 
land freemen, hut neither altered nor meant thereby 
to alter the limilatious of the right of election, did to 
all intcnis and pur|v)scs except that right from ihe 
common privileges of Englishmen, as Englishmen. 

A moment's reflection may convince us, that every 
single Statute is made under the knowledge of all 
the other Laws, with which it is meant to co-exisi, 
and by vviiich its action is to be modified and de- 
termined. In the legislative as in the religious code, 
the text must not be taken without the context. 
Now, I think, we may safely leave it to the Reform- 
ers themselves to make choice between the civil and 
political privileges of Englishmen at present, con- 
sidered as one sum total, and those of our .\ncestors 
in any former period of our History, considered as 
another, on the old jjrinciple, ta/.e one and leave the 
other; hut whichever you lake, lake it all or none. 
Laws seldom become obsolete as long as they are 
both useful and practicable; but should there be an 
exception, there is no other way of reviving ils val- 
idity, but by convincing the existing Legislature of 
its undiminished practicability and expedience ; which 
in all essential points is llie same as the recommend- 
ing of a new Law. And this leads me to the third 
class of the advocates of Reform, those, namely, who 
leaving ancient statutes to Lawyers and Historians, 
and universal principles wulh the demonstrable de- 
ductions from them to the Schools of Logic, Mathe- 
matics, Theology, and Etiiics, rest all their measures, 
which they wish to see adopted, wholly on their ex- 
pediency. Consc(iuently, they must hold themselves 
prepared to give such proof, as the nature of com- 
parative expediency admits, and to bring forward 
such evidence, as experience and the logic of proba- 
bility can supply, that the plans which they recom- 
mend for adoption, are : first, practicable ; secondly, 
suited to the existing circumstances ; and lastly, ne- 
cessary, or at least requisite, and such as will enable 
the Government to accomplish more perfectly the 
ends for which it was instituted. These are the 
three indispensable conditions of all prudent change, 
the credentials, with which Wisdom never fails to 
furnish her public envoys. Whoever brings forward 
a measure that combines this threefold excellence, 
whether in the Cabinet, the Senate, or by means of 
Ihe Press, merits emphatically the title of a patriotic 
Statesman. Neither are they without a fair claim to 
respectful attention as Slate-Counsellors, who fully 
aware of these conditions, and with a due sense of 
the difHcidly of fulfilling them, employ their time 
and talents in making the attempt. An imperfect 
plan is not necessarily a useless plan : and in a com- 
j)lex enigma the greatest ingenuity is not always 
shown by him who first gives the complete solution. 
The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has 
the giant's shoulders to mount on. 

Thus, as perspicuously as I could, I have exposed 
the erroneous principles of political Philosophy, and 
jwinlcd out the one only ground on which the con- 
stitution of Governments can bo eiiher condemned 
or justified by wise men. 

If I interpret aright the signs of the times, that 
449 



440 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



branch of politics which relates to the necessity and 
practicability of infusing new life into our Legisla- 
ture, as the best means of securing talent and wis- 
dom in the Cabinet, will shortly occupy the public 
attention with a paramount interest * I would glad- 
ly therefore suggest the proper state of feeling and 
the right preparatory notions with which this disqui- 
sition should be entered upon : and I do not know 
how I can effect this more naturally, than by relating 
the facts and circumstances which influenced ray 
own mind. I can scarcely be accused of egotism, as 
in the communications and conversations which I 
am about to mention as having occurred to me during 
my residence abroad, I am no otherwise the hero of 
the tale, than as being the passive receiver or audi- 
tor. But above all, let it not be forgotten, that in the 
following paragraphs I speak as a Christian Moralist, 
not as a Statesman. 

To examine any thing wisely, two conditions are 
requisite : first, a distinct notion of the desirable 
ENDS, in the complete accomplishment of which 
w'ould consist the perfection of such a thing, or its 
ideal excellence; and, secondly, a calm and kindly 
mode of feeling, without which we shall hardly fail 
either to overlook, or not to make due allowances for, 
the circumstances which prevent these ends from 
being all perfectly realized in the particular thing 
which we are to e.xamine. For instance, we must 
have a general notion what a Man can be and ought 
to be, before we can filly proceed to determine on 
the merits or demerits of any one individual. For 
the examination of our own Government, I prepared 
my mind, therefore, by a short Catechism, which I 
shall communicate in the next Essay, and on which 
the letter and anecdotes that follow, will, I flatter 
myself, be found an amusing, if not an instructive 
commentary. 



ESSAY V. 



Hoc pnlissimum pncto felicem ac magnum roRem se fore ju- 
dicaris : iioii si quam plurimis sed si qiiam optimis imperet. 
Proinde parum esse pulat jiistis pricsidiis regnum suum mu- 
niisse, nisi idfm viris eruditione juxta ac viIeb iniegritate 
proecellentibiis ditet alqne honestet. Nimirum intelligit heec 
dt'inum esse vera rcinn decora, has vcras opes : banc veram 
et nuHisunquain si^culiscessuram giuriam. — ER.^S. Rot. R. 
S. Poncherio, Episc. Parisicn. Kpislula. 

Translation. — Jiidgini; that lie will have employed the most 
effeclual means of Nein? a happy and powerful kinjr, not by 
governing the most numerous but the most moral people. 
fie deemed of small sufficiency to have protected the coun- 
try by fleets and garriscm, unless he should at the same 
time enrich and ornament it with men of eminent learning 
and sanctity. 

In what do all States agree? A number of men — 
exert — power — in union. Wherein do they differ? 



* I am in doubt whether the five hundred petitions present- 
ed at the same time to the F^ouse of Commons by the Member 
for Westminster, are to be considered as a fulfilment of this 
prophecy. 1 have heard the echoes of a single blunderbuss, 
on one cf our Cumberland lakes, imitate the volley from a 
whole regiment. 



1st. In the quality and quantity of the powers. One 
posaesses Chemists, Mechanists, Mechanics of all kinds. 
Men of Science ; and the arts of war and peace ; and 
its Citizens naturally strong and of habitual courage. 
Another State may possess none or a few only of these, 
or the same more imperfeclly. Or of two States pos- 
sessing the same in equal perfection the one is more 
numerous than the other, as France and Swilzerlaad. 
2d. In the more or less perfect union of these powers. 
Compare Mr. Leckie's valuable and authentic docu- 
ments respecting the state of Sicily luith the preceding 
Essay on Taxation. 3dly. In the greater or less ac- 
tivity of exertion. Think of the ecclesiastical State and 
its silent metropolis, and then of the county of Lancas- 
ter and the towns of Manchester and Liverpool. What 
is theconditionof powers exerted in union by a num- 
ber of men? A Government. What are the ends of 
Government? They are of two kinds, negative and 
positive. The negative ends of Government are the 
protection of life, of personal freedom, of property, of 
reputation, and of religion, from foreign and from 
domestic attacks. The positive ends are, 1st. to make 
the means of subsistence more easy to each individ- 
ual : 2d. that in addition to the necessaries of life he 
should derive from the union and division of labor 
a share of the comforts and conveniences which hu- 
manize and ennoble his nature; and at the same time 
the power of perfecting himself in his own branch 
of industry by having those things which he needs 
provided for him by other among his fellow-citizens; 
including the tools and raw or manufactured materi- 
als necessary for his own employment. / knew a 
profound mathematician in Sicily, who had devoted a 
full third of his life to the perfecting the discovery of 
the Longitude, and who had convinced not only himself 
but the principal mathematicians of Messina and Pa- 
lermo that he had succeeded ; but neither throughout 
Sicily or Naples could he find a single Artist capable 
of constructing the instrument which he had invented.^ 
3dly. The hope of bettering his own condition and 
that of his children. The civilized man gives up those 
stimulants of hope and fear which constitute the chief 
charm of the .lavage life : and yet his maker has dis- 
tinguished him from the brute that perishes, by making 
Hope an instinct of his nature and an indispensable 
conditimi of his moral and intellectual progression. 
But a natural instinct constitutes a natural right, as 
far as its gratification is compatible ipith the equal 
rights of others. Hence our ancestors classed those 
who were bound to the soil {addicti glebce) and incapa- 

tThe good man, who is poor, old, and blind, universally 
esteemed for the innocence and austerity of his life not less 
than for his learning, and yet universally neglected, e.xcept by 
persons almost as poor as himself, strongly reminded me of a 
German epigram on Kepler, which may be thus translated: 

No mortal spirit yet had clomh so high 
As Kepler— yet his country saw him die 
For very want I the minds alime he fed. 
And so the bodies left him without bread. 

The good old man presented me with the book in which he 
has described and demonstrated his invcniicm : and I should 
with great pleasure transmit it to any maihematician who 
would feel an interest in examining it and communicating hia 
opinions on its merits. 

450 



THE FRIEND. 



44t 



ble by laiu of altering their condition fritm thai of their 
jMirmls, us l)07idsini'n or villiins, however advantage- 
oiish/ the:/ iniglil otherwise be sittiate<l. liifitct on the, 
direful eijects of castes in Hindostan, and theii transfer 
yourself in fancy to an English cottage, 

" Whore o'er ilio crn>1lv(I Infant bending 
Hopo liuB (i.\'d her wisliful gaze," 

o;i'/ the fond mother dreams of her child's future for- 
tunes — who knows but he may come home a rich mer- 
chant, like such a one ? or be a bishop or a judge ? The 
jirizis are indeed few and rare ; but still thei/ are j>os- 
sihle : and the hojie is universal, and perhaps occasions 
more happiness than enn its fulflmcnt. Lastly, the 
development of those faculties which are essential to 
his human nature by the knowledge of his inoral and 
religious duties, and the increase of his iiiiellectuul 
jwwers in as great a degree, as is compatible with the 
other ends of his social union, and does not involve a 
contradiction. The poorest Briton possesses much and 
important knowledge, which he would not have had, if 
Newton, Luther, Calvin, and their compeers had not 
existed ; but it is evident that the means of science and 
learning could not exist, if all men had a right to be 
made pr(found Mathematicians or men of extensive 
erudition. Still instruction is one of the eyids of Gov- 
ernment : for it is that only which 7nakes the abandon- 
ment of the savage state an absolute duty: and that 
Consliiution is the best, under which the average sum 
of useful knowledge is the greatest, and the causes that 
awaken and encourage talent and genius, the most pow- 
erful and various. 

These were my preparatory notions. The influ- 
ences under which I proceeded to re-examine our 
own Constitution, were the following, which I give, 
nnt exactly as they occurred, but in the order in 
which ihey will be illustrative of the different arti- 
cles of the preceding paragraph. That we are better 
and happier than others is indeed no reason for our 
not becoming still better; especially as with states, as 
well as individuals, not to be progressive is to be re- 
trograde. Yet the comparison will usefully temper 
the desire of improvement with love and a sense of 
gratitude for what we already are. 

I. A LETTEa received, at Malta from an American 
officer of high rank, who has since received the thanks 
and reivards of the congress for his services in the 
Mediterranean. 

Grand Cairo, Dec. 13, 180-1. 
Sir, — The same reason, which induced me to re- 
quest letters of introduction to his Britannic Majes- 
ty's .Acents here, suggested the propriety of showing 
an F'nglish jackat the main-top-gallant mnst head, on 
entering the port of Alexandria on the 2Gth ult. The 
signal was recognized ; and Mr. B was immedi- 
ately on board. 

We found in port, a Turkish Vice Admiral, with a 
ship of the line, and six frigates: a part of which 
squadron is stationed there to preserve the tranquil- 
lity of the country ; with just us much innucnco as 
the same number of Pelicans would have on the 
same station. 

58 



On entering and passing the streets of Alexandria, 
I could not but notice the very marked satisfaction, 
which every expression and every countenance of all 
denominations of people, Turks and Frenchmen only 
excepted, manifested under the impression that wo 
were the avant-courier of an English army. They 
had conceived this from observing the English jack 
at our main, faking our flag perhaps for that of a 
saint, and because as is common enough every where, 
they were ready to believe what they wished. It 
would have been cruel to have undeceived them : 
consequently without positively assuming it, we 
passed in the character of Englishmen among the 
middle and lower orders of society, and as their allies 
among those of better information. Wherever we 
entered or wherever halted, we were surrounded by 
the wretched inhabitants; and stunned with their 
benedictions and prayers for blessings on us. "Will 
the English come? Are they coming? God grant 
the English may come ! we have no commerce — we 
have no money — we have no bread ! When will the 
English arrive!" My answer was uniformly. Pa- 
tience! The same tone was heard at Rosetta as 
among the Alexandrians, indicative of the same dis- 
positions; only it was not so loud, because the inhal)- 
itants are less miserable, although without any trails 
of happiness. On the fourth we left that village for 
Cairo, and for our security as well as to facilitate our 
procurement of accommodations during our voyage, 
as well as our stay there, the resident directed his 

secretary, Capt. V , to accompany us, and to give 

us lodgings in his house. We ascended the Nile lei- 
surely, and calling at several villages, it was plainly 
perceivable that the rational partiality, the strong and 
open expression of which proclaimed so loudly the 
feelings of the Egyptians of the sea coast, was gene- 
ral throughout the country: and the prayers for the 
return of the English as earnest as universal. 

On the morning of the sixth we went on shore at 
the village of Sabour. The villagers expressed an 
enthusiastic gladness at seeing red and blue uniforms 
and round hats (the French, I believe, wear three- 
cornered ones.) Two days before, five hundred Al- 
banian deserters from the Viceroy's army had pillaged 
and left this village; at which they had lived at free 
quarters about four weeks. — The famishing inhabi- 
tants were now distressed with apprehensions from 
another quarter. A company of wild Arabs were 
encamped in sight. They dreaded their ravages and 
apprised us of danger from them. We were eighteen 
in the party, well armed ; and a pretty brisk fire 
which we raised around the numerous flocks of pi- 
geons and other small fowl in the environs, must 
have deterred them from mischief, if, as it is most 
probable, they had meditated any against us. Scarce- 
ly, however, were we on board and under weigh, 
when we saw these mounted inarauders of the de- 
sert fall furiously upon the herds of camels, bufTa- 
loes, and cattle of the village, and drive many of 
them off wholly unannoyed on the part of the unre- 
sisting inhabitants, unless their shrieks could be 
deemed an annoyance. They afterwards attacked 
and robbed several unarmed boats, which were a 
4f»l 



442 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



few hours astern of us. The most insensible must 
surely have been moved by the situation of the pea- 
sants of that village. The while we were listening 
to their complaints, they kissed our hands, and with 
prostrations to the ground, rendered more affecting 
by the inflamed state of the eyes almost universal 
amongst them, and which the new traveller might ! 
venially imagine to have been the immediate effect 
of weeping and anguish, they all implored English 
succor. Their shrieks at the assault of the wild 
Arabs seemed to implore the same still more forcibly, 
while it testified what multiplied reasons they had to 
implore it. I confess, I felt an almost insurmountable 
impulse to bring our little party to their relief, and 
might perhaps have done a rash act, had it not been 

for the calm and just observation of Captain V 's, 

that " these were common occurrences, and that any 
relief which we could afford, would not merely be 
only temporary, but would exasperate the plunderers 
to still more atrocious outrages after our departure." 

On the morning of the seventh we landed near a 
village. At our approach the villagers fled : signals 
of friendship brought some of them to us. When 
they were told that we were Englishmen, they flock- 
ed around us with demonstrations of joy, offered their 
services, and raised loud ejaculations for our estab- 
lishment in the country. Here we could not procure 
a pint of milk for our coflfee. The inhabitants had 
been plundered and chased from their habitations by 
the Albanians and Desert Arabs, and it was but the 
preceding day, they had returned to their naked cot- 
tages. 

Grand Cairo differs from the places already passed, 
only as the presence of the tyrant stamps silence on 
the lips of misery with the seal of terror. Wretch- 
edness here assumes the form of melanciioly ; but 
the few whispers that are hazarded, convey the same 
feelings and the same wishes. And wherein does 
this misery and consequent spirit of revolution con- 
sist ? Not in any form of government but in a form- 
less despotism, an anarchy indeed : for it amounts 
literally to an annihilation of every thing that can 
merit the name of government or justify the use of 
the word even in the laxest sense. Egypt is under 
the most frightful despotism, yet has no master! The 
Turkish soldiery, restrained by no discipline, seize 
every thing by violence, not only all that their neces- 
sities dictate, but whatever their caprices suggest. 
The Mamelukes, who dispute with these the right of 
domination, procure themselves subsistence by means 
as lawless though less insupportably oppressive. And 
the wild Arabs availing themselves of the occasion, 
plunder the defenceless wherever they find plunder. 
To finish the whole, the talons of the \'iceroy fix on 
every thing which can be changed into currency, in 
order to find the means of supporting an ungoverned, 
disorganized banditti of foreign troops, who receive 
the harvest of his oppression, desert and betray him. 
Of all this rapine, robbery, and extortion, the wretch- 
ed cultivators of the soil are the perpetual victims. — 
A spirit of revolution is the natural consequence. 

The reason the inhabitants of this country give for 
preferring the English to the French, whether true 



or false, is as natural as it is simple, and as mfluential 
as natural. " The English," say they, " pay for 
every thing — the French pay nothing, and take 
every thing." They do not like this kind of deli- 
verers. 

Well, thought I, after the perusal of this Letter, 
the Slave Trade (which had not then been abolished) 
is a dreadful crime, an EvgUsfi iniquity I and to sanc- 
tion its continuance under full conviction and parlia- 
mentary confession of its injustice and inhumanity, 
is, if po.ssible, still blacker guilt. Would that our 
discontents were for a while confined to our moral 
wants ! whatever may be the defects of our Consti- 
tution, we have at least an effective Government, 
and that too composed of men who were born with 
us and are to die among us. We are at least pre- 
served from the incursions of foreign enemies ; the 
intercommunion of interests precludes a civil war, 
and the volunteer spirit of the nation equally with 
its laws, give to the darkest lanes of our crowded 
metropolis that quiet and security which the remotest 
villager at the cataracts of the Nile prays for in vain, 
in his mud hovel I 

.Vo( ijcl ciiflaved nor irltolhj vile, 

O .AlbiDn, O my mother isle ! 

Thy valleys fair, as Kden's howere. 

Glitter green with sunny showers; 

Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells 

Echo to the bleat of flocks ; 

(Those glassy hills, those glitt'ring della 

Proudly ramparted with rocks) 

.Ijid ocean 'mid his uproar wild 

Spcalcs safily to his island-child. 

Hence fur many a fearless age 

Has social quiet lov'd thy shore ; 

Nor ever svvorded warrior's rage 

Or sack'd thy lowers or stainM thy fields with gore. 

COLERIDGE'S Poems. 



II. Anecdote of Buonaparte. 
Buonaparte, during his short slay at Malta, called 
out the Maltese regiments raised by the Knights, 
amounting to fifteen hundred of the stoutest young 
men of the islands. As they were drawn up on the 
parade, he informed them, in a bombastic harangue, 
that he had restored them to liberty ; but in proof 
that his attachment to them was not bounded by this 
benefaction, he would now give them an opportunity 
of adding glory to freedom — and concluding by ask- 
ing who of them would march forward to be his fel- 
low-soldier on the banks of the Nile, and conlribute 
a flower of Maltese heroism to the immortal wreaths 
of fame, with which he meant to crown the pyra- 
mids of Egypt! Not a man stirred : all gave a silent 
refusal. They were instantly surrounded by a regi- 
ment of French soldiers, marched to the Marino, 
forced on board the transports, and threatened with 
death if any one of them attempted his escape or 
should be discovered in any part of the islands of 
Malta or Goza. At Alexandria they were alvvavs 
put in front, both to save the French soldiery, and to 
prevent their running away : and of the whole nutn 
ber, fifly only survived to revisit their native country 
From one of these survivors I first learned this fact, 
452 



THE FRIEND. 



443 



which was afterwards tonfirmed to me by several 
1)1" his remaining; comrades, as well as by the most 
respectable inhabitanii> of N'aleltc. 

This anecdote recalled to my mind an accidental 
i-onvorsalion with an old countryman in a central 
district of llermany. I pur|K»sely omit names be- 
cause the day of retribution has come and gone by. 
I was looking at a strong fortress in the distance, 
which formed a highly interesting object in a rich 
and varied landscape, and asked the old man, who 
had stopped to gaze at mo, its name, &c. adding — 
how beautiful it looks! It may be well enough to 
li>nk at, answered he. but God keep all Chrisiians 
from being taken thither! He tiien proceeded to 
gratify the curiosity which he had thus excited, by 

informing me that the Baron had been taken 

out of his bed at midnight and carried to that fortress 
— that he was not heard of for nearly two years, 
when a soldier who had fled over the boundaries 
sent infi)rmalion to his family of the place and mode 
of his imprisonment. As I have no design to work 
on the feelings of my readers, I pass over the shock- 
ing detail: had not the language and countenance 
of my informant precluded such a suspicion, I might 
have supposed that he had been repeating some tale 
of horror from a Romance of the dark ages. What 
was his crime! I asked — The report is, said the old 
man, that in his capacity as minister he had remon- 
strated with the concerning the extravagance 

of his mistress, an outlandish countess ; and that she 
in revenge persuaded the sovereign, that it was the 
Baron who had communicated to a professor at Got- 
tingen the particulars of the infamous sale 'of some 
thousand of his subjects as soldiers. On the same 
day I discovered in the landlord of a small public 
house one of the men who had been thus sold. He 
seemed highly delighted in entertaining an English 
genileraan, and in once more talking English after a 
I ipse of so many years. He was far from regretting 
tiii.s incident in his life, but his account of the manner 
in which they were forced away, accorded in so 
many particulars with Schiller's impassioned descrip- 
tion of (he same, or a similar scene, in his Tragedy 
of Cabal and Love, as to leave a perfect conviction 
on my mind, that the dramatic pathos of that descrip- 
tion was not greater than its historic fidelity- 

.As I was thus reflecting, I glanced my eye on the 
leading paragraph of a London newspaper, containing 
much angry declamation, and some bitter truths, re- 
specting our military arrangements. It were in vain, 
thought I, to deny that the inf!«ience of parliamentary 
interest, which prevents the immense patronage of 
the crown from becoming a despotic fwwer, is not the 
most likely to secure the ablest commanders or the 
fittest persons fiir the management of our foreign em- 
pire. However, thank Heaven! if we fight, we fight 
for our own king and country : and grievances which 
may be publicly complained of, there is some chance 
of seeing remedied. 

HI. A celebrated Professor in a German Univer- 
iity, showed me a very pleasing print, ciitillod, "Tol- 
Oo2 



eration." — \ Catholic Priest, a Lutheran Divine, a 
Calvinist Minister, a Quaker, a Jew, and a Philoso- 
pher, were represented sitting around the same 'I'able, 
over which a winged figure hovered in the attitude 
of protection. For this harmless print, said my friend, 
the artist was imprisoned, and having attempted to 
escape, was sentenced to draw the boats on the banks 
of the Danube, with robbers and murderers: and 
there died in less than two months, from exhaustion 
and exposure. In your happy country, sir, this print 
would be considered as a pleasing scene from real 
life: for in every great town throughout your empire 
you may meet with the original. Yes, I replied, as 
ftr as the ticsralive ends of tlovernment are concerned 
we have no reason to complain. Our (Joveriiinent 
protects us from foreign enemies, and our Laws se- 
cure our lives, our personal freedom, our property, 
reputation, and religious rights, from domestic attacks. 
Our taxes, indeed are enormous — Oh ! talk not of 
taxes, said my friend, till you have resided in a coun- 
try whore the boor disposes of his produce to stran- 
gers for a foreign mart, not to bring back to bis fami- 
ly the comforts and conveniences of foreign manufac- 
tures, but to procure thai coin which his lord is to 
squander away in a distant land. Neither can I with 
patience hear it said, that your laws act only to the 
nrgafive ends of government. They have a manifold 
positive influence, and their incorrupt administration 
gives a color to all your modes of thinking, and is one 
of the chief causes of j'our superior morality in pri- 
vate as well as public life.* 

My limits compel me to strike out the diflerent in- 
cidents which I had written as a commentary on the 
three former of the positive ends of Government. To 
the moral feelings of my Readers they might have 
been serviceable; but for their understanding they 
are superfluous. It is surely impossible to peruse 
them, and not admit that all three are realized under 
our Government to a degree unexampled in any other 
old and long peopled country. The delects of our 
Constitution (in which word I include the Laws and 
Customs of the Land as well as its scheme of Legis- 
lative and Executive Power) must exist, theref()re, in 
the fourth, namely, the production of the highest aver- 
age of general information, of general moral and reli- 
gious principles, and the excitements and opportuni- 
ties which it afiords to paramount genius and heroic 

* " The adinlnistralinn of juetice lliroughout ihe Conlincnl 
is pnrtial, venal, and inCumDii'i. I have, in convorsalion wiili 
many pcnsible nion, mot with something of conlenl with Ihcir 
povernmen's in all olhor respects than this; but upon the 
qiicsliiiii i>f cxpecline justice to he really and fairly ailminig- 
teied. everyone confessed there was no such thing to be look- 
ed for. The conduct of the judges is prottigate and atiocioua. 
Upon almost every cause that com'-s before them Interest is 
openly made wiih the judges; and woe betide the m.in, who, 
wiih a cause to support had no means of concilinting favor, 
either by the beauty of a handsome wife, or by olliir me- 
thods." — This nuotallon is confined in the original to Franco 
under Ihe monarchy; I have r.xlendcd Ihe applirniion. and 
adopted the words as connprisine the result of my own expe- 
rience: and I take this opportunity of declaring, that the most 
important parts id' Mr. Leckie's statement concerning t-lcily I 
myself know to be accurate, and am authorized by what 
myself saw there, to rely on Iho whole as a liilr and unoxas 
gcrated representation. 

433 



444 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



power ill a suflicient number of its citizens. These 
are points in which it would be immorality to rest 
content with the presumption, however well ibunded, 
that we are better than others, if we are not what 
we ought to be ourselves, and not using the means 
of improvement. The first question then is, what is 
the FACT ? 'J'he second, supposing a defect or defi- 
ciency in one or all of these points, and that to a de- 
gree which may affect our power and prosperity, if 
not our absolute safely, are the plans of Legislative 
Reform that have hitherto been proposed fit or likely 
to remove such defect, and supply such deficiency ? 
The third and last question is — Should there appear 
reason to deny or doubt this, are there then any other 
means, and what are they ? — Of these points in the 
concluding Essay of this Section. 

A French gentleman in the reign of Lewis the 14th, 
was comparing the French and English writers with 
all the boastfulness of national prepossession. Sir! 
(replied an Englishman better versed in the princi- 
ples of Freedom than the canons of criticism) there 
are but two subjects worthy the human intellect : 
Politics and Religion, our state here and our state 
hereafter ; and on neither of these dare you write. 
Long may the envied privilege be preserved to my 
countrymen of writing and talking concerning both ! 
Nevertheless, it behoves us all to consider, that to 
write or talk concerning any subject, without having 
previously taken the pains to understand it, is a 
breach of duty which we owe to ourselves, though it 
may be no offence against the laws of the land. The 
privilege of talking and even publishing nonsense is 
necessary in a free state ; but the more sparingly we 
make use of it, the better. 



ESSAY VI. 



Then we may thank ourselves, 
Who spellbound by the magic name of Peace 
Dream golden dreams. Go, warlike Britain, go. 
For the gray olive-branch change thy green laurels: 
Hang up thy rusty helmet, that the bee 
May have a hive, or spider tind a loom ! 
Instead of doubling drum and thrilling tife 
Bo luli'd in lady's lap with amorous flutes. 
But for Niipoleon, know, he'll scorn this calm: 
The ruddy planet at his birth bore sway. 
Sanguine, a dust his humor, and wild fire 
His ruling element. Rage, revenge, and cunning 
Make up the temper of this captain's valor. 

Jidavtcd from an old Play. 



Little prospective wisdom can that man obtain, 
who hurrying onward with the current, or rather tor- 
rent, of events, feels no interest in their importance, 
except as far as his curiosity is excited by their novel- 
ty; and to whom all reflection and retrospect are 
wearisome. If ever there were a time when the 
f<)rmation o{ just pitblic principles becomes a duty of 
private morality ; when the principles of morality in 
general ought to be made to bear on our public suf- 
frages, and to affect every great national determina- 
tion ; when, in short, his country should have a 1 



place by every Englishman's fire-side ; and when the 
feelings and truths which give dignity to the fire-side 
and tranquillity to the death-bed, ought to be present 
and influencive in the cabinet and in the senate — 
that time is now with us. As an introduction to, and 
at the same time as a commentary on, the subject of 
international law, I have taken a review of the cir- 
cumstances that led to the Treaty of Amiens, and 
the re-commencement of the war, more especially 
with regard to the occupation of Malta. 

In a rich commercial state, a war seldom fails to 
become unpopular by length of continuance. The 
first, or revolution war, which towards its close, had 
become just and necessary, perhaps beyond any for- 
mer example, had yet causesof unpopularity peculiar 
to itself. Exhaustion is the natural consequence of 
excessive stimulation, in the feelings of nations equal- 
ly as in those of individuals. Wearied out by over- 
whelming novelties; stunned as it were, by a series 
of strange explosions ; sick too of hope long delayed ; 
and uncertain as to the real object and motive of the 
war, from the rapid change and general failure of 
its ostensible objects and motives; the public mind 
for many months preceding the signing of the pre- 
liminaries, had lost all its tone and elasticity. The 
consciousness of mutual errors and mutual disap- 
pointments, disposed the great majority of all parties 
to a spiritof diffidence and toleration, which, amiable 
as it may be in individuals, yet in a nation, and above 
all in an opulent and luxurious nation, is always too 
nearly akin to apathy and selfish indulgence. An 
unmanly impatience for peace became only not uni- 
versal. After as long a resistance as the nature of 
our Constitution and national character permitted or 
even endured, the government applied at length the 
only remedy adequate to the greatness of the evil, a 
remedy which the magnitude of the evil justified, and 
which nothing but an evil of that magnitude could 
justify. At a high price they purchased for us the 
name of peace, at a time when the views of France 
became daily more and more incompatible with our 
vital interests. Considering the peace as a mere 
truce of experiment, wise and temperate men regard- 
ed with complacency the Treaty of Amiens, for the 
very reasons that would have ensured the condem- 
nation of any other treaty under any other circum- 
stances. Its palpable deficiencies were its antidote: 
or rather they formed its very essence, and declared 
at first sight, what alone it was, or was meant to be. 
Any attempt at that time and in this Treaty to have 
secured Italy, Holland, and the German Empire, 
would have been in the literal sense of the word, 
preposterous. The Nation would have withdrawn 
all faith in the pacific intentions of the ministers, if 
the negotiation had been broken off on a plea of this 
kind : for it had been taken for granted the extreme 
desirableness, nay, the necessity of a peace, and, 
this once admitted, there would, no doubt, have been 
an absurdity in continuing the war for objects whic 
the war furnished no means of realizing. If the 
First Consul had entered into stipulations with us 
respecting the Continent, they would have been ob- 
served only as long as his interests from other causes 

454 



THE FRIEND. 



445 



night have dictated ; they would have been signed 
v.iih as much sincerity and observcil witii as nuich 
good lailh as the article actually inserted in the 
Treaty of Amiens, respecting the integrity of the 
Turkish empire. This arlirlo indeed was wisely 
insisted upon by us, because it allected lx>th our na- 
tional honor, and the interests of our Indian empire 
immediately ; and still more, perhaps, because this 
of all others was the most likely to furnish an early 
proof of the First Consul's real dispositions. But 
deeply interested in the fate of the Continent, as we 
are thought to be, it would nevertheless have been 
most idle to have abaniloned a peace, supposing it at 
all desirable, on the ground that the French govern- 
ment had refused that which would have been of 
no value had it been granted. 

Indeed there results one serious disadvantage from 
insisting on the rights and interests of Austria, the 
Empire. Switzerland, &:c. in a treaty between l'2ng- 
land and Franco : and, as it should seem, no advan- 
tage to counterbalance it. For so, any attack on 
those rights instantly pledges our character and 
national dignity to commence a war, however ine.x- 
pedient it might happen to be, and however hopeless: 
while if a war were expedient, any attack on these 
countries by France furnishes a justifiable cause of 
war in its essential nature, and independently of all 
jKjsitive treaty. Seen in this light, the defects of the 
treaty of Amiens become its real merits. If the 
government of France made peace in the spirit of 
peace, then a friendly intercourse and the human- 
izing influences of commerce and reciprocal hospital- 
ity would gradually bring about in both countries 
the dispositions necessary lor the calm discussion and 
sincere conclusion of a genuine, eflicient, and com- 
prehensive treaty. If the contrary proved the fact, 
the Treaty of Amiens contained in itself the prin- 
ciples of its own dissolution. It was what it ought 
to be. If the First Consul had both meant and dealt 
ihirly by us, the treaty would have led to a true set- 
tlement : but he acting as all prudent men expected 
that he would act, it supplied just reasons for the 
commencement of war — and at its decease left us, 
as a legacy, blessings that assuredly far outweighed 
our losses by the peace. It left us popular enthusi- 
asm, national unanimity, and simplicity of object : 
and removed one inconvenience which cleaved to 
the last war, by attaching to the right objects, and 
enlisting under their proper banners, the scorn and 
hatred of slavery, the passion for freedom, all the 
high thoughts and high feelings that connect us with 
the honored names ol' past ages ; and inspire senti- 
ments and language, to which our Hamjxlens, Sid- 
neys, and Russels, might listen without jealousy. 

The late Peace then was negotiated by the Govern- 
ment, ratified by the Legislature, and received by the 
nation, as an experiment: as the only means of exhi- 
biting such proof as would be satisfactory to the 
people in their then temper; whether Buonaparte 
devoting his ambition and activity to the re-establish- 
ment of trade, colonial tranquillity, and social morals, 
in France, would abstain from iusiillimr, alarming 
and endangering the British empire. And these 



' thanks at least were due to the First Consul, that he 
didiidlloiigilolay the proof With more than papal in- 
solence he issued edicts of anathema against us. and 
excommunicated us from all interference in the adiiirs 
of the Continent, lie instilled us still more indeccnily 
by pertinacious demiuuls respecting our consiitntional 
Laws and Rights of Hospitality; by the o/llcial pub- 
I lication of Schasiiani's Report ; and by a direct per- 
sonal outrage offered in the presence of all the foreign 
ministers to the king, in the person of his ambassador. 
He both insulted and alarmed us by a display of the 
most perfidious ambition in the subversion of the in- 
dependence of Switzerland, in the avowal of designs 
against Egypt, Syria, and the Greek Islands, and in 
the mission of military spies to Great Britain itself 
And by forcibly maintaining a French army in Hol- 
land, he at once insulted, alarmed, and endangered 
us. What can render a war just (pre-supposing its 
expedience) if insult, repeated alarm, and danger do 
not? And how can it be expedient for a rich, united, 
and powerful Island-empire to remain in nominal 
peace and unresenting passiveness with an insolent 
neighbor, who has proved that to wage against it an 
unmitigated war of insult, alarm, and endangerment 
is both his temper and his system ? 

Many attempts were made by Mr. Fox to explain 
away the force of the greater number of the iacts 
here enumerated : but the great fact, for which alone 
they have either force or meaning, the great ultimate 
fact, that Great Britain had been insulted, alarmed, 
and endangered by France, Mr. Fox himself ex- 
pressly admitted. But the opposers of the present 
war concentre the strength of their cause in the fol- 
lowing brief argument. Supposing, say they, the 
grievances set forth in our manifesto to be as notori- 
ous as they are asserted to be, yet more notorious 
they cannot be than that other fact which utterly 
annuls them as reasons for a war — the fact, that min 
isters themselves regard them only as the pompous 
garnish of the dish. It stands on record, that Buona- 
parte might have purchased our silence for ever, re- 
specting these insults and injuries, by a mere acqui- 
escence on his part in our retention of Malta. The 
whole treaty of Amiens is little more than a per- 
plexed bond of compromise respecting Malta. On 
Malta we rested the peace : for Malta we renewed 
the war. So say the opposers of the present war. 
As its advocates we do not deny the fact as stated by 
them; but we hope to achieve all, and more than all 
the purposes of such denial, by an explanation of the 
fact. The diflloulty then resolves itself into twoques- 
tions: first, in what sense of the words can we he 
said to have gone to war for Malta alone? Secondly, 
wherein does the importance of Malta consist ? The 
answer to the second will be found in the Life of the 
Liberator and Political Father of the Malte.'ie: while 
the attempt to settle the first question, so at the same 
time to elucidate the Law of Natio.vs and its iden- 
tity with the Law of Conscience, will occupy the 
remainder of the present Essay. 
I. In ichat sense can ive be affirmed to have renewed 
the war for Malta alone ? 

If we had known or could reason.ably have be- 



446 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



lieved, tViat the views of France were and would 
continue to be friendly or negative toward Great Bri- 
tain, neither the subversion of the independence of 
Switzerland, nor the maintenance of a French army 
in Holland, would have furnished any prudent 
ground for war. For the only way by which we 
could have injured France, namely, the destruction 
of her commerce and navy, would increase her 
means of continental conquests, by concentrating all 
the resources and energies of the French empire in 
her military powers: while the losses and miseries 
which the French people would suffer in conse- 
quence, and their magnitude, compared with any ad- 
vantages that might accrue to them from the exten- 
sion of the name France, were facts which, we knew 
by experience, would weigh as nothing with the ex- 
isting Government. Its attacks on the independence 
of its continental neighbors become motives to us for 
the re-commencement of hostility, only as far as they 
give proofs of a hostile intention toward ourselves, 
and facilitate the realizing of such intention. If any 
events had taken place, increasing the means of in- 
juring this country, even though these events fur- 
nished no moral ground of complaint against France, 
(such for instance, might be the great extension of 
her population and revenue, from freedom and a wise 
government) much more, if they were the fruits of 
iniquitous ambition, and therefore in themselves in- 
volved the probability of an hostile intention to us — 
then, I say, every after occurrence becomes import- 
ant, and both a just and expedient ground of war, in 
proportion, not to the importance of the thing in itself, 
but to the quantity of evident /jroo/" afforded by it of 
an hostile design in the Government, by whose power 
our interests are endangered. If by demanding the 
immediate evacuation of Malta, when he had him- 
self done away the security of its actual indepen- 
dence (on his promise of preserving which our pacific 
promises rested as on their sole foundation) and this 
too, after he had openly avowed such designs on 
Egypt, as not only in the opinion of our ministers, but 
in his own opinion, made it of the greatest importance 
to this country, that Malta should not be under 
French influence; if by this conduct the First Consul 
exhibited a decisive proof of his intention to violate 
our rights and to undermine our national interests ; 
then all his preceding actions on the Continent be- 
came proofs likewise of the same intention ; and any 
one* of these aggressions involves the meaning of the 



* An hundred cases might be imagined which would place 
this aeseition in its true liahl. Suppose, for instance, a coun- 
try according to the laws of which a parent might not disin- 
herit a son without having first convicted him of some one of 
sundry crimes enumerated in a specific statute. Caius, by a 
seii('8 of vicious actions had so nearly convinced his father of 
his utler worlhlessness, that the father resolves on the next 
provocation to use the very first opportunity of legally disin- 
heriting his son. The provocation occurs, and in itself fur- 
nishes this opportunity, and Caius is disinherited, though for 
nn action much less glaring and intolerable than most of his 
preceding delinquencies had been. The advocates of Caius 
complain that he should be thus punished for a comparative 
trifle o(. many worse misdemeanors having been passed over. 
The father replies: " This, his last action, is not the cause of 
the disinheritance; but the means of disinheriting him. I 
punished him by it rather than for it. In truth it was not for 



whole. Which of them is to determine as to war 
must be decided by other and prudential considera- 
tions. Had the First Consul acquiesced in our deten- 
tion of Malta, he would thereby have furnished such 
proof of pacific intentions, as would have led to fur- 
ther hopes, as would have lessened our alarm from 
his former acts of ambition, and relatively to us have 
altered in some degree their nature. 

It should never be forgotten, that a Parliament or 
national Council is essentially different from a Court 
of Justice, alike in its objects and its duties. In the 
latter, the Juror lays aside his private knowledge and 
his private connections, and judges exclusively ac- 
cording to evidence adduced in the Court: in the 
former, the Senator acts upon his own internal con- 
victions, and oftentimes upon private information, 
which it would be imprudent or criminal to disclose. 
Though his ostensible Reason ought to be a true and 
just one, it is by no means necessary that it should 
be his sole or even his chief reason. In a Court of 
Justice, the Juror attends to the character and gene- 
ral intentions of the accused party, exclusively, as 
adding to the probability of his having or not having 
committed the one particular action then in question. 
The Senator, on the contrary, when he is to deter- 
mine on the conduct of a foreign Power, attends to 
particular actions, chiefly in proof of character and 
existing intentions. Now there were many and very 
powerful Reasons why, though appealing to the 
former actions of Buonaparte, as confirmations of his 
hostile spirit and alarming ambition, we should never- 
theless make Malta the direct object and final deter- 
minant of the war. Had we gone to war avowedly 
for the independence of Holland and Switzerland, 
we should have furnished Buonaparte with a cotur- 
able pretext for annexing both countries immediately 
to the French empire,! w hich, if he should do (as if 
his power continues he most assuredly will sooner or 
later) by a mere act of violence, and undisguised ty- 
ranny, there will follow a moral weakening of his 
power in the minds of men, which may prove of in- 
calculabJe advantage to the independence and well- 
being of Europe; but which, unfortunatelj', for this 
very reason, that it is not to be calculated, is too often 
disregarded by ordinary Statesmen. At all events, it 
would have been made the plea for banishing, plun- 
dering, and perhaps murdering numbers of virtuous 
and patriotic individuals, as being the parlizans of 
" the Enemy of the Continent." Add to this, that we 
should have appeared to have rushed into a war for 
objects which by war we could not hope to realize ; 
we should have exacerbated the misfortunes of the 



any of his actions that I have thus punished him. but for his 
vices ; that is, not so much for the injuries which I have suf- 
fered, as for the dispositions which these actions evinced; for 
the insolent and alarming intentions ol which they are proofs. 
Now of this habitual temper, of these dangerous purposes, 
his last action is as true and complete a manifestation as any 
or all of his preceding offences ; and it therefore may and 
must be taken as their common representative." 

t This disquisition was written in the year 1B04, in Malta, 
at the request of Sir Alexander Ball, [with the exception of 
the latter paragraphs, which I have therefore includti in 
crotchets.] 

456 



THE FRIEND. 



447 



countries of which we had elected ourselves the 
champions; and the war would have appeared a 
mere war of revenge and reprisal, a circiimslance 
always to be avoided wliere it is possible. The ablest 
and best men in the Batavian Republic, those who 
fell the insults of France most acutely, and were suf- 
fering l"n)ni her oppressions the most severely, entreut- 
td our Ciovernincnt, tlirou-ih llirir minisier, that it 
would not make the state of llullund the great osten- 
sible reason of the war. The Swiss puiriois, too, be- 
lieved that we could do nothing to assist tliem at that 
time, and attributed to our forbearance the comjxira- 
tivcly timid use which France has hitherto made of 
her absolute jiower over that country. Besides, Aus- 
tria, whom the changes on the Continent much more 
nearly concerned than England, having refused all 
co-operation with us, there is reason to fear that an 
opinion (destructive of the one great blessing purcha- 
sed by the peace, our national luianimity) would have 
taken root in the popular mind, that these charges 
were mere pretexts. Neither should we forget, that 
the last war had left a dishke in our countrymen to 
continental interference, and a not unplausible per- 
suasion, that where a nation has not sufficient sensi- 
bility to its wrongs to commence a war against the 
aggressor, unbribed and ungoaded by Great Britain, 
a war begun by the Government of such a nation, at 
the instance of our Government, has little chance of 
other than a disastrous result, considering the charac- 
ter and revolutionary resources of the enemy. What- 
ever may be the strength or weakness of this argu- 
ment, it is however certain, that there was a strong 
predilection in the British people for a cause indis- 
putably and peculiarly British. And this feeling is 
not altogether ungrounded. In practical politics and 
the great expenditures of national power, we must 
not pretend to be too far-sighted : otherwise even a 
transient peace would be impossible among the Eu- 
ropean nations. To future and distant evils we may 
always oppose the various unforeseen events that are 
ripening in the womb of the future. Lastly, it is 
chiefly to immediate and unequivocal attacks on our 
own interests and honor, that we attach the notion of 
Right with a full and efficient feeling. Now, though 
we may be first stimulated to action by probabilities 
and prospects of advantage, and though there is a 
perverse restlessness in human nature, which renders 
almost all wars popular at their commencement, yet 
a nation always needs a sense of positive Right to 
sicadij its spirit. There is always needed some one 
reason, short, simple, and independent of complicated 
calculation, in order to give a sort of muscular 
strength to the public mind, when the power that re- 
sults from enthusiasm, animal spirits, and the charm 
of novelty, has evaporated. 

There is no feeling more honorable to our nature, 
few that strike deeper rcwt w'hen our nature is hap- 
pily circumstanced, than the jealousy concerning a 
positive right, independent of an immediate interest. 
To surrender in our national character, the merest 
trifle, that is strictly our right, the merest rock on 
which the waves will scarcely permit the seafiivvl to 
lay its eirgs, at the demand of an insolent and power- 
30 



fill rival, on a shopkeeper's calculation of loss and 
gain, is in its final, and assuredly not very distant 
consequences, a loss of every thing — of national spi- 
rit, of national independence, and with these, of the 
very wealth for which the low calculation was made. 
This feeling in individuals, indeed, and in private 
life, is to be sacrificed to religion. Say rather, that 
by religion, it is transmuted into a higher virtue, 
growitig on an higher and engrafted branch, yet nou- 
rished from the same root : that it remains in its es- 
sence the same spirit, but 

Made pure by Thought, and nnluniliTied in Heaven ; 
and he who cannot perceive the moral differences of 
national and individual duties, comprehends neither 
the one or the other, and is not a whit the better 
Christian for being a bad patriot. Considered nation- 
ally, it is as if the captain of a man-of-war should 
strike and surrender his colors under the pretence, 
that it would be folly to risk the lives of so many 
good Christian sailors for the sake of a few yards of 
coarse canias! Of such reasoners we take an in- 
dignant leave in the words of an obscure poet 

Fenr never wanted arenniPnls: you do 
Reason yourselves into a careful bondage, 
Circumspect only to your Misery. 
I could urge Freedom, Charters, Country, Laws, 
Gods, and Relit-ion, and such precious names — 
Nay, what you value higher, fVeallh! But that 
You sue for bondage, yielding to demands 
As impious as they're insolent, and have 
Only this slugaish name — to perish full! 

CARTVVRlGhr. 

And here we find it neces.sary to animadvert on a 
principle asserted by Lord Minto, (in his speech, June 
6tli, 1803, a?id afleruards pithlished alfull length) that 
France had an undoubted right to insist on our aban- 
donment of Malta, a right not given, but likewise not 
abrogated, by the Treaty of .Vmiens. Surely in this 
effort of candor, his Lordship must have forgotten the 
circumstances on which he exerted it. The case is 
simply thus: the British government was convinced, 
and the French government admitted the justice of 
the conviction, that it was of the utmost importance 
to our interests, that Malta should remain uninflu- 
enced by France. The French government binds 
itself down by a solemn treaty, that it will use its 
best endeavore in conjunction with us, to secure this 
independence. This promise was no act of liberality, 
no generous free-gift on the part of France, No ! we 
purchased it at a high price. We disbanded our 
forces, we dismissed our sailors, and we gave up the 
best part of the fruits of our naval victories. Can it 
therefore with a shadow of plausibility bo affirmed, 
that the right to insist on our evacuation of the island 
was unaltered by the treaty of Amiens, when this 
demand is strictly tantamount to our surrender of all 
the advantages which we had bought of France at 
so high a price ? Tantamount to a direct breach on 
her part, not merely of a solemn treaty, but of an ab- 
solute bargain ? It was not only the perfidy of un- 
principled ambition — the demand was the fraudulent 
trick of a sharper. For what did France I She sold 
us the independence of Malta : then exerted her 
power, and annihilated the very possibility of that 
457 



448 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



independence, and lastly, demanded of us that we 
should leave it bound hand and foot for her to seize 
without trouble, whenever her ambitious projects led 
her to regard such seizure as expedient. We bound 
ourselves to surrender it to the Knights of Malta — 
not surely to Joseph, Robert, or Nicolas, but to a 
known order, clothed with certain powers, and capa- 
ble of exerting them in consequence of certain reve- 
nues. We fuimd no such order. The men indeed 
and the name we found : and even so, if we had pur- 
chased Sardinia of its sovereign for so many millions 
of money, which through our national credit, and 
from the equivalence of our national paper to gold 
and silver, he had agreed to receive in bank notes, 
and if he had received them — doubtless, he would 
have the bank notes, even though immediately after 
our payment of them we had for this very purpose 
forced the Bank Company to break. But would he 
have received the debt due to him? It is nothing 
more or less than a practical ptm, as wicked, though 
not quite so ludicrous, as the (in all senses) execrable 
pun of Earl Godwin, who requesting basium (i. e. a 
kiss) from the archbishop, thereupon seized on the 
archbishop's manor of Baseham. 

A Treaty is a writ of mutual promise between two 
independent States, and the Law of Promise is the 
same to nations as to individuals. It is to be sacredly 
performed by each party in that sense in which it 
knew and permitted the other party to understand it, 
at the time of the contract. Anything short of this 
is criminal deceit in individuals, and in governments 
impious perfidy. After the conduct of France in the 
affair of the guarantees, and of the revenues of the 
order, we had the same right to preserve the island 
independent of France by a British garrison, as a 
lawful creditor has to the household goods of a fugi- 
tive and dishonest debtor. 

One other assertion of his Lordship's, in the same 
speech, bears so immediately on the plan of The 
Friend, as far as it proposed to investigate the prin- 
ciple of international, no less than of private morality, 
that I feel myself in some degree under an obligation 
to notice it. A Treaty (says his Lordship) ought to 
be strictly observed by a nation in its literal sense. 
even though the utter ruin of that nation should be 
the certain and fore-known consequence of that ob- 
servance. Previous to any remarks of my own on 
this high flight of diplomatic virtue, we will hear 
what Harrington has said on this subject. " A man 
may devote himself to death or destruction to save a 
nation ; but no nation will devote itself to death or 
destruction to save mankind. Machiavel is decried 
for saying, ' that no consideration is to be had of what 
is just or unjust, of what is merciful or cruel, of what 
is honorable or ignominious, in case it be to save a 
state or to preserve liberty :' which as to the manner 
of expression may perhaps be crudely spoken. But 
to imagine that a nation will devote itself to death or 
destruction any more after faith given, or an engage- 
ment thereto tending, than if there had been no en- 
gagement made or faith given, were not piety but 
folly." Crudely spoken indeed! and not less 



crudely thought : nor is the matter much mended by 
the commentator. Yet every man, who is at all ac- 
quainted with the world and its past history, knows 
that the fact itself is truly stated : and what is more 
important in the present argument, he cannot find in 
his heart a full, deep, and downright verdict, that it 
should be otherwise. The consequences of this per- 
plexity in the moral feelings, are not seldom exten- 
sively injurious. For men hearing the duties which 
would be binding on two individuals living under the 
same laws, insisted on as equally obligatory on two 
independent slates, in extreme cases, where they see 
clearly the impracticability of realizing such a notion ; 
and having at the same time a dim half-consciousness, 
that two States can never be placed exactly on the 
same ground as two individuals; relieve themselves 
from their perplexity by cutting what they cannot 
untie, and assert that naUonal policy cannot in all 
cases be subordinated to the laws of morality : in 
other words, that a government may act with injus- 
tice, and yet remain blameless. This assertion was 
hazarded (I record it with unfeigned regret) by a 
Minister of State, on the affair of Copenhagen. Tre- 
mendous assertion ! that would render every com- 
plaint, which we make, of the abominations of the 
French tyrant, hypocrisy, or mere incendiary decla- 
mation for the simple-headed multitude ! But, thank 
heaven! it is as unnecessary and unfounded, as it is 
tremendous. For what is a treaty ? a voluntary con- 
tract between two nations. So we will state it in the 
first instance. Now it is an impossible case, that any 
nation can be supposed by any other to have intended 
its own absolute destruction in a treaty, which its in- 
terests alone could have prompted it to make. The 
very thought is self-contradictory. Not only Athens 
(we will say) could not have intended this to have 
been understood in any specific promise made to 
Sparta; but Sparta could never have imagined that 
Athens had so intended it. And Athens itself must 
have known, that had she even afllrmed the contrary, 
Sparta could not have believed — nay, would have 
been under a moral obligation not to have believed 
her. Were it possible to suppose such a case — for 
instance, such a treaty made by a single besieged 
town, under an independent government as that of 
Numantium — it becomes no longer a state, but the 
act of a certain number of individuals voluntarily 
sacrificing themselves, each to preserve his separate 
honor. For the state was already destroyed by the 
circumstances which alone could make such an en- 
gagement conceivable. — But we have said, nations. — 
Applied to England and France, relatively to treaties, 
this is but a form of speaking. The treaty is really 
made by some half dozen, or perhaps half a hundred 
individuals, possessing the government of these coun- 
tries. Now it is a universally admitted part of the 
Law of Nations, that an engagement entered into by 
a minister with a foreign power, when it was known 
to this power that the minister in so doing had ex- 
ceeded and contravened his instructions, is altogether 
nugatory. And is it to be supposed for a moment, 
that a whole nation, consisting of perhaps twenty 
458 



THE FRIEND. 



449 



millions of human souls, could ever have invested a 
lew individuals — whom allogelher for the promotion 
of its welfare, it had intrusted with its government — 
with the right of signing away its existence ? 



ESSAY VII. 



Arnicas reprchensione? prntiesime accipiamus, oportet: ctinm 
si reprohendi non meruit opinio nostra, vel hnnc propter 
causam, qiiod recto ilefemli potest. Si vcro infirniitas vel 
humana vel propria, ctiam cum veraciter arguitur, non po- 
test non alinuanlulum contrietari, mcliua tumor ilolct cum 
curatur, quam dum ci parcitur ot non eanalur. Hoc eiiim 
est quod acute vidit, qui dixit: utiliores esse baud raro inimi- 
cos objurgantcs, quam arnicas objurgure metuenlcs. llli 
enim dum rixantur, dicunt aliquando vera qux' corrigamus: 
iati autem mlnorem, quam oportel, exhibent jusliliaj libor- 
tatem, dum amicitinp timent exasperare dulcedinem. — AU- 
GUSTINUS IIIERONYMO: Epist. xcWi. Hicron Opera. 
Tom. ii. p. ins. 

Translation — Censures offered in friendllnes?, we ought to 
receive with gratitude : yea, though our opinions did not 
merit censure, we should still be thankful lor the attack on 
them, were it only that it gives us an opportunity ol' success- 
fully defending the same. (For never doth an important 
truth spread its roots so wide or clasp the soil so stabhnrn- 
lu, as when it has braved the winds of controversy. There 
is a stirring and a far-heard music sc7it forth from the 
tree of sound knowledge, when its branches are jightins 
with the storm, which passing onward shrills out at once 
Truth's triumph and its own defeat.) But if the infirmity 
of human nature, or of our own constitutional temperament, 
cannot, even when we have been fairly convicted of error, 
but puffer some small mortification, yet better sutler pain 
from its extirpation, than from the consequences of its con- 
tinuance, and of the false tenderness, that had withheld the 
remedy. This is what the acute observer had in his mind, 
who said, that upbraiding enemies were not seldom more 
profitable than friends afraid to find fault. For the farmer 
amidst their quarrelsome invectives may chance on some 
home truths, which we may amend in consequence; while 
the latter, from an over-delicate apprehension of rutiling the 
smooth surface of friendship, shrink from its duties, and 
from the manly freedom which Truth and Justice demand. 



Only a few privileged individuals are authorized 
to pass into the theatre without stopping at the door- 
keeper's box ; but everj' man of decent appearance 
may put down the play-price there, and thencefor- 
ward has as good a right as the managers themselves 
not only to see and hear, as far as his place in the 
house, and his own ears and eyes permit him, but 
likewise to express audibly his approbation or disap- 
probation of what may be going forward on the stage. 
If his feelings happen to be in uni.son with those of 
the audience in general, he may without breach of 
decorum persevere in his notices of applause or dis- 
like, till the wish of the hotise is complied with. If 
he finds himself unsupptjrted, he rests contented with 
having once exerted his common right, and on that 
occasion at least gives no ftirther interruption to the 
amusement of those who feel difTerently from him. 
So it is, or so it should be, in Literature. A few ex- 
traordinary minds may be allowed to pass a mere 
opinion: though in point of fact those, who alone are 
entitled to this privilege, are ever the last to avail 
themselves of it. Add too, that even the mere opin- 
ions of such men may in (reneral be regarded either 
59 



as promissory notes, or as receipts reterring to a for- 
mer payment. But every man's opinion has a right 
to pass into tlie common auditory, if his reason for the 
o|>iiiion is paid down at the same time: for arguments 
arc the sole current coin of intellect. The degree of 
influence to which the opinion is entitled, should be 
proportioned to the weight and value of the reasons 
for it ; and whether these are shillings or pounds 
sterling, the man, who has given them, remains 
blameless, provided he contents himself with the 
place to whi'jh they have entitled him, and does not 
attempt by the strength of lungs to counterbalance its 
disadvantages, or expect to exert as immediate an in- 
fluence in the hack seats of the upper gallery, as if 
ho had paid in gold and been sealed in the stage box. 

But unfortunately (and here commence the points 
of diflcrencc between the thcalric and the Literary 
Public) in the great theatre of Literature there are 
no authorized door-keepers : for our anonymous crit- 
ics are self-elected. I shall not fear the cnarge of 
calumny if I add, that they have lost oil credit with 
wise men, by unfair dealing : such as their refusal to 
receive an honest man's money, (that is, his argu- 
ment) because they anticipate and dislike his opinion, 
while others of suspicious character and the most un- 
seemly appearance, are sufllered to pass without pay- 
ment, or by virtue of orders which they have them- 
selves distributed fo known partizans. Sometimes 
the honest man's intellectual coin is refused under 
pretence that it is light or counterfeit, without any 
proof given either by the money scales, or by sound- 
ing the coin in dispute together with one of known 
goodness. We may carry the metaphor slill farther. 
It is by no means a rare case, that the money is re- 
turned because it had a diflfercnt sound from that of 
a counterfeit, the brassy blotches on which seemed 
to blush for the impudence of the silver wash in which 
they were inisled, and rendered the mock coin a live- 
ly emblem of a lie self detected. Still oftener does 
the rejection take place by a mere act of insolence, 
and a blank asi5erlion that the candidate's money is 
light or bad, is justified by a second assertion, that he 
is a fool or knave for offering it. 

The second point of diflference explains the pre- 
ceding, and accounts both for the want of established 
door-keepers in the auditoryof Literature, and for the 
practices of those, who under the name of Reviewers 
volunteer this office. There is no royal mintage for 
arguments, no ready means by which all men alike, 
who possess common sense, may determine their 
value and intrinsic worth at the first sight or sound. 
Certain forms of natural Logic indeed there are, the 
inobservance of which is decisive against an argu- 
ment ; but the strictest adherence to them is no proof 
of its actual (though an indispensable condition of its 
possible) validity; in the argiier's own conscience 
there is, no doubt, a certain value, and an infallible 
criterion of it, which applies to all arguments equal- 
ly: and this is the sincere conviction of the mind it- 
self But for those to whom it is oflered, these are 
only conjectural marks; yet such as will seldom mis- 
lead any man of plain sense, who is both honest and 
observant. These characteristics the Fme-ND at 
459 



450 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



tempted to comprise in the concluding paragraph of 
the Fourth Essay of the Volume, and has described 
them more at large in the Essa)'s that follow, " On 
the communicating of Truth." If the honest warmth, 
which results from the strength of the particular con- 
viction, be tempered by the modesty which belongs 
to the sense of general fallibility ; if the emotions, 
which accompany all vivid perceptions, are pre- 
served distinct from the expression of personal pas- 
sions, and from appeals to them in the heart of others ; 
if the Reasoner asks no respect for the opinion, as his 
opinion, but only in proportion as it is aciinowledged 
by that Reason, which is common to all men; and, 
lastly, if he supports an opinion on no subject which 
he has not previously examined, and furnishes proof 
both that he possesses the means of inquiry by his 
education or the nature of his pursuits, and that he 
has endeavored to avail himself of those means; then, 
and with these conditions, every human Being is au- 
thorized to make public the grounds of any opinion 
which he holds, and of course the opinion itself as 
the object of them. Consequently, it is the duty of 
all men, not always indeed to attend to him, but, if 
they do, to attend to him with respect, and with a 
sincere as well as apparent toleration. I should of- 
fend against my own Laws, if I disclosed at present 
the nature of my convictions concerning the degree, 
in which this virtue of toleration is possessed and prac- 
tised by the majority of my contemporaries and coun- 
trymen. But if the contrary temper is felt and shown 
in instances where all the conditions have been ob- 
served, which have been staled at full in the preli- 
minary numbers that form the Introduction of this 
Work, and the chief of which I have just now recap- 
itulated ; I have no hesitation in declaring that what- 
ever the opinion may be, and however opposite to 
the hearer's or reader's previous persuasions, one or 
other or all of the following defects must be taken 
for granted. Either the intolerant person is not mas- 
ter of the grounds on which his own fiiith is built: 
which therefore neither is or can be his own failh, 
though it may very easily be his imagined interest, 
and his habit of thought. In this case he is angry, 
not at the opposition to Truth, but at the interruption 
of his own indolence and intellectual slumber, or 
possibly at the apprehension, that his temporal advan- 
tages are threatened, or at least the ease of mind, in 
which he had been accustomed to enjoy them. Or, 
secondly, he has no love of Truth for its own sake ; 
no reverence for the divine command to seek ear- 
nestly after it, which command, if it had not been so 
often and solemnly given by Revelation, is yet in- 
volved and expressed in the gift of Reason and in the 
dependence of all our virtues on its development. 
He has no moral and religious awe for freedom of 
thought, though accompanied both by sincerity and 
humility; nor for the right of free communication 
which is ordaineu by God, together with that freedom, 
if it be true that God has ordained us to live in soci- 
ety, and has made the progressive improvement of 
rU and each of us depend on the reciprocal aids, 
which directly or indirectly each supplies to all, and 
11 to each. But if his alarm and his consequent in- 



tolerance, are occasioned by his eternal rather than 
temporal interests, and if as is most commonly the 
case, he does not deceive himself on this point, 
gloomj' indeed, and erroneous beyond idolatry, must 
have been his notions of the Supreme Being! For 
surely the poor Heathen who represents to himself 
the divine attributes of wisdom, justice, and mercy 
under multiplied and forbidden symbols in the pow 
ers of Nature or the souls of extraordinary men, prac- 
tises a superstition which (though at once the cause 
and effect of blindness and sensuality) is less incom- 
patible with inward piety and true religious feeling, 
than the creed of that man, who in the spirit of his 
practice, though not in direct words, loses sight of all 
these attributes, and substitutes " servile and thrall- 
like fear instead of the adoptive and cheerful bold- 
ness, which our new alliance with God requires of 
us as Christians."" Such fear-ridden and thence 
angry believers, or rather acquiescents, would do well 
to re-peruse the book of Job, and observe the sen- 
tence passed by the all-just on the friends of the suf- 
ferer, who had hoped, like venal advocates, to pur- 
chase the favor of deity by uttering truths of which 
in their own hearts they had neither conviction nor 
comprehension. The truth from the lips did not 
ATONE FOR THE LIE IN THE HEART, while the rash- 
ness of agony in the searching and bewildered com- 
plainant, was forgiven in consideration of his since- 
rity and integrity in not disguising the true dictates 
of his Reason and Conscience, but avowing his inca- 
pability of solving a problem by his Reason, which 
before the Christian dispensation the Almighty was 
pleased to solve only by declaring it to be beyond the 
limits of human Reason. Having insensibly passed 
into a higher and more serious style than I had first 
intended, I will venture to appeal to these self obscu- 
rants, whose faith dwells in the Land of the Shadow 
of Darkness, these Papists without Pope, and Protes- 
tants who protest only against all protesting ; and will 
appeal to them in words which yet more immediately 
concern them as Christians, in the hope that they will 
lend a fearless ear to the learned apostle, when he 
both assures and labors to persuade them that they 
were called iyi Christ to all perfectness in spiritual 
hnowledge and full assurance of understanding in Oie 
mystery of God. There can be no end without 
means : and God furnishes no means that exempt us 
from the task and duty of joining our own best en- 
deavors. The original stock, or wild olive-tree of our 
natural powers, was not given us to be burnt or 
blighted, but to be grafted on. We are not only not 
forbidden to examine and propose our doubts, so it be 
done with humility and proceed from a real desire 

* Milton's Reformation in England. "For in very 
(iced, the superstitious man by his good will is an Atheist : 
but being scared from thence by the pansys of conscience, shuf- 
fles up to himself such a God and snch a Worship as is most 
accordant to his fear: which fear of his as also hi= hope, beins 
fixed only upon the flesh, renders likewise the whole faculty 
of hia apprehension carnal, and a'.l the inward acts of wor- 
ship issuing from the native strength of the Soul, run out 
lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden into a crust of 
formntily. Hence men came to scan the Scriptures by the 
letter, TinA in the covenant of our redemption masnified the 
[ external signs more than the quickening power of the Spirit. ' 

460 



THE FRIEND. 



451 



to know the Truth ; but wo are repeatedly command- 
ed so to do: and with a most unchristian spirit must 
that man have read' the preceding passages, if he can 
interpret any one sentence as having for its object to 
excuse a too numerous class, who, to use the words 
of St. Augustine, qiurrinil noti itt fidem sed u( iiifitieli- 
tatem inveniant : i. e. such as examine not to find 
reasons for faith, but pretexts for infidehty. 



ESSAY VIII. 

Such i? the iniquity of men, that they suck in opinions as wild 
assee do the wind, without distinguishing the wholesome 
from the corrupted air, and then live upon it at a venture: 
and when all their confidence is built upon Zealand mistake, 
yet therefore because they are zealous and mistaken they 

are impatient of contradiction. 'IWYLOR'S Epist. 

JDedic. to the Liberty of I'rophcsiiing. 



" If," (observes the eloquent Bishop in the 13th 
section of the work, from which my motto is select- 
ed) "an opinion plainly and directly brings in a crime, 
as if a man preaches treason or sedition, his opinion 
is not his excuse. A man is nevertheless a traitor 
because he believes it lawful to commit treason ; and 
a man is a murtherer if he kills his brother unjusti)', 
although he should think that he was doing God good 
service thereby. Matters of fact are equally judi- 
cable, u-hefher the princijile of them be from within or 
from without.'' 

To dogmatize a crime, that is, to teach it as a doc- 
trine, is itself a crime, great or small as the crime 
dogmatized is more or less palpably so. You say 
(said Sir John Cheke addressing himself to the Pa- 
pists of his day) that yon rebel for your religion. 
First tell me, what religion is that which teaches you 
to rebel. As my object in the present section is to 
treat of Tolerance and Intolerance in the public 
bearings of opinions and their propagation, I shall 
embrace this opportunity of selecting the two pas- 
sages, which I have been long inclined to consider 
as the most eloquent in our English Literature, 
though each in a very different style of eloquence, 
as indeed the authors were as dissimilar in their bias, 
if not in their faith, as two bishops of the same 
church can well be supposed to have been. I think 
too, I may venture to add, that both the extracts will 
be new to a very great majority of my readers. For 
the length I will make no apology. It was a part of 
my plan to allot two numbers of The Friend, the one 
to a selection from our prose writers, and the other 
from our poets ; but in both cases from works that 
do not occur in our ordinary reading. 

The following passages are both on the same sub- 
ject : the first from Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery: 
— the second from a Letter of Bishop Bedell's to an 
unhappy friend who had deserted the church of Eng- 
land f(jr that of Rome. 

1. The Rise and Progress of a controversy, from 
the speciilaiive Opinion of an Individual to the Revo- 
lution or Intestine War of a Nation. 

This is one of the most inseparable characters of 
Pp 



a heretic; he sets his whole communion and all his 
charity ujion his article ; for to be zealous in the 
schism, that is the characteristic of a good man, that 
is his note of Christianity ; in all the rest he excuses 
you or tolerates you, provided you be a true believer; 
then you are one of the faithful, a good man and a 
precious, you are of the congregation of the saints, 
and one of the godly. .Ml Solilidians do thus; and 
all that do thus are Solilidians, the church of Rome 
herself not excepted ; ior though in words she pro- 
claims the jwssibility of keeping all the command- 
ments; yet she dispenses easier with him that breaks 
them all, than with him that speaks one word against 
any of her articles, though but lUp least ; even the 
eating of fish and forbidding flesfi in I^nt. So that 
it is faith they regard more than charity, a right be- 
lief more than a holy life; and for this you shall be 
with them upon terms easy enough, provided you go 
not a hair's breadth from any thing of her belief 
For if you do, they have provided for you two deaths 
and two fires, both inevitable and one eternal. And 
this certainly is one of the greatest evils, of which 
the church of Rome is guilty : for this in itself is the 
greatest and unworthiest uncharitableness. But the 
procedure is of great use to their ends. For the 
greatest part ol" Christians are those that cannot con- 
sider things leisurely and wisely, searchitig their 
bottoms and discovering their causes, or foreseeing 
events which are to come after; but are carried 
away by fear and hope, by affection and preposses- 
sion: and therefore the Roman doctors are careful to 
govern them as they will be governed. If you dis- 
pute, you gain, it may be, one, and lose five ; but if 
you threaten them with damnation, you keep them 
in fetters ; for they that are, ' in fear of death, are all 
their lifeiime in bondage'* (saith the Apostle:) and 
there is in the world nothing so potent ns fear of the 
two deaths, which are the two arms and grapples of 
iron by %vhich the church of Rome takes and keeps 
her timorous or conscientious proselytes. The easy 
Protestant calls upon you from scripture to do your 
duly, to build a holy life upon a holy faith, the faith 
of the Apostles and first disciples of our Lord ; he 
tells you if you err, and teaches ye the truth ; and 
if ye will obey, it is well ; if not, he tells you of your 
sin, and ihat all sin deserves the wrath of God ; but 
judges no man's person, much less any slates of men. 
lie knows Ihat God's judgments are righteous and 
true ; but he knows also, that his mercy absolves 
many persons, who, in his just judgment, were con- 
demned : and if he had a warrant from God to say, 
that he should destroy all the Papists, as Jonas had 
concerning the Nineviies; yet he remembers that 
every repentance, if it be sincere, will do more, and 
prevail greater, and last longer than God's anger 
will. Besides these things, there is a strange spring, 
and secret principle in every man's imderslanding, ^ 
that is oftentimes turned alxjut by such impulses, of 
w'hich no man can give an account. But we all re- 
member a most wonderful instance of it, in the 
disputation between the two Reynolds's, John and 



* Hebrews, ii. 15. 



461 



452 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



William ; the former of which being a Papist, and 
the latter a Protestant, met and disputed, with a pur- 
pose to confute, and to convert each other. And so 
they did : for those arguments, which were used, 
prevailed fully against their adversary, and yet did 
not prevail with themselves. The Papist turned 
Protestant, and the Protestant became a Papist, and 
60 remained to their dying day. Of which some 
ingenious person gave a most handsome account in 
the following excellent Epigram, 

Bella, inter geminos, plusqaam civilia, fratres 

Traxerat ambiiruus Religionis apex. 
Il!e reformatae fidei propartibus instat : 

Iste reformandain denegat esse fidem. 
Propositis causae ralionibus ; alter utrinque 

Concurrere pares, et cecidere pares. 
Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alter uterq : 

Ciuod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque (idem. 
Captivi geinini sine captivante fuerunt, 

Et victor victi transiuga castra petit. 
Quod genus hoc pugnce est, ubi victus gaudet uterq ; 

Et tamen alleruter se superasse dolet 1 

But further yet, he considers the natural and regu- 
lar infirmities of mankind ; and God considers them 
much more ; he knows that in man there is nothing 
admirable but his ignorance and weakness ; his pre- 
judice, and the infallible certainty of being deceived 
in many things ; he sees, that wicked men oftentimes 
know much more than many very good men; and 
that the understanding is not of itself considerable in 
morality, and effects nothing in rewards and punish- 
ments ; it is the will only that rules man, and can 
obey God. He sees and deplores it, tteat men study 
hard, and understand little, that they dispute earnest- 
ly, and understand not one another at all ; that affec- 
tions creep so certainly, and mingle with their argu- 
ing, that the argument is lost, and nothing remains 
but the conflict of two adversaries' affections ; that a 
man is so willing, so easy, so ready, to believe vi'hat 
makes for his opinion, so hard to understand an argu- 
ment against himself, that it is plain, it is the princi- 
ple within, not the argument without, that determines 
him. He observes also that all the world (a few in- 
dividuals excepted) are unalterably determined to 
the religion of their country, of their family, of their 
society ; that there is never any considerable change 
made, but what is made by war and empire, by fear 
and hope. He remembers that it is a rare thing, to 
see a Jesuit of the Dominican opinion ; or a Domini- 
can (until of late) of the Jesuit ; but every order gives 
laws to the understanding of their novices, and they 
never change. He considers there is such ambiguity 
in words, by which all Lawgivers express their mean- 
ing ; that there is such abstruseness in mysteries of 
religion, that some things are so much too high for 
us, that we cannot understand them rightly ; and yet 
they are so sacred, and concerning, that men will 
think they are bound to look into them, as far as they 
can ; that it is no wonder if they quickly go too far, 
where no understanding, if it were fitted for it, could 
go far enough ; but in these things it will be hard not 
to be deceived ; since our words cannot rightly ex- 
press those things. That there is such variety of hu- 
man understandings, that men's faces differ not so 



much as their souls ; and that if there were not so 
much difficulty in things, yet they could not but be 
variously apprehended by several men. And hereto 
he considers, that in tvi'enty opinions, it may be that 
not one of them is true ; nay, whereas Varro reckon- 
ed, that among the old Philosophers there were eight 
hundred opinions concerning the suminiim bonuvi, 
that yet not one of them hit the right. He sees also 
that in all religions, in all societies, in all families, and 
in all things, opinions differ ; and since opinions are 
too often begot by passion, by passions and violence 
they are kept ; and every man is too apt to overvalue 
his own opinion ; and out of a desire that every man 
should conform his judgment to his that teaches, men 
are apt to be earnest in their persuasion, and overact 
the proposition ; and from being true as he supposes, 
he will think it profitable ; and if you warm him 
either with confidence or opposition, he quickly tells 
you it is necessary ; and as he loves those that think 
as he does, so he is ready to hate them that do not ; 
and then secretly from wishing evil to him, he is apt 
to believe evil will come to him; and that it is just 
it should ; and by this time the opinion is troublesome, 
and puts other men upon their guard against it ; and 
then while passion reigns, and reason is modest and 
patient, and talks not loud like a storm, victory is 
more regarded than truth, and men call God into the 
party, and his judgments are used for arguments, and 
the threatenings of the Scripture are snatched up in 
haste, and men throw arroivs, fire-brands, and death, 
and by this time all the world is in an uproar. All 
this, and a thousand things more the English protest- 
ants considering deny not their communion to any 
Christian who desires it, and believes the Apostles' 
Creed, and is of the religion of the four first general 
councils; they hope well of all that live well; they 
receive into their bosom all true believers of what 
church soever ; and for them that err, they instruct 
them, and then leave them to their liberty, to stand 
or fall before their own master. — 

2. A doctrine not the less safe for being the more 
charitable. 

" Christ our Lord hath given us, amongst others, 
two infallible notes to know the church." " My 
sheep," saith he, " hear my voice :" and again, " By 
this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if 
ye love one another." — What, shall we stand upon 
conjectural arguments from that which men say? 
We are partial to ourselves, malignant to our oppo- 
sites. Let Christ be heard who be his, who not. And 
for the hearing of his voice — that it might be the 
issue ! But I see you decline it, therefore I leave it 
also for the present. That other is that which now I 
stand upon : " the badge of Christ's sheep." Not a 
likelihood, but a certain tnkeii whereby evert/ man 
may know them: "by this," saith he, "shall all men 
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have charity one 
towards another." — Thanks be to God, this mark of 
our Saviour is in us which you with our schismatics 
and other enemies want. As Solomon found the true 
mother by her natural affection, that chose rather to 
yield to her adversary's plea, claiming her child, than 
endure that it should be cut in pieces ; so may it soon 
462 



THE FRIEND. 



453 



bo found al this day whether is the true mother. 
Ours, tliat sailh, give iier the livinp; child and kill him 
not; or yours, that iC she may not have it, is content 
it bo killed rather ihan want of her will. Alas! 
(saitli ours even of those that leave her) these bo my 
cliildren! I have borne them to Christ in bapli-sm: I ' 
have nourished them as 1 could with mine own [ 
breasts, his testamenis. I would have brought them 
up to mairs estate, as their free birth and parentage 
deserves. Whether it be their lightness or discontent, 
or her enticinc words and goy shows, they leave nie : 
they have fi)und a better mother. Let them live yet, 
though in bondage. I shall have patience; I permit 
the care of them to their father, I beseech him to keep 
lliem that they do no evil. If they make their peace 
with him, I am satisfied : they have not hurt me at 
all. Kay, but saith yours, I sit alone as Queen and 
Mistress of Christ's F'amily, ho that hath not mo for 
his Mother, cannot have (jod for his Father. Mine 
therefore are these, either torn or adopted : and if 
they will not be mine they shall be none. So with- 
out expecting Christ's sentence she cut.s with the 
temixjral sword, hangs, burns, draws, those that she 
perceives inclined to leave her, or have left her al- 
ready. So she kills with the spiritual sword those 
that subject not to her, yea thousands of souls that 
not only have no means so to do, but many which ne- 
ver so much as have heard, whether there be a Pope 
of Rome or no. Let our Solomon be judge between 
them, yea, judge you, Mr. Waddesworth ! more seri- 
ously and maturely, not by guesses, but by the very 
mark of Christ, which wanting yourselves you have 
unawares discovered in us : judge, I say, without pas- 
sion and partiality, according to Christ's word: which 
is his flock, which is his church. 



ESSAY IX. 
ON THE LAW OF NATIONS. 



npJf iroXfojf ivSaiftovtav Kai SiKaioavvriv TTuvTa Utiirov 
enTTpav&cv riraKKai ipvaeC rovrtav 6e rti ftiv 'av&pii-mva 
It^Ta &eta, tu ^e&eta itfrdv 'vyciJtbva Ndvv ^vinravra 
6ei (iXi-nv, dvx, wr ''PT «pf''';r " l^opoiov, aWa 
vpi^ apcTtjv h apcTat^ au iir.oncvovaav, uf irpS;" 
vb^ov Tiva vojio^CTO vvra. 

nXaruv TTtpi No/ioJi'. 

Tranflation. — For all things that regard tho well-being and 
justice of a Stale are pre-ordained and e.slablished in the 
nature oflhe individual. Of these it bohoves that the mere- 
ly human {the temporal and jluzional) should be referred 
and subordinated to the Divine in man, and the Divine in 
like manner to the Supreme Mind, su however that the State 
is not to regulate its actions by reference to any particular 
form and fragment of virtue, hut must fix its eye on that 
virtue, which is the abiding spirit and (as it were) substra- 
tuiu in all the virtues, as on a law that is itGcIf legislative. 



It were absurd to suppose, that individuals should 
be under a law of Moral obligation, and yet that a 
million of the same individuals acting collectively or 



through reprcscnialives, should be exempt from all 
law : lor morality is no accident of human nature. Out 
its essential characleristic. A being absolutely with- 
out morality is either a boast or a fiend, according as 
we conceive this want of conscience to be natural or 
self-produced ; or (to come nearer to the common no- 
tion, though with the sacrifice of austere accuracy) 
according as the being is conceived without the law, 
or in unceasing and irretrievable rebellion to it. Yet 
wore it possible to conceive a man wholly immoral, 
it would remain im)>ossible to conceive him without 
a moral obligation to be otherwise ; and none but a 
madman will imagine that the essential qualities of 
any thing can be altered by its becoming part of an 
aggregate ; that a grain of corn, for instance, shall 
cease to contain flour, as soon as it is part of a peck 
or bushel. It is therefore grounded in the nature of 
the thing, and not by a mere fiction of the mind, that 
wise men, who have written on the law of nations, 
have always considered the several siatesof the civi- 
lized world, as so many individuals, and equally with 
the latter under a moral obligation to exercise their 
free agency within such bounds, as render it comjia- 
tible with the existence of free agency in others. We 
may represent to ourselves this original free agency, 
as a right of commonage, the formation of separate 
states as an enclosure of this common, the allotments 
awarded severally to the co-proprietors as constituting 
national rights, and the law of nations as the common 
register office of their title deeds. But in all morality, 
though the principle, which is the abiding spirit of 
the law, remains perpetual and unaltered, even as 
that supreme reason in whom and from whom it has 
its being, yet the letter of the law, that is, the appli- 
cation of it to particular instances, and the mode of 
realizing it in actual practice, must be modified by 
the existing circumstances. What we should desire 
to do, the conscience alone will inform us ; but how 
and when we are to make the attempt, and to what 
extent it is in our power to accomplish it, are ques- 
tions for the judgment, and retiiiiro an ai'(iuaintance 
with facts and their bearings on each other. Thence 
the improvement of our judgment and the increase 
of our knowledge, on all subjects included within 
our sphere of action, are not merely advantages re- 
commended by prudence, but absolute duties imposed 
on us by conscience. 

As the circumstances then, under which men act 
as Statesmen, are different from those under which 
they act as individuals, a proportionate dilTerence 
must be expected in the practical rules by which 
their public conduct is to be determined. Lot me not 
be misunderstood : I speak of a difference in the 
practical rules, not in the moral law itself which 
these rules point out, the means of administering in 
particular cases, and tinder given circumstances. 
The spirit continues one and the same, though it may 
vary its form according to the element into w hich it 
is transported. This difference with its grounds and 
consequences it is the province of the philosophical 
juspublicist to discover and disjjlay : and exactly in 
this pint (I speak with unfeigned diffidence) it op- 
463 



454 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



pears to me that the Writers on the Law of Nations,* 
whose works I liave had the opportunity of studying, 
have been least successful. In what does the Law 
of Nations differ lirom the Laws enacted by a parti- 
cular State for its own subjects ? The solution is evi- 
dent. The Law of Nations, considered apart from 
the common principle of all morality, is not fixed or 
positive in itself nor supplied with any regular means 
of being enforced. Like those duties in private life 
which, for the same reasons, moralists have entitled 
imperfect duties (though the most atrocious guilt may 
be involved in the omission or violation of them,) the 
Law of Nations appeals only to the conscience and 
prudence of the parties concerned. Wherein then 
does it differ from the moral laws which the Reason, 
considered as Conscience, dictates for the conduct of 
individuals ? This is a more difficult question ; but 
my answer would be determined by, and grounded 
on the obvious differences of the circumstances in 
the two cases. Remember then, that we are now 
reasoning, not as sophists or system-mongers, but as 
men anxious to discover what is right in order that 
we may practise it, give our suffrage and the influ- 
ence of our opinion in recommending its practice. 
We must therefore confine the question to those 
cases in which honest men and real patriots ran sup- 
pose any controversy to exist between real patriotism 
and common honesty. The objects of the patriot are, 
that his countrymen should as far as circumstances 
permit, enjoy what the Creator designed for the en- 
joyment of animals endowed with reason, and of 
course developed those faculties which were given 
them to be developed. He would do his best that 
every one of his countrymen should possess whatever 
all men may and should possess, and that a sufficient 
number should be enabled and encouraged to acquire 
those excellencies which, though not necessary or pos- 
sible /or all men, are yet to all men useful and honor- 
able. He knows, that patriotism itself is a necessary 
link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues, 
and turns away with indignant scorn from the false 
Philosophy or mistaken Religion, which would per- 
suade him that Cosmopolitism is nobler than National- 
ity, and the human race a subhmer object of love than 
a people; that Plato, Luther, Newton, and their equals, 
formed themselves neither in the market nor the sen- 
ate, but in the world, and for all men of all ages. True! 
But where, and among whom are these giant excep- 
tions produced >. In the wide empires of Asia, where 
millions of human beings acknowledge no other bond 
but that of a common slavery, and are distinguished 
on the map but by a name which themselves perhaps 
never heard, or hearing abhor ? No I In a circle 



* Grolius, Bykenshock, Putfendoif, Wolfe, and Vatel ; to 
whose works I must add, as compriaing whatever is most valu- 
able ill the preceding Authors, with many important improve- 
ments and additions, Robinson's Reports of the Causes of the 
Court of Admiralty under Sir W. Scott : to whom internation- 
al law is under no less obligation than the law of commercial 
proceedinas was to the late Lord Mansfield. As I have never 
Been Sir W. Scott, nor either by myself or my connections en- 
joy the honor of the remotest acquaintance with him, I trust 
that even by those who may think my opinion erroneous, I 
shall at least not be suspected of international flattery. 



defined by human affections, the first firm sod within 
which becomes sacred beneath the quickened step of 
the returning citizen — here, where the powers and 
interests of men spread without confusion through a 
common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the 
air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all 
uniting to express one thought and the same feeling! 
here, where even the common soldier dares force a 
passage for his comrades by gathering up the bayo- 
nets of the enemy into his own breast: because his 
country " expected every man to do his duty .'" and this 
not after he has been hardened by habit, but, as pro- 
bably, in his first battle ; not reckless or hopeless, but 
braving death from a keener sensibility to those 
blessings which make life dear, to those qualities 
whicli render himself worthy to enjoy them ? Here, 
where the royal crown is loved and worshipped as a 
glory around the sainted head of Freedom ! Where 
the rustic at his plough whistles with equal enthusi- 
asm, " God save the King," and "Britons never shall 
be slaves;" or, perhaps, leaves one thistle unweeded 
in his garden, because it is the symbol of his dear na- 
tive land !t Here, from within this circle defined, as 
light by shape, or rather as light within light, by its 
intensity, here alone, and only within these magic cir- 
cles, rise up the awful spirits, whose words are ora- 
cles for mankind, whose love embraces all countries, 
and whose voice sounds through all ages! Here, and 
here only, may we confidently expect those mighty 
minds to be reared and ripened, whose names are 
naturalized in foreign lands, the sure fellow-travellers 
of civilization ! and yet render their own country 
dearer and more proudly dear to their own country- 
men. This is indeed Cosmopolitism, at once the 
nursling and the nurse of patriotic affection ! This, 
and this alone, is genuine Philanthropy, which like 
the olive tree, sacred to Concord and to Wisdom, fat- 
tens not exhausts the soil, from which it sprang, and 
in which it remains rooted. It is feebleness only 
which cannot be generous without injustice, or just 
without ceasing to be generous. Is the morning star 
less brilliant, or does a ray less fall on the golden 
fruitage of the earth, because the moons of Saturn 
too feed their lamps from the same Sun ? Even Ger- 
many, though curst with a .base and hateful brood of 
nobles and princelings, cowardly and ravenous jack- 
als to the very flocks intrusted to them as to shej)- 
herds, who hunt for the tiger and whine and wag 
their tails for his bloody offal — even Germany, who.se 
ever-changing boundaries superannuate the last year's 

t I cannot here refuse myself the pleasure of recording a 
speech of the Poet Burns, related to me by the lady to whom 
it was addressed. Having been asked by her, why in his more 
serious pnems he had not changed the two or three Scotch 
words which seemed only to disturb the purity of the style'? 
the Poet with great sweetness, ami in his usual happiness in 
reply, answered, why in truth it would have been better, but — 
The rough bur-lhistle spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 
I turn'd the wecder-clip.^ aside 
An' spar'd the symbol dear. 
An author may bo allowed to quote from his own poems, 
when he does it with as much modesty and felicity as Burns 
did in this instance. 

464 



THE FRIEND, 



455 



map, and are altered as easily as the hurdles of a tem- 
{)orary sheep-fold, is still remembered vvitli filial love 
and a patriot's pride, when the thoughtful German 
hears the names of Lutiier and Leibnitz. "Ah! 
why." he si^hs, " why for herself in vain should my 
country have produced such a host of immortal 
minds!" Yea, even the poor enslaved, degrailcd, 
and barbarized tireek, can still point to the harbour 
ol' Tenedos, and say, " there lay our fleet when we 
were besieging Troy." Reflect a moment on tlie 
past history of tJtis wonderful people ! What were 
they while they remained free and independent? 
when Greece resembled a collection of mirrors set in 
a single frame, each having its own focus of patriot- 
ism, yet all capable, as at Marathon and Platea, of 
converging to one point and of consuming a common 
Ibe ? What were they then ? The fountains of light 
and civilization, of truth and of beauty, to all man- 
kind ! they were the thinking head, the beating heart 
of the whole world ! They lost their independence, 
and with their independence their patriotism ; and 
became the cosmopolites of antiquity. It has been 
truly observed (by the author of the work for which 
P.\LM was murdered) that, after the first acts of seve- 
rity, the Romans treated the Greeks not only more 
mildly than their own slaves and dependants, they 
behaved to them even aflectionately and with muni- 
ficence. The victor nation felt reverentially the pre- 
sence of the visible and invisible deities that give 
sanctity to every grove, every fountain, and every 
forum. "Think (writes Pliny to one of his friends) 
that you are sent into the province of Achaia, that 
true and genuine Greece, where civilization, letters, 
even corn, are believed to have been discovered ; 
that you are sent to administer the affairs of free 
states, that is, to men eminently free, who have re- 
tained their natural right by valor, by services, by 
friendship, lastly by treaty and by religion. Revere 
the Gods, their founders, the sacred influences repre- 
sented in those Gods, revere their ancient glory and this 
very old age which in man is venerable, in cities sacred. 
Cherish in thyself a reverence ofantiquity, a reverence 
for their great exploits, a reverence even for their fables. 
Detract nothing from the proud pretensions of any state ; 
keep before thine eyes that this is the land which sent 
us our institutions, which gave us our lav\s, not after 
it was subjugated, but in compliance with our peti- 
tion."* And what came out of these men, who were 
eminently free without patriotism, because without 
national independence ? (which eminent freedom, 
however, Pliny himself, in the very next sentence, 
styles the shadow and residuum of liberty.) While 
they were intense patriots, they were the benefactors 
of all mankind, legislators for the very nation that 
afterwards subdued and enslaved them. When, 
therefiire, they became pure cosmopolites, and no par- 
tial affections interrupted their philanthropy, and 
when yet they retained their country, their language, 
and their arts, what noble works, what mighty dis- 
coveries may we not expect from them ? If the ap- 
plause of a little city (a first-rate town of a country 

* Plio. Epiat. Lib. VIU. 
Pp2 



not much larger than Yorkshire) and the encourage- 
ment of a Pericles, produced a Phidias, a Sopimrles, 
and a constellation of other stars scarcely inferior in 
glory, what will not liic applause of the world tllcci, 
and the boundless munificence of the world's impe- 
rial master? Alas! no Sophocles appeared, no Phid- 
ias was born! individual genius fled with national in- 
dcixjndence, and the best products were cold and 
laborious copies of what their fathers had thought 
and invented in grandeur and majesty. At length 
nothing remained but dastardly and cunning slaves, 
who avenged their own ruin and degradation by as- 
sisting to degrade and ruin their conquerors; and the 
golden harp of their divine language remained only 
as the frame on wiiich priests and monks spun their 
dirty cobwebs of sophistry and superstition! 

If then in order to be men wo must be patriots, 
and patriotism cannot exist without national indepen- 
dence, we need no new or particular code of morals 
to justify us in placing and preserving our country in 
that relative situation which is more favorable to its 
independence. But the true patriot is aware that 
this subject is not to be accomplished by a system of 
general conquest, such as w.as pursued by Philip of 
Maccdon and his son, nor yet by the jwlilical anni- 
hilation of the one state, which happens to be its 
most formidable rival: the unwise measure recom- 
mended by Cato, and carried into effect by the Ro- 
mans, in the instance of Carthage. Not by the latter: 
for rivalry between two nations conduces to the in- 
dependence of both, calls forth or fosters all the 
virtues by which national security is maintained. 
Still less by the former: for the victor nation itself 
must at length, by the very extension of its own con- 
quests, sink into a mere province ; nay, it will most 
|)robably become the most abject portion of the Em- 
pire, and the most cruelly oppressed, both because 
it will be more feared and suspected by the common 
tyrant, and because it will be the sink and centre of 
his luxury and corruption. Even in cases of actual 
injury and just alarm the Patriot sets bounds to the 
reprisal of national vengeance, and contents himself 
with such securities as are compatible with the wel- 
fare, though not with the ambitious projects of the 
nation, whose aggressions had given the provocation : 
for as patriotism inspires no super-human faculties, 
neither can it dictate any conduct which would re- 
quire such. He is too conscious of his own ignorance 
of the future, to dare extend his calculations into re- 
mote periods ; nor, because he is a statesman, arro- 
gates to himself the cares of Providence and the 
governmeut of the world. How does he know, but 
that the very independence and consequent virtues 
of the nation, which in the anger of cowardice he 
would fain rcdiiro to absolute insignificance, and rob 
even of its ancient name, may in some future emer- 
gence be the destined guarilians of his own country ; 
and that the power which now alarms, may hereaf- 
ter protect and preserve it ? The experience of 
History authorises not only the possibility, but even 
the probability of such an event. An American 
commander, who has deserved and received the 
highest honors which his grateful country, through 
4(V.5 



456 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



her assembled Representatives, could bestow upon 
him, once said to me with a sigh : In an evil hour 
tor my country did the French and Spaniards aban- 
don Louisiana to the United States. We were not 
sufficiently a country bgfore ; and should we ever 
be mad enough to drive the English from Canada 
and her other North American Provinces, we shall 
soon cease to be a country at all. Without local 
attachment, without national honor, we shall resem- 
ble a swarm of insects that settle on the fruits of the 
earth to corrupt and consume them, rather than men 
who love and cleave to the land of their forefathers. 
After a shapeless anarchy, and a series of civil wars, 
we shall at last be formed into many countries ; un- 
less the vices engendered in the process should de- 
mand fiu'ther punishment, and we should previously 
fall beneath the despotism of some military adven- 
turer, like a lion, consumed by an inward disease, 
prostrate and helpless, beneath the beak and talons 
of a vulture, or yet meaner bird of prey. 



ESSAY X. 



O, rt nev irpoj rbv tS o\ov i:\dvTov, fiSXXov 6e Tpb^ ti 
(pavraayia ttoXewt artdari^, '6 -avra^rj Kat ovSa^rj c^i, 
<pi^si ftaSjjjua Koi iTTtT^^Ssviia, tovto ^p/jaiiiov Kai 
cro(pov Ti 6o^ua5r}acTaf tZv Se aWwv Karaye\a b 
roXi'rtKog- Tavrrjv rfiv airtav ^pj) (pdvai too fi/JTS 
d'XXo Ka\ov, vfiTS. TO. TTOo^ rhv vdXtjXov ix£ya\oTrpi-!ro}^ 
acTKUv rag- ir6\t.i^, tSv ' ttoKitijIV nd\' cviort 6vk 
a^vihv oVTMV, Svarv^ovvTiiv ye ftfiv. nSs" Xfyi;- ; 
n(3<r licv otv avTov^ 6v \iyotji av to Trapdirav Svcrr- 
ii;^£7^, oTs" ys avdyKri Sia Plov ttsivScti rrjv (pvx'iv 
ah Tfjv avTrjv Si£^!.\&uv. IIXaTuv. 

Translalion. — Whatever stuily or doctrine bears upon Ihe 
wealth of the whole, f'ay rather on a certain Phantom of a 
State in tuto, which is everywhere and iiowhere, this shall 
be deemed most useful and wise ; and all else is the state- 
crafiman's scorn. This we dare pronounce the cauFS whj' 
niUions torpid on their diftnity in general, conduct their 
wars so little in a grand and magnanimous spirit, while the 
Citizens are too often wretched, though endowed with high 
capabilities by Nature. How say yon ? Nay, how should 
I not call iljem wretched, who are under the unrelenting 
necessity of v.'asling away their life in the mere search after 
the means of supporting it 7 PLATO, de legihus, viii. 



In the preceding Essay we treated of what maybe 
wisely desired in respect to our Ibreign relations. 
The same sanity of mind will the true Patriot display, 
in all that regards the internal prosperity of his coun- 
try. He will reverence not only whatever tends to 
make the component individuals more happy, and 
more worthy of happiness : but likewise whatever 
tends to bind ihem more closely together as a people ; 
that as a multitude of parts and functions make up 
one human body, so the whole multitude of his coun- 
trymen may, by the visible and invisible influences of 
religion, language, laws, customs, and the reciprocal 
dependence and reaction of trade and agriculture, be 
organized into one body politic. But much as he 



desires to see all become a whole, he places limits 
even to this wish, and abhors that system of policy, 
which would blend men into a slate by the dissolu- 
tion of all those virtues which make them happy and 
estimable as individuals. Sir James Stuart (Polit. 
Econ. Vol. I. p. 88,) after stating the case of the vine- 
dresser, who is proprietor of a bit of land, on which 
grain (enough, and no more) is raised for himself and 
family — and who provides for their other wants of 
clothing, salt, &c. by his extra labor, as a vine-dresser, 
observes — " From this example we discover the dif- 
ference between Agriculture exercised as a trade, 
and as a direct means of subsisting. We have the 
two species in the vine-dresser: he labors the vine- 
yard as a trade, and his spot of ground for subsistence. 
We may farther conclude, that as to the last part he 
is only useful to himself; but as to the first, he is use- 
ful to the society and becomes a member of it ; con- 
setjuently were it not for his trade the state would 
lose nothing, although the vine-dresser and his land 
were both swallowed up by an earthquake." 

Now this contains the sublime philosophy of the 
sect of Economists. They worship a kind of non-en- 
tity, under the different words, the State, the Whole, 
the Society, &c. and to this idol they make bloodier 
sacrifices than ever the Mexicans did to Tescalipoca. 
All, that is, each and every sentient Being in a given 
tract, are made diseased and vicious, in order that 
each may become useful to all, or the Slate, or the 
Society,— that is, to the word, all, tl.e Word, State, or 
the word, Society. The absurdity may be easily 
perceived by omitting the words relating to this idol 
— as for instance — in a former paragraph of the same 
(in most respects) excellent work: "If it therefore 
happens that an additional number produced no more 
than feed themselves, then I perceive no advantage 
gained from their production." What! no advantage 
gained by, for instance, ten thousand happy, intelli- 
gent, and immortal Beings having been produced ? — 
O yes ! but no advantage " to this Society." — What is 
this Society ? this " Whole ?" this " Slate ?" Is it 
anything else but a word of convenience to express 
at once the aggregate of confederated individuals liv- 
ing in a certain district? Let the sum total of each 
man's happiness be supposed — 1000; and suppose ten 
thousand men produced, who neither made swords 
or poison, or found corn or clothes for those v^ho did 
— but who procured by their labor food and raiment 
for themselves, and for their children — would not that 
Society be richer by 10,000,000 parts of happiness ? 
And think you it possible, that ten thousand happy 
human Beings can exist together without increasing 
each other's happiness, or that it will not overflow 
into countless channels,* and diffuse itself through the 
rest of the Society. 

* Well, and in the spirit of genuine philosophy, does the 
poet describe such beings as men 

" Who being innocent do for that cause 

Bestir them in good deeds." 

WORDSWORTH. 

Providence, by the ceaseless activity which it has implanted 
in our nature, has sufiicienlly guarded against an innocence 
without virtue. 

466 



THE FRIEND. 



457 



The poor vine-dresser rises from sweet sleep, vvor- 
shi(is liis Maker, goes wiili his wife anil cliildren 
into his little plot — returns to his hut at noon, and eats 
the produce of tlie similar labor of n lormer day. Is 
he usci'ul I Xo! not yet. Supjwse then, that during 
the remaining hours of the day ho endeavored to 
provide for his moral and intellectual appetites, by 
physical experiments and philosophical research, by 
acquiring knowledge for himself, and communicating 
ii to his wife and children. Would he be useful 
ilien? "//f useful? The state would lose nolliing 
although the vine-dresser and his land were both 
t.wallowed up by an earthquake!" \Vell then, in- 
stead of devoting the latter half of each day to his 
clo-set, his laboratory, or to neighbjriy conversation, 
suppose he goes to the vineyard, and liom the ground 
vvhicii would maintain in health, virtue, and wisdom, 
twenty of his fellow-creatures, helps to raise a quan- 
tiiy of liquor that will disease the bodies, and debauch 
t!ie souls of an hundred — is he useful now ? — O yes ! 
— a very useful man, and, a most excellent citizen!! 
In what then docs the law between stale and 
state differ from that between man and man ? For 
hitherto we seem to have discovered no variation. 
The law of nations is the law of common honesty, 
modified by the circumstances in which Slates differ 
from individuals. According to the Frie.nd's best 
understanding, the differences may be reduced to 
this one point: that the influences of example in any 
extraordinary ca.se, as the possible occasion of an ac- 
tion appareiilly like, though in reality very different, 
is of considerable importance in the moral calcula- 
tions of an individual; but of little, if any, in those 
of a nation. The reasons are evident. Jn the first 
place, in cases concerning which there can be any 
dispute between an honest man and a true patriot, 
the circumstances, which at once authorize and dis- 
criminate the measure, are so marked and peculiar 
and notorious, that it is incapable of being drawn 
into a precedent by any other state, under dissimilar 
circumstances ; except perhaps as a mere pretext for 
an action, which had been predetermined without 
reference to this authority, and which would have 
taken place, though it had never existed. But if so 
strange a thing should happen, as a second coinci- 
dence of the same circumstances, or of circumstances 
sufficiently similar to render the prior measure a fair 
precedent; then if the one action vvas justifiable, so 
will the other be; and without any reference to the 
former, which in this ca.se may be useful as a light, 
but cannot be requisite as an authority. Secondly, in 
extraordinary cases it is ridiculous to suppose that the 
conduct of states will be determined by example. 
We know that they neither will, nor in the nature of 
things caa be determined by any other consideration 
but that of the imperious circumstances which ren- 
der a pariicular measure advisable. But lastly, and 
more important than ail, individuals are and must be 
under positive laws: and so very great is the advan- 
tage which results from the regularity of legal deci- 
sions, and their consequent capability of being fore- 
known and relied upon, that equity itself must some- 
times be sacrificed to it. For the very letter of a 
CO 



posiiivp law is part of its spirit. But stales neithei 
I are, nor can be, under positive laws. The only fixed 
part of the law of nations is the spirit : the letter of 
j the law consists wholly in the circumstances to which 
I the spirit of the law is applied. It is mere puerile 
I declamation to rail against a country, as having imi- 
I taled the very measures for which it had most blamed 
j il8 ambitious enemy, if that enemy had previously 
changed all the relative circumstances which had 
i existed for him, and therefore rendered his conduct 
iniquitous; but which, having been removed, how- 
ever iniquitously, cannot without absurdity be sup- 
posed any longer to control the measures of an inno- 
cent nation, necessitated to struggle for its own 
safely: especially when the measures in question 
were adopted for the very purpose of restoring those 
circumstances. 

There are times when it would be wise to regard 
palrioiism as a light that is in danger of being blown 
out, rather tban as a fire which needs to be fanned 
by the winds of party spirit. There are times when 
party spirit, without any unwonted excess, may yet 
become faction ; and though in general not less useful 
than natural in a free government, may under partic- 
ular emergencies prove fatal to freedom itself I trust 
I am wriiing to those who think with me, that to have 
blackened a ministry, however strong or rational our 
dislike may be of the persons who compose it, is a 
poor excuse and a miserable compensation for the 
crime of unnecessarily blackening the character of 
our country. Under this conviction, I request my 
render to cast his eye back on my last argument, and 
then to favor me with his patient attention while I 
attempt at once to explain its purport and to show its 
cogency. 

Let us transport ourselves in fancy to the age and 
country of the Patriarchs, or, if the reader prefers it, 
to some small colony uninfluenced by the mother 
country, which has not organized itself into a state, 
or agreed to acknowledge any one particular gover- 
nor. We will suppose this colony to consist of from 
twenty to thirty households or separate establish- 
ments, differing greatly from each other in the num- 
ber of retainers and in extent of possessions. Each 
household, however, possesses its own doinnin, the 
least equally with the greatest, in full right; and its 
master is an independent sovereign within his own 
boundaries. This mutual understanding and tacit 
agreement we may well suppose to have been the 
gradual result of many feuds, which had produced 
misery to all and real advantages to none: and that 
the same sober and reflecting persons, dispersed 
through the different establishments, who had brought 
about this stale of things, had likewise coincided in 
the propriety of some other prudent and humane reg- 
ulations, which from the authority of these wise men 
on points, in which they were unanimous, and from 
the evident good sense of the rules themselves, were 
acknowledged throughout the whole colony, though 
the determination of the cases, to which these rules 
were applical)le, had not been intrusteil to any recog- 
nized judge, nor their enforcement delegated to any 
particular magistrate. Of these virtual laws, this, we 
467 



458 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



may safely conclude, would be the chief: that as no 
man ought to interfere in the affairs of another 
against his will, so if any master of a household, in- 
stead of occupying himself with the improvement of 
his own fields and flocks, or with the better regula- 
tion of his own establisiunent, should be foolish and 
wicked enough lo employ his children and servants 
in breaking down the fences and taking possession 
of the lands and property of a fellow-colonist, or in 
turning the head of the family out of his house, and 
forcing those that remained to acknowledge himself 
as their governor instead, and to obey whomever he 
might please to appoint as his deputy — that it then 
became the duty and interest of the other colonists 
to join against the aggressor, and to do all in their 
power to prevent him from accomplishing his bad 
purposes, or to compel him to make restitution and 
compensation. The mightier the aggressor, and the 
•weaker the injured party, the more cogent would the 
motive become for restrainmg the one and protecting 
the other. For it was plain that he vv-ho was suffered 
to overpower, one by one, the weaker proprietors, 
and render the members of their establishment sub- 
servient to his will, must soon become an overmatch 
for those who were formerly his equals: and the 
mightiest would differ from the meanest only by 
being the last victim. 

This allegorical fable faithfully pourtrays the law 
of nations and the balance of power among the Eu- 
ropean stales. Let us proceed with it in the form of 
History. In the second or third generation the pro- 
prietors too generally disregarded the good old 
opinion, that what injured any could be real advan- 
tage to none ; and treated those, who still professed 
it, as fit only to instruct children in their catechism. 
By the avarice of some, the cowardice of others, and 
by the corruption and want of foresight in the great- 
er part, the former state of things had been complete- 
ly changed, and the tacit comfiact set at nought the 
general acknowledgment of which had been so in- 
strumental in producing this state and in preserving 
it, as long as it lasted. The stronger had preyed on 
the weaker, whose wrongs, however, did not remain 
long unavenged. For the same selfishness and blind- 
ness to the future, which had induced the wealthy to 
trample on the rights of the poorer proprietors, pre- 
vented them from assisting each other effectually, 
when they were themselves attacked, one after the 
other, by the most powerful of all : and from a con- 
currence of circumstances attacked so successfully, 
that of the whole colony few remained, that were 
not, directlv or indirectly, the creatures and depend- 
ants of one overgrown establishment. Say rather, 
of its new master, an adventurer whom chance and 
poverty had brought thither, and who in better times 
would have been employed in the swine-yard, or the 
Blaughter-house, from his moody temper and his aver- 
sion to all the Art that tended to improve either the 
land or those that were to be maintained by its pro- 
duce. He was however eminent for other qualities, 
which were still better suited to promote his power 
among those degenerate colonists : for he feared nei- 
ther God nor his own conscience. The most solemn 



oaths could not bind him ; the most deplorable cala- 
mities could not awaken his pity ; and when others 
were asleep, he was either brooding over some 
scheme of robbery or murder, or with a part of his 
banditti actually employed in laying waste his neigh- 
bor's fences, or in undermining the walls of their 
houses. His natural cunning, undistracted by any 
honest avocations, and meeting with no obstacle ei- 
ther in his head or heart, and above all, having been 
quickened and strengthened by constant practice and 
liivored by the times with all conceivable opportuni- 
ties, ripened at last into a surprising getiius for op- 
pression and tyranny ; and, as we must distinguish 
him by some name, we will call him Misetes. The 
only estate, which remained able to bid defiance to 
this common enemy, was that of Pamphilus, superior 
to Miseles in wealth, and his equal in strength ; 
though not in the power of doing mischief, and still 
less in the vvish. Their characters were indeed per- 
fectly contrasted : for it may be truly said, that 
throughout the whole colony there was not a single 
establishment which did not owe some of its best 
buildings, the increased produce of its fields, its im- 
proved implements of industry, and the general more 
decent appearance olits members, to the information 
given and the encouragements afforded by Pamphilus 
and those of his household. Whoever raised more 
than they wanted f()r their own establishment, were 
sure to find a ready purchaser in Pamphilus, and 
oftentimes for articles which they had themselves 
been before accustomed to regard as worthless, or 
even as nuisances: they received in return things 
necessary or agreeable, and always in one respect at 
least useful, that they roused the purchaser to indus- 
try and its accompanying virtues. In this intercom- 
munion all were benefited ; for the wealth of Pam- 
philus v^as increased by the increasing industry of 
his fellow-colonists, and their industry needed the 
support and encouraging influences of Pamphilus's 
capital. To this good man and his estimable house- 
hold Miseles bore the most implacable haired, and 
had publicly sworn that he would root him out; the 
only sort of oath which he was not likely to break by 
any want of will or effort on his own part. But for- 
tunately for Pamphilus, his main property consisted 
of one compact estate divided from Miseles and the 
rest of the colony by a wide and dangerous river, 
with the exccplion of one small plantation which be- 
longed to an independent proprietor whom we will 
name Latiirodac.nus: a man of no influence in the 
colony, but much respected by Pamphilus. They 
were indeed relations by blood originally and after- 
wards by intermarriages; and it was to the povier 
and protection of Pamphilus that Lathroducniis owed 
his independence and prosperity, amid the general 
distress and slavery of the other proprietors. Aot less 
fortunately did it happen, that the means of passing 
the river were possessed exclusively by Pamphilus 
and his above mentioned kinsman; and not only the 
boats themselves, but all the means of constructing 
and navigating them. As the very existence of La- 
throdacnus, as an independent colonist, had no solid 
ground, but in the strength and prosperity of Pamphi- 
4G8 



THE FRIEND. 



459 



Ins; ami as ihe interests of the one in no respect in- 
terleroil with tliose ol'llio other, ramphihis foracon- 
siiiemble lime remained witlioiit any anxiety, and 
liK)ked on the river-craft of Lalhrodaenus with as 
hitle ahirm, as on those of his own establishment. It 
did not disquiet hun. that Latlirodacnns had remained 
neutral in the quarrel. May, though many advan- 
tages. which in peaceful times would have belonged 
to Pampliilus, were now transferred to his Aeighbor, 
and had more than doubled the extent and prolit of 
his concern, Pampliilus, instead of repining at this, 
was glad that some good at least to some one came 
out of the general evil. Great then was his surprise, 
when he discovered, that without any conceivable 
rea.-<on Lailirodacnus had employed himself in build- 
iim and collecling a very unusual number of such 
l)oals, as were of no u.se to him in his traflic, but de- 
signed exclusively as ferry-boats: and what was still 
stranger and more alarming, that he chose to keep 
these in a bay on the other side of the river, opposite 
to the one small plantation, alongside of Pamphilus's 
estate, from which plantation Lathrodacnus derived 
the materials for building them. Willing to believe 
this conduct a transient whim of his neighbor's oc- 
casioned partly by his vanity, and partly by envy (to 
which latter passion the want of liberal education, 
and the not sufliciently comprehending the grounds 
of his own prosperity, had rendered lum subject) 
Pamphilus contented himself for a while with urgent 
yet friendly remonstrances. The only answer which 
Lathrodacnus vouchsafed to return, was, that by the 
law of the colony, whicii Pamphilus had made so 
many professions of revering, every proprietor was 
an independent sovereign within his own boundaries; 
that the boats were his own, and the opposite shore, 
to which they were fastened, part of a field which 
boloML'ed to him; and, in short, that Pamphilus had 
no right to interfere with the management of his pro- 
perty, which, trifling as it might be, compared with 
that of Pamphilus, was no less sacred by the law of 
the colony. To this uncourleous rebulT Pamphilus 
replied with a fervent wish, that Lathrodacnus could 
with more propriety have appealed to a law, as still 
sutjsislina, which, he well knew, had been effectually 
annulled by the unexampled tyranny and success of 
Misetea, together with the circumstances which had 
given occasion to the law, and made it wise and 
practicable. He further urged, that this law was not 
made for the benefit of any one man, but for the com- 
mon safety and advantage of all: that it was absurd 
to suppose that either he (Pamphilus) or that Lathro- 
dacnu.s himself, or any other proprietor, ever did or 
could acknowledge this law in the s.nise that it was 
to survive the very circumstances, of whic^h it was 
the mere reflex. Much less could they have even 
tacitly a.'sented to it, if they had ever understood it 
as authorizing one neighbor to endanger the absolute 
ruin of another, who had perhaps fifty times the pro- 
perty to lose, and perhaps ten times the number of 
souls to answer for, and yet forbidding the injured 
person to take any steps in his own defence ; and 
lastly, that this law gave no right without imposing a 
corresponding duty. Therefore if Lathrodacnus in- 



sisted on the rights given him by the law, he ought 
at the same time to perform the duties which it re- 
quired, and join heart and hand with Pamphilus in 
his endeavors to defend his independence, to restore 
the former slate of the colony, and with this to re-en- 
Ibrce the old law in opposition to Misoles who had 
enslaved Ihe one and set at nought the other. So ar- 
dently was Pamphilus attached to the law, that ex- 
cepting his own safety and indc|)endeiice there was 
no price which ho would not pay, no sacrifice which 
he would nut make (or its restoration. His reverence 
for the very memory of the law was such, that the 
mere appearance of transgressing it would be a heavy 
aflliciioii to him. In hope therefore of gaining from 
the avarice of Lathrodacnus that consent v\hich he 
could not obtain from his justice or neighborly kind- 
ness, he offered to give him in full right a plantation 
ten times the value of all his boats, and yd, when- 
ever the colony should once more be settled, to re- 
store the boats: if he would only permit Pamphilus 
to secure them during the present state of things, on 
his side of the river, retaining whatever he really 
wanted for the passage of his own household. To 
all these persuasions and entreaties Lathrodacnus 
turned a deaf ear; and Pamphilus remained agitated 
and undetermined, till at length he received certain 
intelligence that Lathrodacnus had called a council 
of the chief members of his establishment, in conse- 
quence of the threats of Misetes, that he would treat 
him as the friend and ally of Pamphilus, if he did 
not declare himself his enemy. Partly for the sake 
of a large meadow belonging to him on the other 
side of the river which it was not easy to secure from 
the tyrant, but still more from envy and the irritable 
temper of a proud inferior, Lathrodacnus, and with 
him the majority of his advisers (though to the great 
discontent of the few wise heads among them) sctiled 
it finally that if he should be again pressed on iliis 
point by Misetes, he would join him and commence 
hostilities against his old neighbor and kinsman. It 
is indeed but too probable that lie had long brooded 
over this scheme; for to what other end could he 
have strained his income, and over-worked his ser- 
vants in building and fitting up such a number of 
passage-boais ? As soon as this information was re- 
ceived by Pamphilus, and this from a quarter which 
it was impossible for him to discredit, he obeyed the 
dictates of self-preservation, took possession of Ihe 
passage-boats by force, and brought them over to his 
own grounds; but without any further injury to La- 
throdacnus, and still urging him to accept a compen- 
sation and continue in that amity which was so man- 
ifestly their common inlf rest. Instantly a great out- 
crv was raised against Pamphilus. who was charged 
in the bitterest terms with having first abuscil Mise- 
tes, and then imitated him in his worst acts of vio- 
lence. In the calmness of a good conscience Pam- 
philus contented himseli' with the following reply : 
"Even so, if I wore out on a shooting party wiih a 
Quaker for my companion, and saw coming towards 
us an old footpad and murderer, who had inado 
known his intention of killing me wherever he might 
meet me ; and if my companion the Quaker would 
469 



460 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



neither give up his gun, nor even discharge it as (we 
will suppose) I had just before unfortunately dis- 
charged my own; if he would neither promise to as- 
sist me nor even promise to make the least resistance 
to the robber's attempt to disarm himself; you might 
call me a robber for wresting this gun from my com- 
panion, though for no other purpose but that I might 
at least do for by myself, what he ought to have done, 
hvit would not do either lor or with me! Even so, 
and as plausibly, you might exclaim, O the hypocrite 
Pamphilus! Who has not been deafened with his 
complaints against robbers and footpads ? and lo ! he 
himself has turned footpad, and commenced by rob- 
bing his peaceful and unsuspecting companion of his 
double-barrelled gun!" It is the business of The 
Friend to lay down principles, not to make the appli- 
cations of them to particular, much less to recent 
cases. If any such there be to which these principles 
are fairly applicable, the reader is no less master of 
the facts than the Writer of the present Essay. If 
not, the principles remain ; and The Friend has fin- 
ished the task which the plan of his work imposed 
on him, of proving the identity of international law 
and the law of morality in spirit, and the reasons of 
their difference in practice, in those extreme cases in 
which alone they have been allowed to differ. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

The preceding Essay has more than its natural in- 
terest for the author from the abuse, which it brought 
dow'n on him as the defender of the attack on Copen- 
hagen, and the seizure of the Danish fleet. The 
odium of the measure rested wholly on the com- 
mencement of hostilities without a previous procla- 
mation of war. Now it is remarkable, that in a work 
published many years before this event Professor 
Beck had made this very point the subject of a par- 
ticular chapter in his admirable Comments on the 
Law of Nations : and everyone of the circumstances 
stated by him as forming an exception to the moral 
necessity of previous proclamation of war, concurred 
in the Copenhagen expedition. I need mention two 
only. First by the act or acts, which provoked the 
expedition, the party attacked had knowingly placed 
himself in a state of war. Let A stand for the Dan- 
ish, B for the British, government. A had done that 
which he himself was fully aware would produce 
immediate hostilities on the part of B, the moment it 
came to the knowledge of the latter. The act itself 
was a waging of war against B on the part of A. B 
therefore was the party attacked : and common sense 
dictates, that to resist and baffle an aggression re- 
quires no proclamation to justify it. I perceived a 
dagger aimed at my back, in consequence of a warn- 
ing given me, just time enough to jirevent the blow, 
knock the assassin down, and disarm him: and he 
reproaches me with treachery, because forsooth I had 
not sent him a challenge ! Secondly, when the ob- 
ject which justifies and necessitates the war would 
be frustrated by the proclamation. For neither State 
or Individual can be presumed to have given either 
a formal or a tsjcit assent to any such modification of 



a positive Right, as would suspend and virtually an 
nul tiie Right itself: the Right of self preservation for 
instance. This second exception w^ill often depend 
on the existence of the first, and must alwaj's receive 
additional sense and clearness from it. That both of 
these exceptions appertained to the case in question, 
is now notorious. But at the time I found it neces- 
sary to publish the following comment, which I adapt 
to the present rifacciamento of The Friend, as illus- 
trative of the fundamental principle of public justice; 
viz. that personal and national morality, ever one and 
the same, dictate the same measures under the same 
circumstances, and different measures only as far as 
the circumstances are different. 

As my limits will not allow me to do more in the 
second, or ethical section of The Friend, than to 
propose and develope my own system, without con- 
troverting the systems of others, I shall therefore de- 
vote the Essay, which follows this Postscript, to the 
consideration of the problem : How far is the moral 
nature of an action constituted by its individual cir- 
cumstances ? 

It was once said to me, when the Copenhagen af- 
fair was in dispute, " You do not see the enormit}', 
because it is an affair between state and state : con- 
ceive a similar case between man and man, and you 
would both see and abhor it." Now, I was neither 
defending or attacking the measure itself My argu- 
ments were confined to the grounds which had been 
taken both in the arraigning of that measure and in 
its defence, because I thought both equally untenable. 
I was not enough master of facts to form a decisive 
opinion on the enterprise, even for my own mind ; 
but I had no hesitation in affirming, that the princi- 
ples, on which it was defended in the legislature, ap- 
peared to me fitter objects of indignant reprobation 
than the act itself This having been premised, I 
replied to the assertion above stated, by asserting the 
direct contrary : namely, that were a similar case 
conceived between man and man, the severest ar- 
raigners of the measure, would, on their grounds, find 
nothing to blame in it. How was I to prove this as- 
sertion ? Clearly, by imagining some case between 
individuals living in the same relations toward each 
other, in which the several states of Europe exist or 
existed. My allegory, therefore, so far from being a 
disguise, was a necessary part of the main argument, 
a case in point, to prove the identity of the law of 
nations with the law of conscience. We have only 
to conceive individuals in the same relations as states, 
in order to learn that the rules emanating from inter- 
national law, differ from those of private honesty, 
solely through the difference of the circumstances. 

But why did not The Friend avow the application 
of the principle to the seizure of the Danish fleet ? 
Because I did not possess sufficient evidence to prove 
to others, or even to decide for myself, that my prin- 
ciple VMS applicable to this particular act. In th 
case of Parnphilus and Lathrodacnus, the prudence 
and necessity of the measure was certain ; and, this 
taken for granted, I shov^ed its perfect rightfulness. 
In the afl^air of Copenhagen, I had no doubt of our 
right lo do as we did, supposing the necessity, or at 
470 



THE FRIEND. 



461 



least the extreme prudence of the measure; Inkinir 
for granted that there existed a motive adequate to 
the action, and that the action was an adequate 
means of reahzing the motive. 

But this I was not authorized to take for granted 
in llic real, as I had been in the imaginary case. I 
saw many reasons lor tiio allirmative, and many for 
the negative. For the former, the certainty of an 
hostile design on the part of the Danes, the alarming 
state of Ireland, tiiat vulnerable heel of the British 
Achilles! and the immense difference between mili- 
tary and naval superiority. Our naval power collec- 
tively might have defied that of the whole world; 
hut it was widely scattered, and a combined opera- 
tion from the Baltic, Holland, Brest, and Listxm, 
misht easily bring together a fleet double to that 
which we could have brought against it during the 
short time that might be neccssarv to convey thirty 
or forty thousand men to Ireland. On the other hand, 
it seemed equally clear that Buonaparte needed sail- 
ors rather than shii-)s; and that we took the ships and 
'eft him the Danish sailors, whose presence in the 
fleet at Antwerp turned the scale, perhaps, in favor 
of the vvo/se than disastrous expedition to Walcheren. 
But I repeat, that Tire Friend had no concern 
with the measure itself: but only with the grounds 
or principles on which it had been attacked or de- 
fended. Those who attacked it declared that a right 
had been violated by us, and that no motive could 
justify such violation, however imperious that motive 
might be. In opposition to such reasoners, I proved 
that no such right existed, or is deducible either from 
international law or the law of private morality. 
Those again who defended the seizure of the Danish 
fleet, conceded that it was a violation of right ; but 
affirmed, that such violation w'as justified by the ur- 
gency of the motive. It was asserted (as I have be- 
f()re noticed in the introduction to the subject) that 
national policy cannot in all cases be subordinated to 
the laws of morality : in other words, that a govern- 
ment may act with injustice, and yet remain blame- 
less. To prove this assertion as groundless and un- 
necessary as it is tremendous, formed the chief object 
of the whole disquisition. I trust then, that my can- 
did judges will rest satisfied that it is not only the 
profession and pretext of The Friend, but his con- 
stant plan and actual intention, to establish Princi- 
ples ; that he refers to particular facts for no other 
purp;)se than that of giving illustration and interest 
to those principles : and that to invent principles 
with a view to particular cases, whether with the 
motive of attacking or arraigning a transitory cabi- 
net, is a baseness which will scarcely be attributed 
to The Friend by any one who understands the 
work, even though the suspicion should not have 
been precluded by a knowledge of the author. 



ESSAY XI. 



3a, ich bin der Atheist un Goltlose, der einer ImBcinarcti 
Berechnungalchre, einer bloscn Eiiibildung von ullfemeinen 
Folgeo, die oie fulgen konnen, zuwidcr — lugen will, wie 



Desdemona etcrbcnd Ior ; luKCn unj hetruRen will, wie der 
fur Orcsl sich diirslollcnde ri/lades ; Teriipi.lruub untLrneh. 
iiion, wio David ; ja, Aeliron Qusrauftn am Subballi, nucli 
nur durum, \vv\\ niicb hiingcrt, und das d'csctz urn dcs 
mcnschnt willen gcmachl ist, nicht der Mcnsch uin dcs 

Gcietics willnt. JALOIU an flCllTE. 

Translation— Yea, I am that Atheist, ibit (todlpss person, 
who ill uppoaltion to an iiiinglnary Doctrine of Cnlruliilion. 
to a mere ideal Fabric of general Con«(|Ui'nce«, llint can 
never bo realized, would lie, us the dying Dt sdciuona lied ;• 
lie and deceive us Pyladcs when ho personated Orestes ; 
would commit sncrilepo with David ; yea and pluck cars 
of corn on the Sabbath, for no other reason than thai I was 
fainting from lack of food, and that the Law tca.< made for 
Man, and not Man for the Law. 

JACOBI'S Utter to FICHTE. 



If there be no better doctrine, I would add— Much 
and often have I suffered from having ventured to avow 
my doubts concerning the truth of certain o[)inions, 
which had been sanctified in the minds of many hear- 
ers, by the authority of some reigning great name ; 
even though in addition to my own reasons, I had all 
the greatest names from the Reformation to the Revo- 
lution on my side. I could not, therefore, summon 
courage, without some previous pioneering, to declare 
publicly, that the principles of morality taught in the 
present work will be in direct opposition to the sys- 
tem of the late Dr. Paley. This confession I should 
have deferred to future time, if my opinions on the 
grounds of international morality had not been con- 
tradictory to a fundamental point in Paley's System 
of moral and political Philosophy. I mean that chap- 
ter wiiich treats of general consequence.s, as the 
chief and best criterion of the right or wrong of par- 
ticular actions. Now this doctrine I conceive to be 
neither tenable in reason nor safe in practice: am 
the Ibllow'ing are the grounds of my opinion. 

First; this criterion is purely ideal, and so far pos 
scsscs no advantages over the former systems of Mo 
rality : while it labors under defects, with whici 
those are not justly chargeable. It is ideal : for it de 
pends on, and must vary with, the notions of the indi- 
vidual, who in order to determine the nature of an ac- 
tion is to make the calculation of its general conse- 
quences. Here, as in all other calculation, the result 
depends on thai faculty of the soul in the degrees of 
which men most vary from each other, and which 
is itself most affected by accidental advantages or dis- 
advantages of education, natural talent, and acquired 
knowledge — the faculty, I mean, of foresight and sys- 
tematic comprehension. But surely morality, which 
is of equal importance to all men, ought to be ground- 
ed, if possible, in that part of our nature which in all 
men may and ought to be the same : in the conscience 
and the common sense. Secondly: this criierion con- 
founds morality with law ; and when the auihor adds^ 
that in all probability the divine Justice will be regu- 

* JEmilia.—O who hath done 
This deed 1 

Dcsd. Nobody. 1 myself. Farewell. 

Commend mo to my kind Lord— O— farewell. 

Ofhtllo. — You heard her say yourself, it was not 1. 

Jt'.miUa. — She said so. I must needs report the truth. 

Othello. — She's like a liar cono to burning hell ! 
'Twa;- I that killed her ' 

^^milia.— The more angel she ! 

471 



462 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



laterl in the final judgment by a similar rule, he draws 
away the attention from the will, that is, from the inward 
motives and impulses which constitute the essence 
ofmoralily, to the outward act : and thus changes the 
virtue commanded by the gospel into the mere legal- 
ity, which was to be enlivened by it. One of the 
most persuasive, if not one of the strongest, arguments 
lor a future state, rests on the belief, that although 
by the necessity of things our outward and temporal 
vvelfiire must be regulated by our outward actions, 
which alone can be tlie objects and guides of human 
law, there must yet needs come a juster and more 
appropriate sentence hereafter, in which our inten- 
tions will be considered, and our happiness and inis- 
ery made to accord with the grounds of our actions. 
Our fellow-creatures can only judge what we are by 
what we do ; but in the eye of our Maker what we 
do is of no worth, except as it flows from what we are. 
Though the fig-tree should produce no visible fruit, 
yet if the living sap is in it, and if it has struggled to 
put forth buds and blossoms which have been pre- 
vented ii-om maturing by inevitable contingencies of 
tempests or untimely frosts, the virtuous sap will be 
accounted as fruit: and the curse of barrenness will 
light on many a tree, from the boughs of which hun- 
dreds have been satisfied, because the omniscient 
judge knows that the fruits were threaded to the 
boughs artificially by the outward working of base 
fear and selfish hopes, and were neither nourished by 
the love of God or of man, nor grew out of the graces 
engrafted on the stock by religion. This is not, in- 
deed, all that is meant in the apostle's use of the word, 
FAITH, as the sole principle of justification; but it is 
included in his meaning, and forms an essential part 
of it, and I can conceive nothing more groundless, 
than the alarm, that this doctrine may be prejudicial 
to outward utility and active well-doing. To sup- 
pxjse that a man should cease to be beneficent by be- 
coming benevolent, seems to me scarcely less absurd, 
than to fear that a fire may prevent heat, or that a 
perennial fountain may prove the occasion of drought. 
Just and generous actions may proceed from bad mo- 
tives, and both may, and often do, originate in parts 
and as it were fragments of our nature. A lascivious 
man may sacrifice half his estate to rescue his friend 
from prison, for he is constitutionally sympathetic, and 
the better part of his nature happened to be upper- 
most. The same man shall afterwards exert the same 
disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that 
friend's wife or daughter. But faith is a total act of 
the soul: it is the whole state of the mind, or it is not 
at all ! and in this consists its power, as well as its 
exclusive worth. 

This subject is of such immense importance to the 
welfare of all men, and the understanding of it to the 
present tranquillity of many thousands at this time 
and in this country, that should there be one only of 
all my Readers, who should receive conviction or an 
additional light from what is here written, I dare hope 
that a great majority of the rest would in considera- 
tion of that solitary effect think these paragraphs 
neither wholly uninteresting or altogether without 
valu(i For this cause I will endeavor so to explain 



this principle, that it may be intelligible to the sim- 
plest capacity. The apostle tells those who would 
substitute obedience for faith (addressing the man as 
obedience personified) " Know that thou bearest not 
the Root, but the ROOT thee" — a sentence which, 
methinks, should have rendered all disputes concer^i- 
ing faith and good works impossible among those who 
profess to take the Scriptures for their guide. It 
would appear incredible, if the fact were not notori- 
ous, that two sects should ground and justify their 
opposition to each other, the one on the words of the 
apostle, that we are justified by faith, i. e. the inward 
and absolute ground of our actions ; and the other on 
the declaration of Christ, that he will judge us ac- 
cording to our actions. As if an action could be 
either good or bad disjoined from its principle! as if 
it could be, in the Christian and only proper sense of 
the word, an action at all, and not rather a mechanic 
series of lucky or unlucky motions! Yet it may be 
well worth the while to show the beauty and harmo- 
ny of these twin truths, or rather of this one great 
truth considered in its two principal bearings. God 
will judge each man before all men : consequently 
he will judge us relatively to man. But man knows 
not the heart of man ; scarcely does any one know 
his own. There must therefore be outward and visi- 
ble signs, by which men may be able to judge of the 
inward state: and thereby justify the ways of God to 
their own spirits, in the reward or punishment of 
themselves and their fellow-men. Now good works 
are these signs, and as such become necessary. In 
short there are two parties, God and the human race: 
and both are to be satisfied ! first, God, who seeth the 
root and knoweth the heart: therefore there must be 
faith, or the entire and absolute principle. Then man, 
who can judge only by the fruits : therefore that faith 
must bear fruits of righteousness, that principle must 
manifest itself by actions. But that which God sees, 
that alone justifies ! What man sees, does in this life 
show that the justifying principle mat/ be the root of 
the thing seen ; but in the final judgment the accept- 
ance of these actions will show, that this principle 
actually was the root. In this world a good life is a 
presumption of a good man : his virtuous actions are 
the only possible, though still ambiguous, manifesta- 
tions of his virtue : but the absence of a good life is 
not only a presumption, but a proof of the contrarj', as 
long as it continues. Good works may exist without 
saving principles, and therefore cannot contain in 
themselves the principle of salvation; but saving 
principles never did, never can, exist without good 
works. On a subject of such infinite importance, I 
have feared prolixity less than obscurity. Men often 
talk against faith, and make strange monsters in their 
imagination of those who profess to abide by the words 
of the Apostle interpreted literally: and yet in their 
ordinary feelings they themselves judge and act by a 
similar principle. For what is love without kind 
offices, wherever they are possible ? (and they are 
always possible, if not by actions commonly so called, 
yet by kind words, by kind looks ; and, where even 
these are out of our power, by kind thoughts and fer- 
vent prayers!) yet what noble mind would not be 
472 



THE FRIEND. 



463 



ofTi'inieil, if he were supposed to value the service- 
able ollioes e(|uaily with llie love that produced 
them; or il'he were thought to value the love lor the 
soke of ihc services, mid not the services for the sake 
of ilie love ? 1 

I return to the question of general conse<iiiences, ; 
roiisiiiered as the criterion ol' moral actions. The 
adnuror ol" I'aley's System is required to suspend for 
a short lime the objection, which, I doubt not, ho has I 
already made, that general consequences arc stated 
by Paley as the criterion of the action, not of the j 
&L'ont. I will endeavor to satisfy him on this point, , 
when I have completed my present chain of argu- I 
ment. It has been shown, that this criterion is no i 
Jess ii/cal than that of any former system: that is, it 
IS no less incapable of receiving any external experi- 
mental proof, compulsory on liie understandings of all 
men, such as the criteria exhibited in chemistry. Yet, 
unlike the elder Systems of Morality, it remains in 
the world of the senses, without deriving any evi- 
dence therefrom. The agent's mind is compelled to 
go out of itself in order to bring back conjeclures, the 
probability of which will vary with the shrewdness 
.>f the individual. But this criterion is not only ideal: 
it is likewise imaginary. If we believe in a scheme 
of Providence, all actions alike work for good. 
There is not the least ground for sup)X)sing that the 
crimes of Nero were less instrumental in bringing 
»!wut our present advantages, than the virtues of the 
.Antonines. Lastly: the criterion is either nugatory 
ir false. It is demonstrated, that the only real conse- 
quences cannot be meant. The individual is to 
imo-rine what the general consequences would be, all 
other things remaining the same, if all men were to 
act as he is about to act. I scarcely need remind the 
reader, what a source of self-delusion and sophistry 
is hero opened to a mind in a state of temptation. 
Will it not say to itself, I know that all men will not 
act so: and the immediate good consequences are 
imaginary and improbable ? When the fi)undations 
of morality have once been laid in outward conse- 
quences, it will be in vain to recall to the mind, what 
the consequences would be, were all men to reason 
in the same way: for the very excuse of this mind to 
iiself is, that neither its action nor its reasoning is 
likely to have any consequences at all, its immediate 
object excepted. But sup|X)se the mind in its sanest 
state. How can it possibly form a notion of the na- 
ture of an action considered as indcHnitely multi- 
plied, unless it has previously a distinct notion of the 
mture of the single action itself, which is the multi- 
plicand ? If I conceive a crown multiplied a hundred 
f^dd, the single crown enables me to understand what 
a hundred crowns are; but how can the notion hun- 
dred teach me what a crown is ? For the crown sub- 
siilute X. Y. or abracadabra, and my imagination may 
multiply it to infinity, yet remain as much at a loss 
ds before. But if there be any means of ascertaining 
the action in and for itself, what further do we want? 
Would we give light to the sun, or look at our fingers 
through a telescope? The nature of every action is 
determined by all its circumstances : alter the circum- 
stances and a similar set of motions may be repeated, 
31 <i<J 



but they are no longer the same or similar action. 
^Vhat would n surgeon say, if he were advised not to 
cut off a limb, because if all men were to do thti 
same, the consequences would be dreailful ? Would 
not his answer be — '• Whoever docs the same under 
the same circumstances, and with the same motives, 
will do right; but if the circumstances and motivett 
are different, what have 1 to do with it?" I confess 
myself unable to divine any possible use, or even 
meaning, in this doctrine of general consequences, 
unless it be, that in all our actions we are Ixiund to 
consider the effect of our example, and to guard as 
much as possible against the hazard of their being 
misunderstood. I \> ill not slaughter a lamb, or drowr 
a litter of kittens in the presence of my child of four 
years old, because the child cannot understand my 
action, but will understand that his f-uher has inflict 
ed pain, and taken away life from beings that had 
never offended liim. All this is true, and no man in 
his senses ever thought otherwise. But methinks ii 
is strange to state that as a criterion of moralitj* 
which is no more than an accessary aggravation of an 
action bad in its own nature, or a ground of caution 
as to the mode and time in which we are to do or 
suspend what is in itself good or innocent. 

The duty of setting a good example is no doubt a 
most important duty ; but the example is good or bad, 
necessary or unnecessary, according as the action 
may be, which has a chance of being imitated. I 
once knew a small, but (in outward circumstances at 
least) respectable congregation, four-fifths of whom 
professed that they went to church entirely for the 
example's sake; in other words to cheat each other 
and act a common lie ? These rational Christians 
had not considered, that example may increase the 
good or evil of an action, but can never constitute 
either. If it was a f(,oli.i/i thing to kneel when they 
were not inwardly praying, or to sit and listen to a 
discourse of which they believed little and cared 
nothing, they were setting a foolish example. Per- 
sons in their respectable circumstances do not think it 
necessary to clean siiocs. that by their example they 
may encoura!re the shoe-black in continuing his occu- 
pation : and Christiaiiily does not think so meanly of 
herself as to fear flint the poor and afflicted will be a 
whit the le.ss pious, though they should see reason to 
believe that those, who possessed the good things of 
the present life, were deiermined to leave all tho 
blessings of the future fiir their more hnmble inferi- 
ors. If I have spoken with bitterness, let it be recol 
lected that my subject is hypocrisy. 

It is likewise fit, that in all our actions we should 
have considered how far tiiey are likely to be misun- 
derstood, and from superficial resemblances to be con- 
founded with, and so appear to authorize actions of a 
very different character. But if this caution be in 
tended for a moral rule, the mi.sunderstanding must 
be such as might be made by persons who are nei- 
ther very w eak nor very wicked. The apparent re- 
semblances between the good action we were about 
to do and tho bad one which might possibly be done 
in mistaken imitation of it, must be obvious : or that 
which makes them essentially different, must be 
473 



464 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



subtle or lecondite. For what is there which a 
wicked man Winded by his passions may not, and 
which a madman will not, misunderstand ? It is ridi- 
culous to frame rules of morality with a view to those 
who are fit objects only for the physician or the ma- 
gistrate. 

The question may be thus illustrated. At Florence 
there is an unfinished bust of Brutus, by Michael 
Angelo, under which a Cardinal wrote the following 
distich : 

Dum Brutieffigiem sculptor de matmore finxit, 
In mentem sceleris vmit ; et abstinuit. 
^is the Scjilptor was forming the. effigy of Brutus, in mar- 
ble, he recollected Ids act of guilt and refrained. 

An English Nobleman, indignant at this distich, 
wrote immediately under it the following: 

Brutum effinxisset sculptor, set! mente recursat 
Multa viri virlus ; .stelitet obstupuit. 
The Sculptor would have framed a Brutus, but the vast 
and manifold virtue of the man flashed upon his 
thought : he stopped and remained in aston- 
ished admiration. 

Now which is the nobler and more moral senti- 
ment, the Italian Cardinal's, or the English Noble- 
man's ? The cardinal would appeal to the doctrine 
of general consequences, and pronounce the death of 
CaBsar a murder, and Brutus an assassin. For (he 
would say) if one man may be allowed to kill ano- 
ther because he thinks him a tyrant, religious or po- 
litical phrenzy may stamp the name of tyrant on the 
best of kings; regicide will be justified under the 
pretence of tyrannicide, and Brutus be quoted as au- 
thority for the Clements and Ravilliacs. From kings 
it may pass to generals and statesmen, and from these 
to any man whom an enemy or enthusiast may pro- 
nounce unfit to live. Thus we may have a cobbler 
of Messina in every city, and bravos in our common 
streets as common as in those of Naples, with the name 
Brutus, on their stilettos. 

The Englishman would commence his answer by 
commenting on the words " because he t/miks him a 
tyrant." No ! he would reply, not because the pa- 
triot thinks him a tyrant; but because he Atjoujs him 
to be so, and knows likewise, that the vilest of his 
slaves cannot deny the fact that he has by violence 
raised himself above the laws of his country — be- 
cause he knows that all good and wise men equally 
with himself abhor the fact ! If there be no such 
state as that of being broad awake, or no means of 
distinguishing it when it exists ; if because men 
sometimes dream that they are awake, it must follow 
that no man, when awake, can be sure that he is not 
dreaming; if because an hypochondriac is positive 
that his legs are cylinders of glass, all other men are 
to learn modesty, and cease to be so positive that their 
legs are legs; what possible advantage can your cri- 
terion of GENER.\L CONSEQUENCES possess over any 
other rule of direction ? If no man can be sure that 
what he Ihhiks a robber with a pistol at his breast de- 
manding his purse, may not be a good friend enquir- 
ing after his health ; or that a tyrant (the sor» of a 
cobbler perhaps, who at the head of a regiment of 
jierjured traitors, has driven the representatives of 



his country out of the senate at the point of the bay- 
onet, subverted the constitution which had trusted, 
enriched, and honored him, trampled on the laws 
which before God and Man he had sworn to obey, 
and finally raised himself above all law) may not, in 
spile of his own and his neighbors' knowledge oi' the 
contrary, be a lawful king, who has received his 
power, however despotic it may be, from the kings 
his ancestors, who exercises no other power than 
what had been submitted to for centuries, and been 
acknowledged as the law of the country ; on what 
ground can you possibly expect less fallibility, or a 
result more to be relied upon in the same man's cal- 
culation of your GENERAI^ COXSEQUEiN'CES? Would 
he, at least, find any difficulty in converting your cri- 
terion into an authority for his act? What should 
prevent a man, whose perceptions and judgments are 
so strangely distorted, from arguing, that nothing is 
more devoutly to be wished for, as a general conse- 
quence, than that every man, who by violence places 
himself above the laws of his country, should in all 
ages and nations be considered by mankind as placed 
by his own act out of the protection of law, and be 
treated by them as any other noxious wild beast 
would be ? Do you think it necessary to try adders 
by a jury ? Do you hesitate to shoot a mad dog, be- 
cause it is not in your power to have him first tried 
and condemned at the Old Bailey ? On the other 
hand, what consequence can be conceived more de- 
testable, than one which would set a bounty on the 
most enormous crime in human nature, and establish 
as a law of religion and morality that the accomplish- 
ment of the most atrocious guilt invests the perpetra- 
tor with impunity, and renders his person for ever sa- 
cred and inviolable? For madmen and enthusiasts 
what avail your moral criterions? But as to your 
Neapolitan Bravos, if the act of Brutus who " In pity 
to the general wrong of Rome, Slew his best lover for 
the good of Rome," authorized by the laws of his 
country, in manifest opposition to all selfish interest 
in the face of the Senate, and instantly presenting 
himself and his cause first to that Senate, and then to 
the assembled commons, by them to stand acquitted 
or condemned — if such an act as this, with all its 
vast out-jutting circumstances of distinction, can be 
confounded by any mind, not frantic, with the crime 
of a cowardly skulking assassin who hires out his 
dagger for a few crowns to gratify a hatred not his 
own, or even with the deed of that man who makes 
a compromise between his revenge and his coward- 
ice, and stabs in the dark the enemy whom he dared 
not meet in the open field, or summon before the 
laws of his country — what actions can be so diflerent, 
that they may not be equally confiiunded ? The am- 
bushed soldier must not fire his musket, lest his ex- 
ample should be quoted by the villain who, to make 
sure of his booty, discharges his piece at the unsus- 
picious passenger from behind a hedge. The physi- 
cian must not administer a solution of arsenic to the 
leprous, lest his example should be quoted by profes- 
sional poisoners. If no distinction, full and satisfiic- 
tory to the conscience and common sense of mankind 
be aflbrded by the detestation and horror excited in 

474 



THE FRIEND. 



465 



all men, (even in tlie meanest and most vicious, if 
they are not wliolly monsters) by the act of the as- 
sassin, contrasted with the li?rvcnt admiration felt by 
the good and wise in all ages when they mention 
the name of Brutus ; contrasted with the fact that 
the honor or disrespect with which that name was 
spoken of, became an historic criterion of a noble or 
a base age ; and if it is in vam that our own hearts 
answer to the question of the Poet 

" U there amone the adamantine spheres 
Wheeling unshaken through the bouiiilless void. 
Aught (hal wilh half such majesty can till 
The human bosom, as when llrutus rose 
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate 
Amid the crowd of Patriots ; and his arm 
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove, 
When guilt brinss down the thunder, call'd aloud 
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson sword, 
And bade the Father of his Country, Hail ! 
For lo the Tyrant prostrate on the dust, 
And Rome again is free 1" 

If, I say, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can we 
have any firmer reliance on a cold ideal calculation 
of imaginary generai^ conseuuences, which, if 
they were general, could not be consequences at all: 
for they would be effects of the frenzy or frenzied 
wickedness, which alone could confound actions so 
utterly dissimilar? No! (would the ennobled de- 
scendant of our Russels or Sidneys conclude) No! 
Calumnious bigot ! never yet did a human being be- 
come an assassin from his own or the general admi- 
ration of the hero Brutus ; but I dare not warrant, 
that villains might not be encouraged in their trade 
of secret murder, by fmding their own guilt attribu- 
ted to the Roman patriot, and might not conclude, 
that if Brutus be no better than an assassin, an assas- 
sin can be no worse than Brutus. 

I request that the preceding be not interpreted as 
Bay own judgment on tyrannicide. I think with Ma- 
chiavel and with Spinoza for many and weighty reasons 
assigned by those philosophers, that it is difficult to 
conceive a case, in which a good man would attempt 
tyrannicide, because it is difficult to conceive one, in 
which a wise man would recommend it. In a small 
state, included within the walls of a single city, and 
where the tyranny is maintained by foreign guards, 
it may be otherwise; but in a nation or empire it is 
perhaps inconceivable, that the circumstances which 
made a tyranny possible, should not likewise render 
the removal of the tyrant useless. The patriot's sword 
may cut off the Hydra's head ; but he possesses no 
brand to stanch the active corruption of the body, 
which is sure to re-produce a successor. 

I must now in a few words answer the objection 
to the former part of my argument (for to that part 
only the objection applies,) namely, that the doctrine 
•jf general consequences was stated as the criterion 
of the action, not of the agent. I might answer, that 
the author himself had in some measure justified me 
ji not noticing this distinction by holding forth the 
probability, that the Supreme Judge will proceed by 
the same rule. The agent may then safely be inclu- 
ded in the actien, if both here and hereafter the ac- 
tion only and its general consequences will be attend- 
ed to. But my main ground of justilication is that 
61 



the distinction itself is merely logical, not real and 
vital. The character of the agent is determined by 
his view of the action: and that system of morality 
is alone true and suited to human nature, which 
unites the intention and the motive, the warmth and 
the fight, in one and the same act of mind. This 
alone is worthy to be called a moral principle. Such a 
principle may be extracted, though not without diffi- 
culty and danger, from the ore of the stoic philoso- 
phy; but it is to be found unalloyed and entire in the 
Christian system, and is there called Faith. 



ESSAY XII. 



The following address was delivered at Bristol, in the year 
1794-95. The only omissions regard the names of persons: 
and I insert them here in support of the assertion made by 
me in a former Lecture, and because this very Lecture has been 
referred to in an infamous Libel in proof of the Author's 
former Jacobinism. Different as my present convictions are 
on the subject of philosophical Necessity, 1 have for this 
reason left the last page unaltered. 



Ati yap Ttjs EXtuSfpias t(l>itfiaf noWa Se tv Kai rojj 

Translation. — For I am always a lover of Liberty ; but in 
those who would appropriate the Title, I find too many 
points destructive of Liberty and hateful to her genuine 
advocates. 



Companies resembling the present will, from a va- 
riety of circumstances, consist chiejlij of the zealous 
Advocates for Freedom. It will therefore be our en- 
deavor, not so much to excite the torpid, as to regu- 
late the feelings of the ardent: and above all, to 
evince the necessity of bottoming on fixed Principles, 
that so we may not be the unstable Patriots of Pas- 
sion or Accident, nor hurried away by names of which 
we have not sifted the meaning, and by tenets of 
which we have not examined the consequences. The 
Times are trying ; and in order to be prepared against 
their difficulties, we should have acquired a prompt 
facility of adverting in all our doubts to some grand 
and comprehensive Truth. In a deep and strong soil 
must that tree fix its roots, the height of which is to 
" reach to Heaven, and the sight of it to the ends of 
all the Earth." 

The example of France is indeed a " Warning to 
Britain." A nation wading to their rights through 
blood, and marking the track of Freedom by Devas- 
tation ! Yet let us not embattle our Feelings against 
our Reason. Let us not indulge our malignant pas- 
sions under the mask of Humanity. Instead of rail- 
ing with infuriate declamation against these excesses, 
we shall be more profitably employed in develop- 
ing the sources of them. French Freedom is the bea- 
con which if it guides to Equality should show us 
likewise the dangers that throng the road. 

The annals of the French Revolution have record- 
ed in letters of blood, that the knowledge of the few 
cannot counteract the ignorance of the many ; that 
the light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small 
475 



406 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



minority, points out the possessors as the victims, ra- 
ther than the illuminators, of the multitude. The pa- 
triols of France either hastened into the dangerous 
and gigantic error of making certain evil the means 
of contingent good, or were sacrificed by the mob, 
with v\hose prejudices and ferocity their unljending 
virtue forbade them to assimilate. Like Sampson, 
the people were strong — like Sampson, the people 
were blind. Those two massy pillars of the temple 
of Oppression, their Monarchy and Aristocracy, 

With horrible Convulsion to and fro 

They tug^'d, Ihcy phonk — till duwn they came, and drew 

The whole roof after Ihem with burst of thunder 

Upon the heads of all who eat beneath. 

Lords, Ladies, Captains, Counsellors, and Priests, 

Their choice nobility! MILTON. Sam. Agon. 

The Girondists, who were the first republicans in 
power, were men of enlarged views and great liter- 
ary attainments; but they seem to have been defi- 
cient in that vigor and daring activity, which circum- 
stances made necessary. Men of genius are rarely 
either prompt in action or consistent in general con- 
duct. Their early habits have been those of contem- 
plative indolence; and the day-dreams, with which 
they have been accustomed to amuse their solitude 
adapt them for splendid speculation, not temperate 
and practicable counsels. Brissot, the leader of the 
Gironde party, is entitled to the character of a virtu- 
ous man, and an eloquent speaker ; but he was rather 
a sublime visionary, than a quick-eyed politician ; and 
his excellences equally with his faults rendered him 
unfit for the helm in the stormy hour of Revolution. 
Robespierre, who displaced him, possessed a glowing 
ardor that still remembered the end, and a cool fero- 
city that never either overlooked, or scrupled the 
means. What that end was, is not luiown : that it 
was a wicked one, has by no means been proved. I 
rather think, that the distant prospect, to which he 
was travelling, appeared to him grand and beautiful ; 
but that he fixed his eye on it with such intense ea- 
gerness as to neglect the foulness of the road. If 
however his intentions were pure, his subsequent 
enormities yield us a melancholy proof, that it is not 
the character of the possessor which directs the pow- 
er, but the power which shapes and depraves the 
character of the possessor. In Robespierre, its influ- 
ence was assisted by the properties of his disposition. 
— Enthusiasm, even in the gentlest temper, will fre- 
quently generate sensations of an unkindly order. If 
we clearly perceive any one thing to be of vast and 
infinite importance to ourselves and all mankind, our 
first feelings impel us to turn with angry contempt 
from those who doubt and oppose it. The ardor of 
undisciplined benevolence seduces us into malignity : 
and whenever our hearts are warm, and our objects 
great and excellent, intolerance is the sin that does 
most easily beset us. But this enthusiasm in Robes- 
pierre was blended with gloom, and suspiciousness, 
and inordinate vanity. His dark imagination was 
still brooding over supposed plots against freedom — 
to prevent tyranny he became a tyrant — and having 
realized the evils which he suspected, a wild and 
dreadful tyrant. — Those loud-tongued adulators, the 
mob, overpowered the lone whispered denunciations 



of conscience — he despotized in all the pomp of pa- 
triotism, and masqueraded on the bloody stage of 
revolution, a Caligula with the cap of liberty on his 
head. 

It has been affirmed, and I believe with truth, that 
the system of Terrorism by suspending the struggles 
of contrariant factions communicated an energy to 
the operations of the Republic, which had been hith- 
erto unknown, and without which it could not have 
been preserved. The system depended for its exist- 
ence on the general sense of its necessity, and when 
it had answered its end, it was soon destroyed by the 
same power that had given it birth — popular opinion. 
It must not however be disguised, that at all times, 
but more especially when the public feelings are 
wavy and tumultuous, artful demagogues may create 
this opinion: and they, who are inclined to tolerate 
evil as the means of contingent good, should reflect, 
that if the excesses of terrorism gave to the Republic 
that efficiency and repulsive force which its circum- 
stances made necessary, they likewise afforded to the 
hostile courts the most powerful support, and excited 
that indignation and horror, which every where pre- 
cipitated the subject into the designs of the ruler. 
Nor let it be forgotten that these excesses perpetuated 
the war in La Vendee and made it more terrible, both 
by the accession of numerous partisans, who had fled 
from the persecution of Robespierre, and by inspiring 
the Chouans with fresh fury, and an unsubmitting 
spirit of revenge and desperation. 

Revolutions are sudden to the unthinking only. 
Political disturbances happen not without their warn- 
ing harbingers. Strange rumblings and confused 
noises still precede these earthquakes and hurricanes 
of the moral world. The process of revolution in 
France has been dreadful, and should incite us to 
examine with an anxious eye the motives and man- 
ners of those, whose conduct and opinions seem cal- 
culated to forward a similar event in our own coun- 
try. The oppositionists to " things as they are," are 
divided into many and difl^erent classes. To deline- 
ate them with an unflattering accuracy may be a 
delicate, but it is a necessary task, in order that we 
may enlighten, or at least beware of the misguided 
men who have enlisted under the banners of liberty, 
from no principles or with bad ones ; whether they 

be those, who 

admire they know not what, 
And know not whom, but as one leads to the other : 

or whether those, 

Whose end is private hate, not help to freedom. 
Adverse and turbulent when she would lead 
To virtue. 

The majority of democrats appear to me to have 
attained that portion of knowledge in politics, which 
infidels possess in religion. I would by no means be 
supposed to imply, that the objections of both are 
equally unfounded, but that they both attribute to the 
system which they reject, all the evils existing under 
it; and that both contemplating truth and justice 
" in the nakedness of abstraction," condemn constitu- 
tions and dispensations without having sufliciently 
examined the natures, circumstances and capacities 
476 



THE FRIEND. 



467 



of their recipients. The first class among the pro- 
fessed friends of liberty is coni[iosed of men, who 
unaccustomed to the labor of tiiorough investigation, 
and not particularly oppressed by the burthens of 
state, are yet iinpelled by their feelings to disapprove 
of its grosser depravities, and prepared to give an 
indolent vote in favor of relbrm. 'I'heir sensibilities 
unbraced by the co-operation of fixed principles, they 
offer no sacrifices to the divinity of active virtue. 
Their political opinions depend with weather-cock 
uncertainly on the winds of rumor, that blow from 
France. On the report of F'rench victories they blaze 
into republicanism, at a tale of P'rench excesses they 
darken into aristocrats. These dou^h-bahed patriots 
are not however useless. This oscillation of political 
opinion will retard the day of revolution, and it will 
operate as a preventive to its exces.ses. Indecisive- 
ness of character, though the effect of timidity, is al- 
most always associated with benevolence. 

Wilder features characterize the second class. 
Sufficiently possessed of natural sense to despise the 
priest, and of natural feeling to hate the oppressor, 
they listen only to the inflammatory harangues of 
some mad-headed enthusiast, and imbibe from them 
poison, not food ; rage, not liberty. Unillumined by 
philosophy, and stimulated to a lust of revenge by 
aggravated wrongs, they would make the altar of 
freedom stream with blood, while the grass grew in 
the de.solated halls of justice. 

We contemplate those principles with horror. Yet 
they jMSsess a kind of wild justice well calculated to 
spread them among the grossly ignorant. To unen- 
lightened minds, there are terrible charms in the idea 
of retribution, however savagely it be inculcated. 
The groans of the oppressors make fearful yet plea- 
sant music to the ear of him, whose mind is darkness, 
and into whose soul the iron has entered. 

This class, at present, is comparatively small — Yet 
soon to li)rm an overwhelming majority, unless great 
and immediate efforts are used to lessen the intolera- 
ble grievances of our poor brethren, and infuse into 
their -sorely wounded hearts the healing qualities of 
knowledge. For can we wonder that men should 
want humanity, who want all the circumstances of 
life that humanize? Can wc wonder that with the 
ignorance of brutes they should unite their ferocity? 
Peace and comfort be with these ! But let us shud- 
der to hear from men of dissimilar opportunities sen- 
timents of similar revengefulness. The purifying 
alchemy of education may transmute the fierceness 
of an ignorant man into virtuous energy — but what 
remedy shall we apply to him, whom plenty has not 
softened, whom knowledge has not taught benevo- 
lence ? This is one among the many fatal effects 
which result from the want of fixed principles. 

There is a third class among the friends of freedom, 
who jHjssess not the wavering character of the first 
description, nor the ferocity last delineated. They 
pursue the interests of freedom steadily, but with 
narrow and self centering views: they anticipate 
with exultation the abolition of privileged orders, and 
of acta that persecute by exclusion from the right of 



citizenship. They are prepared to join in digging up 
the rubbish of mouldering establishments, and strip- 
ping oH" the tawdry pageantry of governments. What- 
ever is above them they are most willing to drag 
down ; but every proposed alteration that would ele- 
vate the ranks of our [xwrer brethren, they regard 
with suspicious jealousy, as the dreams of the vision- 
ary ; as if there were any thing in the superiority of 
JLord to Gentleman, so mortifying in the barrier, so 
fatal to happiness in the consequences, as the more 
real distinction of master and servant, of rich man 
and of poor. Wherein am I made worse by my en- 
nobled neighbor? Do the childish titles of Aristoc- 
racy detract from my domestic comforts, or prevent 
my intellectual acquisitions? But those institutions 
of society which should condemn me to the necessity 
of twelve hours daily toil, would make my soul a 
slave, and sink the rational being into the mere ani- 
mal. It is a mockery of our fellow-creatures' wrongs 
to call them equal in rights, when by the bitter com- 
pulsion of their wants we make them inferior to us 
in all that can soften the heart, or dignify the under- 
standing. Let us not say that this is the work of 
time — that it is impracticable at present, unless we 
each in our individual capacities do strenuously and 
perseveringly endeavor to diffuse among our domes- 
tics those comforts and that illumination which far 
beyond all political ordinances are the true equalizers 
of men. 

We turn with pleasure to the contemplation of that 
small but glorious band, whom we may truly distin- 
guish by the name of thinking and disinterested pa- 
triots. These are the men who have encouraged the 
sympathetic passions till they have become irresisti- 
ble habits, and made their duty a necessary part of 
their self-interest, by the long-continued cultivation 
of that moral taste which derives our most exquisite 
pleasures from the contemplation of possible perfei 
tion, and projwrtionate pain from the perception of 
existing depravation. Accustomed to regard all the 
aiJairsof man as a process, they never hurry and they 
never pause. Theirs is not that twilight of political 
knowledge which gives us just light enough to place 
one foot before the other; as they advance the scene 
still opens upon them, and they press rightonward with 
a vast and various landscape of existence around them- 
Calmness and energy mark all their actions. Con 
vinced that vice originates not in the man, but in the 
surrounding circumstances ; not in the heart, but in 
the understanding ; he is hopeless concerning no one 
— to correct a vice or generate a virtuous conduct he 
pollutes not his hands with the scourge of coercion ; 
but by endeavoring to alter the circumstances would 
remove, or by strengthening the intellect, disarms the 
temptation. The unhappy children of vice and folly, 
whose tempers are adverse to their own hapiiiness as 
well as to the happiness of others, will at times 
awaken a natural pang; but he looks f()rward with 
gladdened heart to that glorious period when justice 
shall have established the universal fraternity of love 
These soul-ennobling views bestow the virtues which 
they anticipate. He whose mind is habitually im- 
477 



468 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



prest with them soars above the present state of hu- 
manity, and may be justly said to dwell in the 
presence of the Most High. 



would the forms 

Of servile custom cramp the patriot's power? 
Would sordid policie3,the barbarous growth 
Of ignorance and rapine, bow him down 
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear 1 
Lo I he appeals to nature, to the winds 
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course. 
The elements and seasons — all declare 
For what the Eternal Maker has ordained 
The powers of man : we feel within ourselves 
His energy divine : he tells the heart 
He meant, he mado us lo behold and love 
What he beholds and loves, the general orb 
Of life and being — to be great like him. 
Beneficent and active. AKENSIDE. 

That the general illumination should precede rev- 
olution, is a truth as obvious, as that the vessel should 
be cleansed before we fill it with a pure liquor. But 
the mode of diffusing it is not discoverable with equal 
facility. We certainly should never attempt to make 
proselytes by appeals to the selfish feelings — and con- 
sequently, should plead for the oppressed, not to 
them. The author of an essay on political justice 
considers private societies as the sphere of real utility 
— that (each one illuminating those immediately be- 
neath him,) truth, by a gradual descent, may at last 
reach the lowest order. But this is rather plausible 
than just or practicable. Society as at present con- 
stituted does not resemble a chain that ascends in a 
continuity of links. Alas ! between the parlour and 
the kitchen, the tap and the coffee-room — there is a 
gulf that may not be passed. He would appear to 
me to have adopted the best as well as the most be- 
nevolent mode of diffusing truth, who uniting the 
zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philoso- 
pher, should be personally among the poor, and teach 
them their duties in order that he may render them 
susceptible of their rights. 

Yet by what means can the lower classes be made 
to learn their duties, and urged to practise them? 
The human race may perhaps possess the capability 
of all excellence ; and truth, I doubt not, is omnipotent 
to a mind already disciplined for its reception ; but 
assuredly the over-worked laborer, skulking into an 
ale-house, is not likely to exemphfy the one, or prove 
the other. In that barbarous tumult of inimical in- 
terests, which the present state of society exhibits, 
religion appears to offer the only means universally 
efficient. The perfectness of future men is indeed a 
benevolent tenet, and may operate on a few vision- 
aries whose studious habits supply them with employ- 
ment, and seclude them from temptation. But a dis- 
tant prospect which we are never to reach, will sel- 
dom quicken our footsteps, however lovely it may 
appear; and a blessing, which not ourselves hut pos- 
terity are destined to enjoy, will scarcely influence 
the actions of any — still less of the ignorant, the pre- 
judiced, and the selfish. 

" Go preach the Gospel to the poor." By its sim- 
plicity it will meet their comprehension, by its benev- 
olence soften their affections, by its precepts it will 
direct their conduct, by the vastness of its motives 



insure their obedience. The situation of the poor is 
perilous : they are indeed both 

' ' from within and from without 
Unarmed to all temptations." 

Prudential reasonings will in general be powerless 
with them. For the incitements of this world are 
weak in proportion as we are wretched — 

The world is not mi; friend, nor the world's law. 
The world has got no law to make mc rich. 
They too who live from hand to mouth, will most 
frequently become improvident. Possessing no stock 
of happiness they eagerly seize the gratifications of 
the moment, and snatch the froth from the wave as 
it passes by them. Nor is the desolate state of their 
families a restraining motive, unsoftened as they are 
by education, and benumbed into selfishness by the 
torpedo touch of extreme want. Domestic affections 
depend on association. We love an object if, as often 
as we see or recollect it, an agreeable sensation arises 
in our minds. But alas ! how should he glow with 
the charities of father and husband, who gaining 
scarcely more than his own necessities demand, must 
have been accustomed to regard his wife and chil- 
dren, not as the soothers of finished labor, but as ri- 
vals for the insufficient meal I In a man so circum- 
stanced the tyranny of the Present can be overpow- 
ered only by the ten-fold mightiness of the Future. 
Religion will cheer his gloom with her promises, and 
by habituating his mind to anticipate an infinitely 
great Revolution hereafter, may prepare it even for 
the sudden reception of a less degree of amelioration 
in this world. 

But if we hope to instruct others, we should fami- 
liarize our own minds to some fixed and determinate 
principles of action. The world is a vast labyrinth, 
in which almost every one is running a different way. 
A few indeed stand motionless, and not seeking to 
lead themselves or others out of the maze, laugh at 
the failures of their brethren. Yet with little reason: 
for more grossly than the most bewildered wanderer 
does he err, who never aims lo go right. It is more 
honorable to the head, as well as to the heart, to be 
misled by our eagerness in the pursuit of Truth, than 
to be safe from blundering by contempt of it. The 
happiness of mankind is the erid of virtue, and truth 
is the knowledge of the means; which he will never 
seriously attempt to discover, who has not habitually 
interested himself in the welfare of others. The 
searcher after truth must love and be beloved ; for 
general benevolence is a necessary motive to con- 
stancy of pursuit ; and this general benevolence is 
begotten and rendered permanent by social and do- 
mestic affections. Let us beware of that proud phi- 
losophy, which affects to inculcate philanthropy while 
it denounces every home-born feeling by which it is 
produced and nurtured. The paternal and filial dti 
ties discipline the heart and prepare it for the love of 
all mankind. The intensity of private attachments 
encourages, not prevents, universal Benevolence. 
The nearer we approach to the sun, the more in- 
tense his heat : yet what corner of the system does 
he not cheer and vivify ? 
The man who would find Truth, must likewise 
478 



THE FRIEND. 



4G9 



seek it with an humble and simiile heart, otherwise 
he will be j)rcci|)ita!it and overlook it ; or he will be 
jirejudiccil, and refuse to see it. To ciiianripalt' ilstlf 
from titc li/ranny of asfociation, is the most arduous 
effiirt of the mind, particularly in religious and politi- 
cal disijuisilions. The asserters of the system have 
associated with it the preservation of order and pub- 
lic virtue; the oppugner of im(X)sture and wars and 
rapine. Hence, when ihey dispute, each trembles at 
the cunsa/iicuces of the other's opinions instead of at- 
tending to his train of arguments. Of this however 
we may be certain, whether we be Christians or In- 
fidels, Aristocrats or Hepublicans, that our minds are 
in a state unsusceptible of Knowledge, when we leel 
an eagerness to detect the falsehood of an adversa- 
ry's reasonings, not a sincere wish to discover if 
there be Truth in them ; — when we examine an ar- 
gument in order that we may answer it, instead of 
answering because we have examined it. 

Our opponents are chielly successful in confuting 
the Theory of Freedom by the practices of ils advo- 
cates : from our lives they draw the most forcible ar- 
guments against our doctrines. Nor have they adopt- 
ed an unfair mode of reasoning. In a science the 
evidence suffers neither diminution or increase from 
the actions of its professors; but the comparative 
wisdom of political systems depends necessarily on 
the manner and capacities of the recipients. Why 
should all things be thrown into confusion to acquire 
that liberty which a faction of sensualists and gam- 
blers will neither be able or willing to preserve? 

A system of fundamental Reform will scarcely be 
effected by massacres mechanized into Revolution. 
We cannot therefore inculcate on the minds of each 
other too often or with too great earnestness the ne- 
cessity of cultivating benevolent affections. We 
should be cautious how we indulge the feelings even 
of virtuous indignation. Indignation is the handsome 



brother of Anger and Hatred. The temple of Des- 
(Xjtism, like that of Tescalipoca, the Mexican deity, 
is built of human skulls, and cemented wiili human 
blood ; — let us beware that we be not transported into 
revenge while we are levelling the loathsome pile ; 
lest when wo erect the edifice of Freedom we but 
vary the stylo of architecture, not change the mate- 
rials. Let us not wantonly offend even the preju- 
dices of our weaker brethren, nor by ill-timed and 
vehement declarations of opinion excite in them ma- 
lignant feelings towards us. The energies of mind 
are wasted in these intemperate effusions. Those 
materials of projectile force, which now carelessly 
scattered explode with an offensive and useless noise, 
directed by wisdom and union might heave rocks 
from their base, — or perhaps (dismissing the meta- 
phor) might produce the desired eflecl without the 
convulsion. 

For this "subdued sobriety" of temper, a practical 
faith in the doctrine of philosophical necessity seems 
the only preparative. That vice is the eflect of error 
and the offspring of surrounding circumstances, the 
object therefore of condolence not of anger, is a pro- 
position easily understood, and as easily demonstrated. 
But to make it spread from the understanding to the 
affections, to call it into action, not only in the great 
exertions of patriotism, but in the daily and hourly 
occurrences of social life, requires the most watchful 
attentions of the most energetic mind. It is not 
enough that we have once swallowed these truths — 
we must feed on them, as insects on a leaf, till the 
whole heart be colored by their qualities, and show 
its food in every, the minutest fibre. 
Finally ; in the words of the Apostle, 
Watch ye! Stand fast in the principles of which 
ye have been convinced : Quit yourselves like men .' 
Be strong ! Yet let all things be done in the spirit 
of love. 

479 



KMt Sbetoiitr ILutitiiVLQ j^lacr: 



ESSAYS INTERPOSED FOR AMUSEMENT, RETROSPECT, AND PREPARATION, 



MISCELLANY THE SECOND. 



Eliam a musis si quando animum paulisper abducamus, apud Musas nihilominus feriamur : at reclines quidem, at otiosas, 
at de his et illjs inter se libere colloquentes. 



ESSAY I. 



It were a wantonness and would demand 
Severe reproof if we were men whose hearts 
Could hold vain dalliance wiih the misery 
Even of the dead ; contented thence to draw 
A momentary pleasure, never mark'd 
By reason, barren of all fulnre good. 
But we have known that there is often found 
In mournful thoughts, and always might be found 
A power to virtue friendly. 

WORDSWORTH. MSS. 



I KNOW not how I can better commence my second 
Landing Place, as joining on to the section of Poli- 
tics, than by the following proof of the severe mise- 
ries which misgovernment may occasion in a country 
nominally free. In the homely ballad of the Three 
Graves (published in my Sibylline Leaves) I have 
attempted to exemplify the effect, which one painful 
idea vividly impressed on the mind under unusual 
circumstances, might have in producing an alienation 
of the understanding; and in the parts hitherto pub- 
lished, I have endeavored to trace the progress to 
madness, step by step. But though the main inci- 
dents are facts, the detail of the circumstances is of 
my own invention : that is, not what I knew, but 
what I conceived likely to have been the case, or at 
least equivalent to it. In the tale that follows, I pre- 
sent an instance of the same causes acting upon the 
mind to the production of conduct as wild as that of 
madness, but without any positive or permanent loss 
of the Reason or the Understanding : and this in a 
real occurrence, real in all its parts and particulars. 
But in truth this tale overflows with a human interest, 
and needs no philosophical deduction to make it im- 
pressive. The account was published in the city in 
which the event took place, and in the same year I 
read it, when I was in Germany, and the impression 
nade on my memory was so deep, that though I re- 
late it in my own language, and with my own feel- 
mgs, and in reliance on the fidelity of my recollection, 
I dare vouch for the accuracy of the narration in all 
important particulars. 

The imperial free towns of Germany are, with only 
two or three exceptions, enviably distinguished by 



the virtuous and primitive manners of the citizens, 
and by the parental character of their several govern- 
ments. As exceptions, however, we must mention 
Aix la Chapelle, poisoned by French manners, and 
the concourse of gamesters and sharpers; and Nu- 
remberg, whose industrious and honest inhabitants 
deserve a better fate than to have their lives and 
properties under the guardianship of a wolfish and 
merciless oligarchy, proud from ignorance, and re- 
maining ignorant through pride. It is from the sm.all 
Slates of Germany, that our writers on political econ- 
omy might draw their most forcible instances of ac- 
tually oppressive, and even mortal taxation, and gain 
the clearest insight into the causes and circumstances 
of the injury. One other remark, and I proceed to 
the story. I well remember, that the event I am 
about to narrate, called forth, in several of the Ger- 
man periodical publications, the most passionate (and 
in more than one instance, blasphemous) declama- 
tions, concerning the incomprehensibility of the moral 
government of the world, and the seeming injustice 
and cruelty of the dispensations of Providence. But, 
assuredly, every one of my readers, however deeply 
he may sympathize with the poor sufferers, will at 
once answer all such declamations by the simple re- 
flection, that no one of these awful events could pos- 
sibly have taken place under a wise police and hu- 
mane government, and that men have no right to 
complain of Providence fur evils which they them- 
selves are competent to remedy by mere common 
sense, joined with mere common humanity. 

Maria Eleonora Sciioning was the daughter of 
a Nuremberg wire-drawer. She received her un- 
happy existence at the price of her mother's life, and 
at the age of seventeen she followed, as the sole 
mourner, the bier of her remaining parent. From 
her thirteenth year she had passed her life at her fa- 
ther's sick-bed, the gout having deprived him of the 
use of his liinbs: and beheld the arch of heaven only 
when she went to fetch fiiod or medicines. The dis- 
charge of her filial duties occupied the whole of her 
time and all her thoughts. She was his only nurse, 
and for the last two years they lived without a ser- 
vant. She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his 
480 



THE FRIEND. 



471 



Bching limbs, and ihougli weak and delicate from 
conslMiit conliiieineiit and the poison of melancholy 
thoiiglits, she had ac(|iiired an unusual power in her 
arms, (mm iho habit of lifting her old and siifferinf; 
father out of and into his bed of |iain. Thus |Kissed 
ftway lier early youth in sorrow: she grow up in 
tears, a stranger to the amusements of youth, and its 
more delightful schemes and imaginations. She was 
not, however, unhappy: she attributed, indeed, no 
merit to herself for her virtues, but for that reason 
were they the more her reward. The peace which 
pnsseth all uudcrs'anding, disclosed itself in all her 
looks and movements. It lay on her countenance, 
like a steady unshadowed moonlight ; and her voice, 
which was naturally at once sweet and subtle, came 
from her. like the tine flute-tones of a masterly per- 
former which still floating at some uncertain distance, 
seem to be created by the player, rather than to pro- 
ceed from the instrument. If you had listened to it 
in one of those brief sabbaths of the soul, when the 
activity and discursiveness of the thoughts are sus- 
pended, and the mind quietly eddies round, instead 
of flowing onward — (as at late evening in the spring 
1 have seen a bat wheel in silent circles round and 
round a fruit-tree in full blossom, in the midst of 
which, as within a close tent of the purest white, an 
nnscen nightingale was piping its sweetest notes) — in 
such a mood you might have half-fancied, half-felt, 
that her voice had a separate being of its own — that 
it was a living something, wliose mode of existence 
was for the car only : so deep was her resignation, 
so entirely had it become the unconscious habit of 
her nature, and in all she did or said, so perfectly 
were both her movements and her utterance without 
eff<)rt and without the appearance of effort! Her 
dying father's last words, addressed to the clergyman 
who attended him, were his grateful testimony, that 
during his long and sore trial his good Maria had be- 
haved to him like an angel: that the most disagreea- 
ble oflices and the least suited to her age and sex, 
had never drawn an unwilling look from her, and 
that whenever his eye had met her's, he had been 
sure to see in it either the tear of pity or the sudden 
smile expressive of her affection and wish to cheer 
him. God (said he) will reward the good girl for all 
her long dutifulness to mc ! lie departed during the 
inward [jrayer, which followed these his last words. 
His wish will be fulfllled in eternity; but for this 
world the prayer of the dying man was not heard. 

Maria sate anf' ept by the grave, which now con- 
tained her fiitner, her friend, the only bond by which 
she was linked to life. But while yet the last sound 
of his death-bell was murmuring away in the air, she 
was obliged to return with two Revenue Officers, 
who demanded entrance into the house, in order to 
take possession of the papers of the deceased, and 
from them to discover whether he had always given 
in his income, and paid the yearly income tax accord- 
ing to his oath, and in proportion to his property.* 

*ThiB tax called the Losung or Ransom, in Nuremburg, 
was at first a voluntary contribution : every one gave ac- 
cordinc to liis likin? or circumstances ; but in the bcEinning 
of ibe 15tb century the heavy contribution levied for the ser 



After the few documents had been looked through 
and collated with the registers, the officers fJmnd. or 
pretended to (ind, sufficient proofs, that the deceased 
had not paid his tax pro|iortional)ly, which impot-ed 
on them the duty to put all the cflbct.s inidcr lock and 
seal. They therefore desired the maiden to retire to 
an empty room, till the Ransom Office had decided 
on the affair. Bred up in sulfering, and habituated 
to immediate compliance, the alfrighted and weeping 
maiden obeyed. She hastened to the empty garret, 
while the Revenue Officers placed the lock and seal 
U|H)n the other doors, and finally took away the pa- 
pers to the Ransom Office. 

Not before evening did the poor faint Maria, ex- 
hausted with weeping, rouse herself with the inten- 
tion of going to her bed : oit she (bund the door of 
her chamber sealed up and must pa.^is the night on 
the floor of the garret. The officers had had the hu- 
manity to place at the door the small portion of food 
that happened to be in the house. Thus passed sev- 
eral days, till the officers returned with an order that 
Maria Elkonora Schomng should leave the house 
without delay, the commission Court having confis- 
cated the whole property to the City Treasury. The 
father befiire he was bed-riilden had never possessed 
any considerable property; but yet, by his industry, 
had been able not only to keep himself free from 
debt, but to lay up a small sum for the evil day. 
Three years of evil days, three whole years of sick- 
ness, had consumed the greatest part of this; yet still 
enough remained not only to defend his daughter 
from immediate want, but likewise to maintain her 
till she could get into some service or employment, 
and have recovered her spirits sufficiently to bear up 
against the hardships of life. With this thought the 
dying father comforted himself, and this hope too 
proved vain ! 

A timid girl, whose past life had been made up of 
sorrow and privation, she went indeed to solicit the 
commissioners in her own behalf; but these were, as 
is mostly the case on the Continent, advocates — the 
most hateful class, perhaps, of himian societv, harden- 
ed by the frequent sight of misery, and seldom supe- 
rior in moral character to English pettifoggers or Old 
Bailey attornevs. She went to them, indeed, but not 
a word could she say for herself ller tears and in- 
articulate sounds — for these her judges had no ears 
or eyes. Mute and confounded, like an unfledged 
dove fallen out from its mother's nest, Maria betook 
herself to her home, and found the house-door too 
now shut upon her. Her whole wealth consisted in 

vice of the empire, forced iho magistrateB to determine the 
proportions and make the payment compulsory. At iho time 
in which this event took place. 1787, every citizen must year- 
ly take what \va-< called liis Ransom Oath (Losuneseid) that 
the sum paid liy him had been in the strict dcleiminate pro- 
portion to his property. On the death of any citizen, the 
Ransom Ollice. or commissioners lor this income or property 
tax, possess the right to examine his books and papers, and 
to compare his yearly payment as found in their registers with 
the properly he appears to have possessed during that time. 
If any disproportion aiipcared, if the yearly declarations of 
the dccca.sed should have been innrciirate in Iho least degree, 
his wh<ile pOocIs are contiscuted, and though he should have 
left wife and child the state treasury becomes his heir 
481 



472 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



the clothes she wore. She had no relations to whom 
she could apply, for those of her mother had disclaim- 
ed all acquaintance with her, and her father was a 
JVelher Saxon by birth. She had no acquaintance, 
for all the friends of old Schoning had forsaken him 
in the first year of his sickness. She had no play-fel- 
low, for who was likely to have been the companion 
of a nurse in the room of a sick man ? Surely, since 
the creation never was a human being more solitary 
and forsaken, than this innocent poor creature, that 
now roamed about friendless in a populous city, to 
the whole of whose inhabitants her filial tenderness, 
her patient domestic goodness, and all her soft yet 
difficult virtues, might well have been the model. 

" But homeless near a thousand homes she stood, 
And near a thousand tables pnied and wanted food!" 

The night came, and Maria knew not where to find 
a shelter. She tottered to the church-yard of the St. 
James' Church in Nuremburg, where the body of her 
father rested. Upon the yet grassless grave she 
threw herself down; and could anguish have pre- 
vailed over youth, that night she had been in heaven. 
The day came, and like a guilty thing, this guiltless, 
this good being, stole away from the crowd that be- 
gan to pass through the church-yard, and hastening 
through the streets to the city gate, she hid herself 
behind a garden hedge just beyond it, and there wept 
away the second day of her desolation. The evening 
closed in : the pang of hunger made itself felt amid 
the dull aching of self wearied anguish, and drove 
the sufferer back again into the city. Yet W'hat could 
she gain there ? She h.id not the courage to beg, and 
the very thought of stealing never occurred to her 
innocent mind. Scarce conscious whither she was 
going, or why she went, she found herself once more 
by her father's grave, as the last relict of evening 
faded away in the horizon. I have sate for some min- 
utes with my pen resting : I can scarce summon the 
courage to tell, what I scarce know, whether I ought 
to tell. Were I composing a tale of fiction, the reader 
might justly suspect the purity of my own heart, and 
most certainly would have abundant right to resent 
such an incident, as an outrage wantonly offered to 
his imagination. As I think of the circumstance, it 
seems more like a distempered dream : but alas ! what 
is guilt so detestable other than a dream of madness, 
that worst madness, the madness of the heart ? I can- 
not but believe, that the dark and restless passions 
must first have drawn the mind in upon themselves, 
and as with the confusion of imperfect sleep, have in 
some strange manner taken away the sense of reality, 
in order to render it possible for a human being to 
perpetrate what it is too certain that human beings 
have perpetrated. The church-yards in most of the 
German cities and too often, I fear, in those of our 
own country, are not more injurious to health than to 
morality. Their former venerable character is no 
more. The religion of the place has followed its su- 
perstitions, and their darkness and loneliness tempt 
worse spirits to roam in them than those whose night- 
ly wanderings appalled the believing hearts of our 
brave forefathers ! It was close by the new-made 
grave of her father, that the meek and spotless daugh- 



ter became the victim to brutal violence, which 
weeping and watching and cold and hunger had ren 
dered her utterly unable to resist. The monster left 
her in a trance of stupefaction, and into her right 
hand, which she had clenched convulsively, he had 
forced a half-doHar. 

It was one of the darkest nights of autumn: in the 
deep and dead silence the only sounds audible were 
the slow, blunt ticking of the church clock, and now 
and then the sinking down of bones in the nigh char- 
nel house. Maria, when she had in some degree re- 
covered her senses, sate upon the grave near which 
—not her innocence had been sacrificed, but that 
which, from the frequent admonitions, and almost the 
dying words of her father, she had been accustomed 
to consider as such. Guiltless, she felt the pangs of 
guilt, and still continued to grasp the coin, which the 
monster had left in her hand, with an anguish as sore 
as if it had been indeed the wages of voluntary pros- 
titution. Giddy and faint from want of food, her 
brain became feverish from sleeplessness, and this 
unexampled concurrence of calamities, this compli- 
cation and entanglement of misery in misery ! she 
imagined that she heard her father's voice bidding her 
leave his sight. His last blessings had been condi- 
tional, for in his last hours he had told her, that the 
loss of her innocence would not let him rest quiet in 
his grave. His last blessings now sounded in her 
ears like curses, and she fled from the church-yard as 
if a demon had been chasing her; and hurrying 
along the streets, through which it is probable her ac- 
cursed violator had walked with quiet and orderly 
step * to his place of rest and security, she was seized 
by the vs'atchman of the night — a welcome prey, as 
they receive in Nuremburg half a gulden from the 
police chest, for every woman that they find in the 
streets after ten o'clock at night. It was midnight, 
and she was taken to the next watch-house. 

The sitting magistrate, before whom she was car- 



* It must surely have been after bearins; or of witnessing 
some similar event or scene of wretchedness, hat the most 
eloquent of our Writers (I had almost said of our Poets) 
Jeremy Taylor, wrote the followini; paragraph, which at 
least in Longinus's sense of the word, we may place among 
the most sublime passages in English Literalnre. " He that 
is no fool, but can consider wisely, if he be in love wiih this 
world we need not despair but that a wilty man might recon- 
cile him with tortures, and make him think charitably of the 
rack, and be brought to admire the harmony that is made by 
a herd of evening wolves when they miss their draught of 
blood in their midnight revels. The groans of a man in a fit 
of the stone are worse than all these ; and the distractions of 
a troubled conscience are worse than those groans: and yet 
a careless merry sinner is worse than all that. But if we 
could fiom one of the balilements of Heaven espy, how many 
men and women at this time lie fainting and dying for want 
of bread, how many young men are hewn down by the 
sword of war ; how many orphans are now weeping over the 
graves of their father, by wlio^c life ihny were enabled to eat; 
if we could but hear how many mariners and passengers are 
at this present time in a storm, and shriek out because their 
keel dashes against a rock, or bulges un(!i>r Ihem ; how many 
people tliere are that weep with want, and are mad with op- 
pression, or are desperate by a loo quick sense of a constant 
infelicity ; in all reason we should be glad to be out of the 
noise and participation of so many evils. This is a place of 
sorrow and tears, of great evils and constant calamities : let 
us remove hence, at least in affections and preparations of 

mind. Jiuly Dying, Chap. 1. Sect. 5. 

482 



THE FRIEND. 



473 



fieJ the next morning, prefaced his question with the 
niosi opprobrious title that ever belonged lo the most 
hardened sticct-wuliicrs, and which man born of 
woman should not address even lo tliese, were it but 
liir his own sake. The frigiilfui name awaliened the 
|»)or orphan from lier ilream of guilt, it brought back 
the consciousness of her innocence, but with it the 
sense likewise of her wrongs and of her helplessness. 
The cold hand of death seemed to grasp her, she 
fainted dead away nt his feet, and v\as not without 
ditUculty recovered. The magistrate was so far sofl- 
eiied, and only so far, as to dismiss her for the pre- 
sent ; but with a menace of sending her to the House 
of Correction if she were brought before him a se- 
cond time. The idea of her own innocence now be- 
came uppermost in her mind ; but mingling with the 
thought of her utier fbrlornnes.«, and the image of her 
angry fiither, and doubtless still in a state of bewil- 
derment, she formed the resolution of drowning her- 
self in the river Pegnitz — in order (ibr this was the 
shape which her fancy had taken) to throw herself 
at her father's feet, and to justify her innocence to 
him in the World of Spirits. She hoped that her fa- 
ther would speak for her to the Saviour, and that she 
should be forgiven. But as she was passing through 
the suburb, she was met by a soldier's wife, who 
during the life-time of her father had been occasion- 
ally employed in the house as a char-woman. This 
poor woman was startled at the disordered apparel, 
and more disordered looks of her young mistress, and 
questioned her with such an an.xious and heartfelt 
tenderness, as at once brought back the poor orphan 
to her natural feelings and the obligations of religion. 
As a frightened child throws itself into the arms of 
its mother, and hiding its head on her breast, half 
tells amid sobs what has happened to it, so did she 
throw herself on the neck of the woman who had 
uttered the first words of kindness to her since her 
father's death, and with loud weeping she related 
what she had endured and what she was about to 
have done, told her all her afflictinn and mhenj, the 
wormwf,(j(l and the gall! Her kind-hearted friend 
mingled tears with tears, pressed the ]X)or forsaken- 
one to her heart ; comforted her with sentences out 
of the hymn-book ; and with the most affectionate 
entreaties conjured her to give up her horrid purpose, 
for that life was short, and heaven was for ever. 

Maria had been bred up in the fear of God : she 
now trembled at the thought of her former purpose, 
and followed her friend Ilarlin, for that was the name 
of her guardian angel, to her home hard by. The 
moment she entered tlie door slie sank down and lay 
at her full length, as if only to be motionless in a 
place of shelter had been the fulness of delight. As 
when a withered leaf, that has been long whirled 
alwnt by the gusts of autumn, is blown into a cave 
or hollow tree, it stops suddenly, and all at once looks 
the very image of quiet — such might this poor orphan 
appear to the eye of a meditative imagination. 

A place of shelter she had attained, and a friend 
willing to comfort her, all that she could : but the 
noble-hearted IFarlin was herself a daughter of cala- 
mity, one who from year to year must he down in 
62 



weariness and rise up to labor; for whom this world 
provides no other comfort but sleep which enables 
them lo forget it; no other physician but death, 
which takes ihem out of it ! She was married to one 
of the city guards, who. hkc Maria's father, had been 
long sick and bed-ridden. Him, herself, and two lit- 
tle children, she had to maintain by washing and 
charing ;* and sometime after Maria had been domes- 
ticated with them, Ilarlin told her that she herself 
had been once driven to a desperate thought by the 
cry of her hungry children, during a want of employ- 
ment, and that she had been on the \vm\t of killing 
one of the little ones, and then surrendering herself 
into the hands of justice. In this manner, she had 
conceiveil, all would be well provided for; the sur- 
viving child would be admitted, as a matter of course, 
into tlie Orphan House, and her husband into the 
Hospital ; while she herself would have atoned for 
her act by a public execution, and together with the 
child that she had destroyed, would have passed into 
a stale of bliss. All this she related to Maria, and 
those tragic ideas leff but too deep and lasting im- 
pression on her mind. Weeks after, she herself re- 
newed the conversation, by expressing to her bene- 
factress her inability to conceive how it was possible 
for one human being to take away the life of another, 
especially that of an innocent little child. For that 
reason, replied Ilarhn, because it was so innocent 
and so good, I wished to put it out of this wicked 
world. Thinkest thou then that I would have my 
head cut off for the sake of a wicked child ? There- 
fore it was little Nan, that I meant to have taken 
with me, who, as you see, is always so sweet and pa- 
tient ; little Frank has already his humors and naughty 
tricks, and suits better for this world. This was the 
answer. Maria brooded awhile over it in silence, 
then passionately snatched the children up in her 
arms, as if she would protect them against their own 
mother. 

For one whole year the orphan lived with the sol- 
dier's wife, and by their joint labors barely kept ofT 
absolute want. As a little boy (almost a child in size, 
though in his thirteenth year) once told mo of him- 
self, as he was guiding me up the Brocken, in the 
Ilartz Forest, they had but " Utile of that, of which a 
great deal tells but for little." But now came the se- 
cond winter, and with it came bad times, a season of 
trouble for this poor and meritorious household. The 
wife now fell sick: too constant am] too hard labor, 
too scanty and too innutritious food, had gradually 
wasted away her strength. Maria redoubled her 
efforts in order to provide bread and fuel fiir their 
washing which they took in ; but the task was above 
her powers. Besides, she was so timid and so agi- 
tated at the sight of strangers, that sometimes, with 
the best good-will, she was left without employment. 
One by one, every article of the least value which 
they possessed was sold off, except the bed on which 
the husband lay. He died just before the approach 
of spring; but about the same time the wife gave 

* I am ignorant, whether thoro be any clagsical authority 
for this word ; but I know no other word that expresses 00- 
cosional day labor in the houses of others. 

483 



474 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



signs of convalescence. The physician, though al- 
most as poor as his patients, had been kind to them : 
silver and gold had he none, but he occasionally 
brought a little wine, and often assured them that 
nothing was wanting to her perfect recovery, but 
better nourishment and a litlle wine every day. This, 
however, could not be regularly procured, and Har- 
lin's spirits sank, and as her bodily pain left her she 
became more melancholy, silent, and selfinvolved. 
And now it was that Maria's mind was incessantly 
racked by the frighlful apprehension, that her friend 
might be again meditating tiie accomplishment of her 
former purpose. She had grown as passionately fond 
of the two children as if slie had borne ihem under 
her own heart; but the jeopardy in which she con- 
ceived her friend's salvation to stand — this was her 
predominant thought. For all the hopes and fears, 
which under a happier lot would have been asso- 
ciated with the objects of the senses, were trans- 
ferred, by Maria, to her notions and images of a 
future state. 

In the beginning of March, one bitter cold evening, 
Maria started up and suddenly left the house. The 
last morsel of food had been divided betwixt the two 
children for their breakfiist; and for the last hour or 
more the little boy had been crying for hunger, 
while his gentler sister had been hiding her face in 
Maria's lap, and pressing her litlle body against her 
knees, in order by that mechanic pressure lodull the 
aching from emptiness. The tender-hearted and vis- 
ionary maiden had watched the mother's eye, and 
had interpreted several of her sad and steady looks 
according to her preconceived apprehensions. She 
had conceived all at once the strange and enthusias- 
tic thought, that she would in some way or other offer 
her own soul for the salvation of the soul of her 
friend. The money, which had been left in her hand, 
flashed upon the eye of her mind, as a single uncon- 
nected image: and faint with hunger and shivering 
with cold, she sallied fiarth — in search of guilt! 
Awful are the dispensations of the Supreme, and in 
his severest judgments the hand of mercy is visible. 
It was a night so wild with wind and rain, or rather 
rain and snow mixed together, that a famished wolf 
would have stayed in his cave, and listened to a howl 
more fearful than his own. Forlorn Maria! thou 
wert kneeling in pious simplicity at the grave of thy 
father, and thou becamest the prey of a monster! 
Innocent thou wert and without guilt didst thou re- 
main. Now thou goest forth of thy own accord — but 
God will have pity on Ihee ! Poor bewildered inno- 
cent! in thy spotless imagination dwelt no distinct 
conception of the evil which thou wentest forth to 
brave ! To save the soul of thy friend was the dream 
of thy feverish brain, and thou wert again appre- 
hended as an outcast of shameless sensuality, at the 
moment when thy too spiritualized fancy was busied 
with the glorified forms of thy friend and of her little 
ones interceding for thee at the throne of the Re- 
deemer! 

At this moment her perturbed fancy suddenly sug- 
gested to her a new mean for the accomplishment of 
her purpose : and she replied to the night-watch, who 



with a brutal laugh bade her expect on the morrow 
the unmanly punishment, which to the disgrace of 
human nature the laws of Protestant states (alas ' 
even those of our own country,) inflict on female va- 
grants, that she came to deliver herself up as an 
infanticide. She was instantly taken before the mag- 
istrate, through as wild and pitiless a slorvi as ever 
pelted on a houseless head! through as black and 
"li/rannorisa iiight" as ever aided the workings of a 
heated brain ! Here she confessed that she had been 
delivered of an infant by the soldier's wife, llarlin, 
that she deprived it of life in the presence of Harlin, 
and according to a plan preconcerted with her, and 
that Harlin had buried it somewhere in the wood, but 
where she knew not. During this strange tale she 
appeared to listen with a mixture of fear and satisfac- 
tion, to the howling of the wind ; and never sure 
could a confession of real guilt have been accom- 
panied by a more dreadfully appropriate music. At 
the moment of her apprehension .she had formed the 
scheme of helping her friend out of the world in a 
stale of innocence. When the soldier's widow was 
confronted with the orphan, and the latter had re- 
peated her confession to her face, Harlin answered in 
these words, "For God's sake, Maria! how have I 
('^served this of theeV 'Phen turning to the magis- 
trate, said, "I know nothing of this." This was the 
sole answer which she gave, and not another word 
could they extort from her. The instruments of tor- 
ture were brought, and Harlin was warned, that if 
she did not confess of her own accord, the truth 
would be immediately forced from her. This menace 
convulsed Maria Schoning with affright : her inten- 
tion had been to emancipate herself and her friend 
from a life of unmixed suffering, without the crime 
of suicide in either, and with no guilt at all on the 
part of her friend. The thought of her friend's being 
put to the torture had not occurred to her. Wildly 
and eagerly she pressed her friend's hands, already 
bound in preparation (or the torture — she pressed 
them in agony between her own, and said to her, 
"Anna! confess it! Anna, dear Anna! it will then 
be well with all of us! and Frank and little Nan 
will be put into the Orphan House! Maria's scheme 
now passed, like a flash of lightning through the wi- 
dow's mind, she acceded to it at once, kissed Maria 
repeatedly, and then serenely turning her fijce to the 
judge, acknowledged that she had added to the guilt 
by so obstinate a denial, that all her friend had said, 
had been true, save only that she had thrown the 
dead infant into the river, and not buried it in the 
wood. 

They were both committed to prison, and as they 
both persevered in their common confession, the pro- 
cess was soon made out and the condemnation fol- 
lowed the trial : and the sentence, by which Ihcy 
were both to be beheaded with the sword, was order- 
ed to be put in force on the next day but one. On the 
morning of the execution, the delinquents were 
brought together, in order that they might be recor. 
cilod with each other, and join in common prayer for 
forgiveness of their common guilt. 

But now Maria's thoughts took another turn. The 
484 



THE FRIEND. 



475 



idea that lier benefactress, that so very good a wo- 
man, should be violently put out oC life, and this with 
an infamy on her name which would cling for ever 
to the little orphans, overfxjwercd her. Her own ex- 
cessive desire to die scarcely prevenleil her from dis- 
covcriii'4 the v\hole i)lan; and wiien llarhn was left 
alone with her, and she saw her friend's calm aikj 
nrti'ctionate look, her fortitude was dissolved : she 
burst into a loud and passionate weeping, and throw- 
ing herself into her friend's arms, with convulsive 
sobs she entreated her forgiveness, llarlin [iressed 
the |K)or agonized girl to her arms ; like a tender mo- 
ther, she kissed and fondled her wet cheeks, and in 
the most solemn and emphatic tones assured her, that 
there was nothing to Ibrgive. On the contrary, she 
was her greatest henefaclress and the iiistruinent of 
Cod's gixidness to remove her at once Irom a misera- 
ble world and from the temptation of coiiimitling a 
heavy crime. In vain ! Her repealed promises that 
she would answer before Uod fiir them both, could 
not pacify the tortured conscience of Maria, till at 
length the presence of a clergyman and the prepara- 
tions for receiving the sacrament occasioned the wi- 
dow to address her thus — "See, Maria! this is the 
Body and Ulood of Christ, which takes away all sin! 
Let us partake together of this holy repast with full 
trust in Ciod and joyful hope of our ap[)roaching hap- 
piness." These words of comfort, uttered with cheer- 
ing tones, and accompanied vvilh a look of inexpressi- 
ble tenderness and serenity, brought back peace for 
a while to her troubled spirit. They communicated 
iDgelher, and on parting, the magnanimous woman 
once more embraced her young friend : then stretch- 
ing her hand toward Heaven, said, "Be tranquil. Ma- 
ria! by to-morrow morning we are there, and all our 
sorrows slay here behind us." 

I hasten to the scene of execution : for I anticijwte 
my reader's feelings in the exhaustion of my own 
heart. Serene and with unaltereii countenance the 
lofty-minded Harlin heard the strcjkes of the death- 
liell, stood before thescafRjId while the staff was bro- 
ken over her, and at length ascended the steps, all 
with a steadiness and traiKiuilliiy of manner which 
was not more distant from fear than from defiance 
and bravado. Altogether different was the state of 
poor Maria: with shattered nerves and an agonizing 
conscience that incessantly accused her as the mur- 
deress of her friend, she did not walk but staggered 
towards the scaflbld, and stumbled up the steps. 
While Marlin, who went first, at every step turned 
her head round and still whispered to her, raising her 
eyes to heaven, — " but a few minutes, Maria ! and 
we are there!" On the scaffold she again bade her 
farewell, again repeating, "Dear Maria! but one 
minute now, and we are together with Ciod." But 
when she knelt down and her neck was bared for 
the stroke, the unhappy girl lost all self-command, and 
with a loud and piercing shriek she bade them hold 
and not murder the innocent. "She is innocent! I 
have borne false witness! I alone am the murderess!" 
She rolled herself now at the feet of the executioner, 
and now at those of the clergyman, and conjured 
Er 



them to stop the execution : that the whole story had 
been invented by herself; that she had never brought 
forth, much less destroyed an infiiiit ; that fur her 
friend's sake she had made this discovery ; that for 
herself she wished to die, and would die gladly, if 
they would take away her friend, and promise to free 
her soul from the dreadful agony of having murdered 
her friend by false witness. The executioner asked 
Harlin, if there were any truth in what Maria S( ho- 
ning had said. The Heroine answered with mani- 
fest reluctance: "most assuredly she has said the 
truth: I confessed myself guilty, because 1 wished to 
die and thought it best for both of us: and now that 
my hope is on the moment of its accomplishment, I 
cannot be supposed to declare myself innocent for 
the sake of saving my life— but any wretchedness is 
to be endured rather than that poor creature should 
be hurried out of the world in a state of despair." 

The outcry of the attending populace prevailed to 
suspend the execution : a reiwrt was sent to the as- 
sembled magistrates, and in the mean time one of the 
priests reproached the widow in bitter words for her 
former false confession. " What," she replied stern- 
ly, but without anger, " what could the truth have 
availed ? Before I perceived my friend's purpose I 
did deny it : my assurance was pronounced an impu- 
dent lie : I was already bound lor the torture, and so 
bound that the sinews of my hands started, and one 
of their worships in the large white peruke, threaten- 
ed that he would have me stretched till the sun shone 
through me! and that then I should cry out. Yes, 
when it was too late." The priest was liard-hcarted 
or superstitious enough to continue his reproofs, to 
which the noble woman condescended no further an- 
swer. The other clergyman, however, was both 
more rational and more humane. He succeeded in 
silencing his colleague, and the former half of the 
long hour, which the magistrates took in making 
speeches on the improLabiiily of the tale instead of 
re-examining the culprits in person, he employed in 
gaining from the widow a connected account of all 
the circumstances, and in listening occasionally to 
Maria's passionate descriptions of all her friend's 
goodness and magnanimity. For she had gained an 
influx of life and spirit from the assurance in her 
mind, both that she had now rescued Harlin from 
death and was about to expiate the guilt of her pur 
pose by her own execution. For the latter half of 
the time the clergyman remained in silence, lost in 
thought, and momently expecting the return of the 
messenger. All which during the deep silence of 
this interval could be heard, was one exclamation of 
Harlin to her unhappy friend — " Oh, Maria ! Maria ! 
couldst thou have kept up tliy courage fnit for ano- 
ther minute, we should have been now in heaven! 
The messenger came back with an order fnjni the 

magistrates to proceed W'ith the execution! With 

re-animated countenance Harlin placed her neck on 
the block, and her head was severed from her body 
amid a general shriek from the crowd. The execu- 
tioner fainted after the blow, and the under-hangman 
was ordered to take his place. He was not wanted. 
485 



476 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Maria was already gone : her body m as found as cold 
as if she had been dead for some hours. The flower 
had been snapped in the storm, belbre the scythe of 
violence could come near it. 



ESSAY II. 



The History of Times representeth the magnitude of actions 
and the public faces or deportment of persons, and passeth 
over in silence the smaller passages and motions of men 
and matters. But such being the workmanship of God, 
that he doth hang the greatest weight upon the smallest 
wires, maxima e minimis suspendens : it comes therefore to 
pass, that Histories do rather set forth tlie pump of business 
than ihe true and inward resorts thereof. But Lives, if 
they be well written, propounding to themselves a person 
to represent in whom actions both greater and smaller, pub- 
lic and private, have a commixture, must of necessity con- 
lain a more true, native, and lively representation. 

LORD BACON. 



Mankind in genera! are so little in the habit of 
looking steadily at their own meaning, or of weighing 
the words by which they express it, that the writer, 
who is careful to do both, will sometimes mislead his 
readers through the very excellence which qualifies 
him to be their instructor : and this with no other 
fault on his part, than the modest mistake of suppos- 
ing in those, to whom he addresses himself, an intel- 
lect as watchful as his own. The inattentive Reader 
adopts as unconditionally true, or perhaps rails at his 
Author for having staled as such, what upon exami- 
nation would be found to have been duly limited, and 
would so have been understood, if opaque spots and 
false refractions were as rare in the mental as in the 
bodily eye. The motto, for instance, to this Paper 
has more than once served as an excuse and authori- 
ty for huge volumes of biographical minutiae, which 
renders the real character almost invisible, like clouds 
of dust on a portrait, or the counterfeit frankincense 
which smoke-blacks the favorite idol of a Catholic 
village. Yet Lord Bacon, by the words which I have 
marked in italics, evidently confines the Biographer 
to such facts as are either susceptible of some useful 
general inference, or tend to illustrate those qualities 
which distinguish the subject of them from ordinary 
men; while the passage in general was meant to 
guard the Historian against considering, as trifles, all 
that might appear so to those who recognize no great- 
ness in the mind, and can conceive no dignity in any 
incident, which does not act on their senses by its ex- 
ternal accompaniments. Things apparently insignifi- 
cant are recommended to our notice, not for their 
own sakes, but for their bearings or influences on 
things of importance ; in other words, when they are 
insignificant in appearance only. 

An inquisitiveness into the minutest circumstances 
and casual sayings of eminent contemporaries, is in- 
deed quite natural ; but so are all our follies, and the 
more natural they are, the more caution should we 
exert in guarding against them. To scribble trifles 
even on the perishable glass of an inn window, is the 



mark of an idler ; but to engrave them on the mar- 
ble monument, sacred to the memory of the departed 
Great, is something worse than idleness. The spirit 
of genuine Biography is in nothing more conspicuous, 
than in the firmness with which it withstands the 
cravings of worthless curiosity, as distinguished from 
the thirst after useful knowledge. For, in the first 
place, such anecdotes as derive their whole and sole 
interest from the great name of the person concern- 
ing whom they are related, and neither illustrate his 
general character nor his particular actions, would 
scarcely have been noticed or remembered except by 
men of weak minds; it is not unlikely therefore, that 
they were misapprehended at the time, and it is most 
probable that they have been related as incorrectly 
as they were noticed injudiciously. Nor are the con- 
sequences of such garrulous Biography merely nega- 
tive. For as insignificant stories can derive no real 
respectability from the eminence of the person who 
happens lo be the subject of them, but rather an ad- 
ditional deformity of disproportion, they are apt to 
have their insipidity seasoned by the same bad pas- 
sions that accompany the habit of gossiping in gene- 
ral ; and the misapprehension of weak men meeting 
with the misinterpretations of malignant men, have 
not seldom formed the ground of the most grievous 
calumnies. In the second place, these trifles are sub- 
versive of the great end of Biography, which is to fix 
the attention, and to interest the feelings, of men on 
those qualities and actions which have made a parti- 
cular life worthy of being recorded. It is, no doubt, 
the duty of an honest Biographer, to portray the pro- 
minent imperfections as well as excellencies of his 
Hero; but I am at a loss to conceive how this can be 
deemed an excuse for heaping together a muliitude 
of particulars, which can prove nothing of any man 
that might not have been safely taken for granted of 
all men. In the present age (emphatically the age 
of personality !) there are more than ordinary motives 
for withholding all encouragement from this mania 
of busying ourselves with the names of others, which 
is still more alarming as a symptom, than it is trouble- 
some as a disease. The Reader must be still less ac- 
quainted with contemporary literature than myself — 
a case not likely to occur — if he needs me to inform 
him, that there are men, who trading in the silliest 
anecdotes, in unprovoked abuse and senseless eulo- 
gy, think themselves nevertheless employed both 
worthily and honorably, if only all this be done " in 
good set terms" and from the press, and of public cha- 
racters : a class which has increased so rapidly of 
late, that it becomes difficult to discover what cha- 
racters are to be considered as private. Alas! if 
these wretched misusers of language, and the means 
of giving wings to thought, the means of multiplying 
the presence of an individual mind, had ever known, 
how great a thing the possession of any one simple 
truth is, and how mean a thing a mere fact is, excep 
as seen in the light of some comprehensive truth ; if 
they had but once experienced the unborrowed com- 
placency, the inward independence, the home-bred 
strength, with which every clear conception of the 
reason is accompanied : they would shrink from their 
486 



THE FRIEND. 



477 



nwn pnsros ns at the rcnicnibranrc of a crime. For a 
crime it is, (and the man who hesitates in pronounc- 
ing it such, must be ignorant of what mankind owe 
to booivs, what lie liiniself owes to tiiom in spile of 
his ifjnorance) thus to introduce the spirit of vulgar 
scandal and personal imjuieludo into the Closet and 
the Library, environing with evil passions the very 
Sanctuaries, to which we should flee for refuge from 
them I For to what do these Publications appeal, 
whether they present themselves as Biography or as 
anonymous Criticism, but to the same feelings which 
the scandal-bearers and time-killers of ordinary life 
seek to gratify in themselves and their listeners ? 
And both the authors and admirers of such publica- 
tions, in what respect are they less truants and desert- 
ers from their own hearts, and from their appointed 
task of understanding and amending them, than the 
most garrulous female Chronicler, of the goings-on 
of yesterday in the families of her neighbors and 
townsfolk ? 

The FniEND has reprinted the following Biograph- 
ical sketch, partly indeed in the hope that it may be 
the means of introducing to the Reader's knowledge, 
ni case he should not have formed an acquaintance 
with them already, two of the most interesting bio- 
graphical Works in our language, both for the weight 
of the matter, and the incuriosa felicitas of the style. 
1 refer to Itoger North's Examen, and the Life of his 
brother, the Lord Chancellor North. The pages are 
all alive with the genuine idioms of our mother- 
tongue. 

\ fastidious taste, it is true, will find offence in the 
occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call slang, 
which not a few of our writers, shortly after the Re- 
storation of Charles the Second, seem to have affect- 
ed as a mark of loyalty. These instances, however, 
are but a trifling drawback. They are not sought for, 
as is too often and too plainly done by L'Estrange, 
CoUyer, Tom Brown, and their imitators. North 
never goes out of his way either to seek them or to 
avoid them; and in the main his language gives us 
the very nerve, pulse, and sinew of a hearty, healthy 
conversational English. 

This is The Friend's first reason for the insertion 
of this Extract. His other and principal motive may 
bo found in the kindly, good-tempered spirit of the 
passage. But instead of troubling the Reader with 
the painful contrast which so many recollections force 
on my own feelings, I will refer the character-makers 
of the present day to the Letters of Erasmus and Sir 
Thomas More to Martin Dorpius, that are commonly 
annexed to the Encomium Morise; and then for a 
practical comment on the just and affecting senti- 
ments of these two great men, to the works of Roger 
North, as proofs how alone an English scholar and 
gentleman will permit himself to delineate his con- 
tera]y)raries even under the strongest prejudices of 
party spirit, and though employed on the coarsest sub- 
jects. A coarser subject than L. C. J. Saunders can- 
not well be imagined ; nor does North use his colors 
with a sparing or very delicate hand. And yet the 
final impression is that of kindness. 



EXTRACT FROM NORTH S EXAME.N. 

The Lord Chief Justice Saunders succeeded in the 
room of Pcmberton. His character, and his begin- 
ning were ecjually strange. lie was at first no beiler 
than a poor boy, if not a parish-foundling, wilhout 
knowing parents or relations. He had found a way 
to live by obsequiousness in Clement's Inn, as I re- 
member, and courting the attorneys' clerks for scraps. 
The extraordinary observance and diligence of the 
boy, made the society willing to do him good. He 
appeared very ambitious to learn to write, and one of 
the attorneys got a board knocked up at a window on 
the top of a stair-case ; and that was his desk, where 
he sat and wrote after copies of court, and other hands 
the clerks gave him. He made himself so expert a 
writer that he took in business, and earned some 
pence by hackney-writing. And thus by degrees he 
pushed his faculties and fell to forms, and by books 
that were lent him, became an exquisite enlerlaining 
clerk ; and by the same courseof improvement of him- 
self, an able counsel, first in special pleading, then at 
large : after he was called to the Bar, had practice in 
the King's Bench Court equal with any there. As 
to his person he was very corpulent and beastly, u 
mere lump of morbid flesh. He used to say, by his 
troggs, (such an humorous way of talking he affect- 
ed) none could say he wanted issue of his body, for 
he had nine in his back. He was a fetid mass, that 
offended his neighbors at the bar in the sharpest de- 
gree. Those whose ill-fortune it was to stand near 
him, were confessors, and in the summer time, almost 
martyrs. This hateful decay of his carcase came 
upon him by continual sottishness ; for to say nothing 
of brandy, he was seldom without a pot of ale at his 
nose, or near him. That exercise was all that he 
used ; the rest of his life was sitting at his desk or pip- 
ing at home ; and that home was a tailor's house, in 
Butcher Row, called his lodging, and the man's wife 
was his nurse or worse ; but by virtue of his money, 
of which he Iiad made little account, though he got 
a great deal, he soon became master of the family; 
and being no changeling he never removed, but was 
true to his friends, and they to him to the last hour of 
his life. So much for his person and education. As 
for his parts, none had them more lively than he ; wit 
and repartee in an affected rusticity were natural to 
him. He was ever ready and never at a loss ; and 
none came so near as he to be a match for sergeant 
Mainerd. His great dexterity was in the art of spe- 
cial pleading, and he would lay snares that often 
caught his superiors who were not aware of his traps. 
And he was so fond of success for his clients, that ra- 
ther than fail, he would set the court with a trick ; 
for which he met, sometimes, with a reprimand which 
he would ward off, so that no one was much offended 
with him. But Hales could not bear his irregularity 
of life; and for that, and suspicion of his tricks, used 
to bear hard upon him in the court. But no ill-u.'^age 
from the bench was too hard for his hold of business, 
being such as scarce any could do but himself With 
i all this he had a goodness of nature and disposition in 

487 



478 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



so great a degree, that he may be deservedly styled 
a Philanthrope. He was a very Silenus to the boys, 
as in this place I may term the students of the law, 
to make them merry whenever they had a mind to it. 
He had nothing of rigid or austere in him. If any 
near him at the bar grumbled at his stench, he ever 
converted the complaint into content and laughing 
vvitli the abundance of his wit. As to his ordinary 
dealing, he was as honest as the driven snow was 
white; and why not, having no regard for money, or 
desire to be rich? And for good-nature and conde- 
scension there was not his fellow. I have seen him 
for hours and half-hours together, before the court sat, 
stand at the bar, with an audience of Students over 
against him, putting of cases, and debating so as suit- 
ed their capacities, and encouraged their industry. 
And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a 
parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry 
and jesting with them. 

It will be readily conceived that this man was 
never cut out to be a Presbyter, or any thing that is 
severe and crabbed. In no time did he lean to fac- 
tion, but did his business without offence to any. He 
put off officious talk of government or politics with 
jests, and so made his wit a catholicon or shield to 
cover all his weak places or infirmities. When the 
court fell into a steady course of using the law against 
all kinds of offenders, this man was taken into the 
king's business ; and had the part of drawing, and 
perusal of almost all indictments and informations 
that were then to be prosecuted, with the pleadings 
thereon, if any were special ; and he had the settling 
of the large pleadings in the quo Warranto against 
London. His Lordship had no sort of conversation 
with him but in the way of business and at the bar ; 
but once, after he was in the king's business, he 
dined with his Lordship, and no more. And there 
he showed another qualification he had acquired, and 
that was to play jigs upon an harpsichord ; having 
taught himself with the opportmiity of an old virginal 
of his landlady's; but in such a manner, not for de- 
fect, but figure, as to see him were a jest. The king 
observing him to be of a free disposition, loyal, 
friendly, and without greediness or guile, thought of 
hirn to be Chief Justice to the King's Bench at that 
nice time. And the ministry could not but approve 
of it. So great a weight was then at stake, as could 
not be trusted to men of doubtful principles, or such 
as anything might tempt to desert them. While he 
sat in the Court of King's Bench, he gave the rule 
to the general satisfaction of the lawyers. But his 
course of life was so different from what it had been, 
his business incessant and withal crabbed ; and his 
diet and e.xercise changed, that the constitution of 
his body, or head rather, could not sustain it, and he 
fell into an apoplexy and palsy, which numbed his 
parts ; and he never recovered the strength of them. 
He outlived the judgment in the quo M'arranto ; but 
was not present otherwise than by sending his opinion 
by one of the judges, to be for the king, who at the 
pronouncing of judgment, declared it to the court 
accordingly, which is frequently done in like cases. 



ESSAY III. 



Proinde si videbitur, fin^ant isti me latrunculis intRrim animi 
causa lusisse, aut si malint, equitasse in aiundine longa. 
Nam qufB tandem est iniquitas, cum omni vita; instituto 
suns lussus concedamus, studiis nullum omnino lusum per- 
mitlere: ma.xime si Ita tractentur ludicra, ut ex his ali- 
quando plus frugis referat lector non omnino naris obesai 
quam ex quorundum tetrieis ac splendidis argumentis. 

ERASair, Prwf. ad Mor. Enc. 

Travslation. — They may pretend, if tliey like, that I amuse 
myself with playing Fox and Goose, or, if they prefer it, 
equitasse in arundine longa, that I ride [he cock-horse on 
my grandam's crutch. But wherein, I pray, consists the 
unfairness or impropriety, when every trade and profession 
i.s allowed its own spot and travesty, in extending the same 
permission to literature : especially if trifles are so handled, 
that a reader of tolerable quickness may occasionally de- 
rive more food for profitable reflection than from many a 
work of grand or gloomy argument'? 



Irus, the forlorn Irus, whose nourishment con- 
sisted in bread and water, whose clothing of one tat- 
tered mantle, and whose bed of an arm-full of straw, 
this same Irus, by a rapid transition of fortune, be- 
came the most prosperous mortal under the sun. It 
pleased the Gods to snatch him at once otit of the 
dust, and to place him by the side of princes. He 
beheld himself in the possession of incalculable trea- 
sures. His palace excelled even the temple of the 
gods in the pomp of its ornaments ; his least sumptu- 
ous clothing was of purple and gold, and his table 
might well have been named the compendium of 
luxury, the summary of all that the voluptuous inge- 
nuity of men had invented for the gratification of the 
palate. A numerous train of admiring dependants 
followed him at every step: those to whom he 
vouchsafed a gracious look, were esteemed already 
in the high road of fortime, and the favored individ 
ual who was permitted to kiss his hand, appeared to 
be the object of common envy. The name of Irus 
sounding in his ears an unwelcome memento and 
perpetual reproach of his former poverty, he for this 
reason named himself Ceraunius, or the Lightning- 
flasher, and the whole people celebrated this splendid 
change of title by public rejoicings. The poet, who 
a few years ago had personified poverty itself under 
his former name of Irus, now made a discovery which 
had till that moment remained a profound secret, but 
was now received by all with implicit faith and 
warmest approbation. Jupiter, forsooth, had become 
enamored of the mother of Ceraunius, and assumed 
the form of a mortal in order to enjoy her love. 
Henceforward they erected altars to him, they swore 
by his name, and the priests discovered in the entrails 
of the sacrificial victim, that the great Cerauivtup, 
this worthy son of Jupiter, was the sole pillar of the 
western world. Toxaris, his former neighbor, a 
man vvhom good fortune, unwearied industry, and 
rational frugality, had placed among the richest citi- 
zens, became the first victim of the pride of this new 
demi-god. In the time of his poverty, Irus had re- 
pined at his luck and prosperity, and irritable from 



THE FRIEND. 



479 



distress and envy, had conceived that Toxaris had 
looked cuiiteinptuously on him; and now was llie 
time that Ccruunius would niuke liini foel tho |)Ower 
of him wiiose father grasped the ihunder-bolt. Three 
advocates, newly adiniticd into the recently estab- 
lished order of the Cygnet gave evidenco that Toxa- 
aris had denied the gods, committed peculations on 
the sacred Treasury, and increased his treasure by 
acts of sacrilege, lie was hurried off to prison and 
sentenced to an ignominious death, and his wealth 
confiscated to the use of Ceraunius, the earthly re- 
presentative of the deities. Ceraunius now found 
nothing wanting to his felicity but a bride worthy of 
his rank and blooming honors. The most illustrious 
of the land were candidates for his alliance. Eu- 
phorbia, the daughter of the noble Austrius, was 
honored with his final choice. To nobility of birth 
nature had added for Euphorbia a rich dowrj' of 
beauty, a nobleness both of look and stature. The 
flowing ringlets of her hair, her lofty forehead, her 
brilliant eyes, her stately figure, her majestic gait, 
had enchanted the haughty Ceraunius : and all the 
bards told what the inspiring muses had revealed to 
them, that \"enus more than once had pined with 
jealousy at the sight of her superior charms. The 
day of espousal arrived, and the illustrious son of 
Jove was proceeding in pomp to the temple, when 
the anguish-stricken wife of Toxaris, with his inno- 
cent children, suddenly threw themselves at his feet, 
and with loud lamentations entreated him to spare 
the life of her husband. Enraged by this interrup- 
tion, Ceraunius spurned her from him with his feet 
and — Iriis awakened, and found himself lying on tho 
same straw on which he had lain down, and with 
his old tattered mantle spread over him. With his 
returning reason, conscience too returned. He 
praised the gods and resigned himself to his lot. 
Ceraunius indeed had vanished, but the innocent 
roxaris was still alive, and Irus poor yet guiltless. 

Can my reader recollect no character now on earth, 
who sometime or other will awake from his dream of 
empire, poor as Irus, with all the guilt and impiety 
ot Ceraunius ? 

P. S. The reader will bear in mind, that this fable 
was written and first published at the close of 1809. 

Hx^^^ if TC vriTTios iyvu). 



CHRISTMAS WITHIN DOORS, IN THE 
NORTH OF GERMANY. 

EXTRACTED FRO.M SATVRANE's LETTERS. 

Ratzeburg. 
There is a Christmas custom here which pleased 
and interested me. — The children make little pres- 
ents to their parents, and to each other ; and the pa- 
rents to their children. For three or four months 
before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the boys 
Mve up their pocket-money, to make or purchase 
Uiese presents. What the present is to be is cau- 
tiously kept secret, and the girls have a world of con- 
trivances to conceal it — such as working when they 
are out on visits and llie others are not with them; 
32 Hr2 



getting up in the morning before day-light, <S.c. Then 
on tiie evening before Christmas day one of the par- 
lors is lighted up by the children, into which tho pa 
rents must not go. A great yew bough is liisiened 
on the table at a little distance from the wall, a inul 
titiide of little tapers are fastened in the bough, bu* 
so as not to catch it till they are nearly burnt out, and 
coloured paper, &c. hangs and flutters from the twigs 
— I'nder this bough the children lay out in great order 
the presents they mean for their parents, still conceal- 
ing in their pockets what they intend for each other 
Then the parents are introduced — and each jiresents 
his litile gift — and then bring out the rest one by one 
from their [jockets, and present tlicm with kisses and 
embraces. — Where I witnessed this scene, there were 
eigiit or nine children, and the eldest daughter and 
the mother wept aloud f<)r joy and tenderness ; and 
the tears ran down the fiice of the liither, and he 
clasjied all his children so tight to his breast — it 
seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising 
within him, — I was very much aflected. — The sha- 
dow of the bough and iis appendages on the wall, 
and arching over on the ceiling, made a pretty pic- 
ture — and then the raptures of the very little ones, 
when at last the twigs and their needles began to 
take fire and snap—O it was a delight lor them ! — On 
the next day, in the great parlor, the parents lay out 
on the table the presents for the children ; a scene of 
more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, after an old 
custom, the mother says privately to each of her 
daughters, and the flither to his sons, that which he 
has observed most praise-worthy and that which was 
most faulty in their conduct. — Formerly, and still in 
the smaller towns and villages throughout North 
Germany, these presents were sent by all :he parents 
to someone fellow who in high buskins, a white robe, 
a mask, and an enormous flax wig, personates Knecht 
Rupert, i. e. the servant Rupert. On Christmas night 
he goes round to every house and says, that Jesua 
Christ his master sent him thither — the parenU and 
elder children receive him with great pomp of reve- 
rence, while the little ones are most terribly fright- 
ened — He then inquires for the children, and accord- 
ing to the character which he hears from the parent, 
he gives them the intended present — as if they came 
out of heaven from Jesus Christ. — Or, if they should 
have been bad children, he gives the parents a rod, 
and in t\^e name of his master recommends them to 
use it frequently. — About seven or eight years old 
the children are let into the secret, and it is curious 
how faithfully they keep it ! 



CHRISTMAS OUT OF DOORS. 
The whole Lake of Ratzeburg is one mass of 
thi(-k transparent ice — a spotless mirror of nine miles 
in extent! The lowness of the hills, which rise from 
the shore of the lake, preclude the awful sublimity 
of Alpine scenery, yet compensate for the want of it 
by beauties, of which this very lowness is a necessary 
condition. Yester-morning I saw the lcs.ser lake com- 
pletely hid by mist; but the moment the sun peepea 
over the hill, the mist broke tit the middle, and in a 
489 



480 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



few seconds stood divided, leaving a broad road all 
across the lake ; and between these two walls of mist 
the sunlight burnl upon the ice, forming a road of 
golden fire, intolerably bright! and the mist-walls 
themselves partook of the blaze in a multitude of 
shining colors. This is our second frost. About a 
month ago, before the thaw came on, there was a 
storm of wind; during the whole night, such were 
the thunders and bowlings of the breaking ice, that 
they have left a conviction on my mind, that there 
are sounds more sublime than any sight can be, more 
absolutely suspending the power of comparison, and 
more utterly absorbing the mind's self consciousness 
in its total attention to the object working upon it. 
Part of the ice which the vehemence of the wind 
had shattered, was driven shore-ward and froze anew. 
On the evening of the next day, at sun-set, the shat- 
tered ice thus frozen, appeared of a deep blue and 
in shape like an agitated sea ; beyond this, the water, 
that ran up between the groat islands of ice which 
had preserved their masses entire and smooth, shone 
of a yellow green: but all these scattered ice-islands, 
themselves, were of an intensely bright blood color — 
they seemed blood and hght in union ! On some of 
the largest of these islands, the fishermen stood pull- 
ing out their immense nets through the holes made in 
the ice for this purpose, and the men, their net-poles, 
and their huge nets, were a part of the glory ; say 
rather, it appeared as if the rich crimson light had 
shaped itself into these forms, figures, and attitudes, 
to make a glorious vision in mockery of earthly 
things. 

The lower lake is now all alive with skaters, and 
with ladies driven onward by them in their ice cars. 
Mercury, surely, was the first maker of skates, and 
the wings at his feet are symbols of the invention. In 
ekating there are three pleasing circumstances : the 
infinitely subtle particles of ice which the skate cuts 
up, and which creep and run before the skate like a 
low mist, and in sun-rise or sun-set become colored ; 
second, the shadow of the skater in the water, seen 
through the transparent ice; and third, the melan- 
choly undulating sound from the skate, not without 
variety; and when very many are skating together, 
the sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy 
trees, and the woods all round the lake tinkle. 

Here I stop, having in truth transcribed the pre- 
ceding in great measure, in order to present the lovers 
of poetry with a descriptive passage, extracted, with 
the author's permission, from an unpublished Poem 
on the Growth and Revolutions of an Individual 
Mind, by Wordsworth. 

-an Orphic tale indeed. 



A tale divine of high and passionate thoughts 
To their own music chanted I S. T. C. 



GROWTH OF GENIUS, FROM THE INFLUENCES OF 
NATURAL OBJECTS ON THE IMAGINATION, IN 
BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 
Wisdom ! and Spirit of the Universe ! 
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of Thought ! 
And giv'st to forms and images a breath 
And everlasting motion 1 not in vain. 



By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn 
Of Childhood didst Thou intertwine for me 
The passions that build up our human Soul, 
Nor with the mean and vulgar works of man 
But with high objects, with enduring things, 
With Life and Nature : purifying thus 
The elements of feeling and of thought, 
And sanctifying by such discipline 
Both pain and fear, until we recognize 
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 
With stinted kindness. In November days 
When vapors rolling down the valleys made 
A lonely scene more lonesome ; among woods 
At noon, and 'mid the calm of summer nights, 
When by the margin of the trembling lake. 
Beneath the gloomy hills I homeward went 
In solitude, such intercourse was mine; 
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night 
And by the waters all the summer lung. 

And in the frosty season when the sun 
Was set, and, visible for many a mile 
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, 
I heeded not the summons : — happy time 
It was indeed for all of us, to me 
It was a time of rapture ! clear and loud 
The village clock toll'd six ! 1 wheei'd about. 
Proud and exulting, like an untiied horse 
Tliat cared not for its home. — All shod with steel 
We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games 
Confederate, imitative of the chase 
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn. 
The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare. 
So through the darkness and the cold we flew. 
And not a voice was idle : with the din 
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud. 
The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills 
Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
Of melancholy — not unnoticed, while the stars 
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 
The orange sky of evening died away. 

Not seldom from the uproar I retired 
Into a silent bay or sportively 
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng 
To cut across the image of a star 
That-gleam'd upon the ice: and oftentimes 
When we had given our bodies to the wind. 
And all the shadowy banks on either side 
Came sweeping through the darkness spinning still 
The rapid line of motion, then at once 
Have I reclining back upon my heels 
Stopp'd short : yet still the solitary cliffs 
Wheei'd by me even as if the earth had roli'd 
With visible motion her diurnal round ! 
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train 
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watch'd 
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. 



ESSAY IV. 



Es ist fast traurig zu sehen, wie man von der Hebraischen 
Quellen so ganz sich abgewendet hat. In jEgyptens selbst 
dunkein unentralhselbaren Hieroglyphen hat man den Schlus- 
sel alter Weisheit suchen wollen ; jetzt ist von nichts als 
Indiens Sprache und Weisheit die Rede ; aber die Eiihbin- 
ische Schriflen liegen unerforscht. SCHELLING. 

Translation. — It is mournful to observe, how entirely we 
have turned our backs upon the Hebrew sources. In the 
obscure insolvable riddles of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics 
the Learned have been hoping to find the key of ancient 
doctrine, and now we hear nothing but the language and 
wisdom of India, while the writings and traditions of tbo 
Rabbins are consigned to neglect without examination. 
490 



THE FRIEND. 



481 



THE LORD IIELPETH MAN AND BEAST. 

During his march to conquer ihe world, Alexander 
the Macedonian, came to a people in Africa, who 
dwell in a remote and secluded corner in peaceful 
huts, and knew neither war nor conqueror. They 
led him to the hut of their Chief, who received him 
hospitably and placed before him golden dales, gold- 
en (igs, and bread of gold. Do you eat gold in this 
country? said Alexander. I take it for granted (re- 
plied the Chief") that thou wert able to find calablo 
fwd in thine own country. For what reason then 
art thou come among us ? Your gold has not tempted 
me hither, said Alexander, but I would willingly be- 
come acquainted with your manners and customs. 
So be it, rejoined the other, sojourn among us as long 
as it pleaseth thee. At the close of this conversation 
two citizens entered as into their Court of Justice. 
The plainlifT said, I bought of this man a piece of 
land, and as I was making a deep drain through it I 
found a treasure. This is not mine, f()r I only bar- 
gained for the land, and not for any treasure that 
might be concealed beneath it : and yet the f()rmer 
owner of the land will not receive it. The defend- 
ant answered : I hope I have a conscience as well as 
my fellow-citizen. I sold him the land with all its 
contingent, as well as existing advantages, and con- 
sequently the treasure inclusively. 

The Chief, who was at the same time their su- 
preme judge, recapitulated their words, in order that 
the parties might see whether or no he understood 
them aright. Then after some reflection said : Thou 
hast a Son, Friend, I believe? Yes! and thou (ad- 
dressing the other) a Daughter ? Yes ! — Well then, 
let thy Son marry thy Daughter, and bestow the 
treasure on the young couple for their marriage por- 
tion. Alexander seemed surprised and perplexed. 
Think you my sentence unjust? the Chief asked him 
— no, replied Alexander, but it astonishes me. And 
how, then rejoined the Chief, w ould the case have been 
decided in your country? — To confess the truth, said 
Alexander, we should have taken both parties into 
custody and have seized the treasure for the king's 
use. For the king's use ! exclaimed the Chief, now 
in his turn astonished. Does the sun shine on that 
country? — O yes! Does it rain there? — Assuredly. 
^Vonderf^d ! but are there tame Animals in the coun- 
try that live on the grass and green herbs ? Very 
many, and of many kinds. — Ay, that must be the 
cause, said the Chief: for the sake of those innocent 
Animals the .All-gracious Being continues to let the 
sun shine and the rain drop down on your country. 



WHOSO HATH FOUND A VIRTUOUS WIFE HATH A 
GREATER TREASURE THAN COSTLY PEARLS. 

Such a treasure had the celebrated Teacher Rarbi 
Meir foimd. lie sal during the whole of ono sab- 
bath day in the public school, and instructed the peo- 
ple. During his absence from his house his two sons 
died, both of them of uncommon beauty and enlight- 
ened in the law. His wife bore them to her bed- 
chamber, laid them upon the marriage-bed, and 
63 



spread a white covering over their bodies. In the 
evening Rabbi Meir came home. Where are my two 
sons he asked, that I may give them my blessing ? 
They are gone to the school, was the answer. I re- 
peatedly looked round the school, he replied, and I 
did not see them there. She reached to him a gob- 
let, he praised the Lord at the going out of the Sab- 
bath, drank and again asked : where are my Sons that 
they too may drink of tlie cup of blessing ? They will 
not be far ofi; she said, and placed food before him 
that he might eat. He was in a gladsome and genial 
mood, and when he had said grace after the meal, 
she thus addressed him. Rabbi, with thy permission 
I would fain propose to thee one question. Ask it 
then, my love! he replied : A few da)'s ago, a person 
entrusted some jewels to my custody, and now he 
demands them again: should 1 give them back again? 
This is a question, said Rabbi Meir, which my wife 
should not have thought it necessary to ask. What, 
wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to 
every one his own ? — No, she replied \ but yet I 
thought it best not to restore them without acquaint- 
ing thee therewith. She then led him to their cham- 
ber, and stopping to the bed, took the white covering 
from the dead bodies. — Ah, my Sons, my Sons, thus 
loudly lamented Iho Father, my Sons, the Light of 
mine Eyes and the Light of ray Understanding, I was 
your Father, but ye were my Teachers in the Law. 
The mother turned away and wept bitterly. At 
length she took her husband by the hand and said. 
Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we must not be 
reluctant to restore that which was ini rusted to our 
keeping ? See the Lord gave, the Lord has taken 
away, and blessed be the name of the Lord ! Blessed 
be the name of the Ijord ! echoed Rabbi Meir, and 
blessed be his name for thy sake too! for well is it 
written ; whoso hath found a virtuous Wife hath a 
greater Treasure than costly Pearls; She openelh 
her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law 
of kindness. 



CONVERSATION OF A PIIILOSOniER WITH A RABBI. 

Your God in his Book calls himself a jealous God, 
who can endure no other God beside himself, and on 
all occasions makes manifest his abhorrence of idol- 
atry. How comes it then that he threatens and seems 
to hate the worshippers of false Gods more than the 
Gods themselves. A certain king, replied the Rabbi, 
had a disobedient Son. Among other worthless 
tricks of various kinds, he had the baseness to give 
his Dogs his Father's names and titles. Should the 
King show his anger on the Prince or the Dogs ? — 
Well turned, rejoined the Philosopher: but if your 
God destroyed the objects of idolatr)', he would take 
away the temptation to it. Yea, retorted the Rabbi, 
if the Fools worshipped such things only as were of 
no further use than that to which their Folly api)lied 
them, if the Idol wore always as worthless as the 
Idolatry is contemiilihie. But they worship the Sun, 
Moon, the Host of Heaven, the Rivers, the Sea, Fire 
Air, and what not? Would you that the Creator, for 
491 



482 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



the sake of these Fools, should ruin his own Works, 
and disturb the laws appointed to Nature by his own 
Wisdom ? If a man steals grain and sows it, should 
the seed not shoot up out of the earth, because it was 
stolen? O no! the wise Creator lets Nature run her 
own course ; for her course is his own appointment. 
And what if the children of folly abuse it to evil ? 
The day of reckoning is not far off, and men will 
then learn that human actions likewise re-appear in 
their consequences by as certain a law as the green 
blade rises up out of the buried corn-seed. 



INTRODUCTION.* 



Tlapa Yi^Tov rriv ivvoiav tov Karii (pvmv ^ijv, Kat rb 
cijivov dTrXa'r'^f) <^f£ Ko\aKdai fih ndatis Tpoaevciipav 
eivoL Trjv hfit)\iav avTov, aiieaifiiiraTov Se Trap' aurov 
iKCivov TOV Kaipov uvac koX ajia fiev aira^is'aTOV eivai, 
3/ia 61 tpiKoiopyoraToV xai to iSuv avSpoiTTOv <7a(pws 
tXayisoi' Twn iavTov KoXoiv {jyovixcvov Tr/v avrov 
TTo\vixaSn,v. M. ANTiiN. /3ii3. a. 

Translation. — From Sextus, and from the contemplation of 
his character, I learnt what it was to live a life in harmony 
■with nature ; and that seemliness and dignity of depurtment, 
which ensured the profoundest reverence at the very same 
time that his company was more winning than all the flat- 
tery in the world. To him [ owe likewise that I have 
known a man at once the most dispassionate, and the most 
affectionate, and who of all his attractions set the least 
value on the multiplicity of his literary acquisitions. 

M. ANTON. Book I. 

To THE Editor of The Friend. 
Sir, 

I HOPE you will not ascribe to presumption, the 
liberty I take in addressing you, on the subject of 
your Work. I feel deeply interested in the cause 
you have undertaken to support ; and my object in 
■writing this letter is to describe to you, in part from 
my own feelings, what I conceive to be the state of 
many minds, which may derive important advantage 
from your instructions. 

I speak, sir, of those who, though bred up under 
our unfavorable system of education, have yet held 
at times some intercourse with nature, and wit?i those 



* With this introduction commences the third volume of 
the English edition of Tke Friend; to which volume the 
follovfing lines are prefixed as a motto : 

Now for the writing of this werke, 
I, who am a lonesome clerke, 
Purposed for to write a book 
After the world, that whilome took 
Its course in olde days long passed : 
But for men sayn, it is now lassed 
In worser plight than it was tho, 
I thought me for to touch also 
The world which newelh every day — 
So, as I can, so as I may, 
Albeit I sickness have and pain. 
And long have had, yet would I fain 
Do my mind's host and besiness. 
That in some part, so as 1 guess. 
The gentle mind may be advised. 

GOWER, Pro. to the Confess, ^mantis. 



great minds whose works have been moulded by the 
spirit of nature: who, therefore, when they pass from 
the seclusion and constraint of early study, bring 
with them into the new scene of the world, much of 
the pure sensibility which is the spring of all that is 
greatly good in thought and action. To such the 
season of that entrance into the world is a season of 
fearful importance ; not for the seduction of its pas- 
sions, but of its opinions. Whatever be their intel- 
lectual powers, unless extraordinary circumstances 
in their lives, have been so favorable to the growth 
of meditative genius, that their speculative opinions 
must spring out of their early feelings, their minds 
are still at the mercy of fortune ; they have no in- 
ward impulse steadily to propel them : and must 
trust to the chances of the world for a guide. And 
such is our present moral and intellectual state, that 
these chances are little else than variety of danger. 
There will be a thousand causes conspiring to com- 
plete the work of a false education, and by enclosing 
the mind on every side from the influences of natural 
feeling, to degrade its inborn dignity, and finally bring 
the heartitself under subjection to a corrupted under- 
standing. I am anxious to describe to you what I 
have experienced or seen of the dispositions and feel- 
ings that wilt aid every other cause of danger, and 
tend to lay the mind open to the infection of all those 
falsehoods in opinion and sentiment, which constitute 
the degeneracy of the age. Though it would not be 
difficult to prove, that the mind of the country is 
much enervated since the days of her strength, and 
brought down from its moral dignity, it is not yet so 
forlorn of all good, — there is nothing in the face of 
the times so dark and saddening, and repulsive — as 
to shock the first feelings of a generous spirit, and 
drive it at once to seek refuge in the elder ages of 
our greatness. There yet survives so much of the 
character bred up through long years of liberty, dan- 
ger, and glory, that even what this age produces 
bears traces of those that are past, and it still yields 
enough of beautiful, and splendid, and bold, to capti- 
vate an ardent but untutored imagination. And in 
this real excellence is the beginning of danger: for it 
is the first spring of that excessive admiration of the 
age which at last brings down to its own level a 
mind born above it. If there existed only the gene- 
ral disposition of all who are formed with a high ca- 
pacity for good, to be rather credulous of excellence 
than suspiciously and severely just, the error would 
not be carried far: — but there are to a young mind, 
in this country and at this time, numerous powerful 
causes concurring to inflame this disposition, till the 
excess of the affection above the worth of its object, 
is beyond all computation. To trace these causes it 
will be necessary to follow the history of a pure and 
noble mind from the first moment of that critical pas- 
sage from seclusion to the world, which changes all 
the circumstances of its intellectual existence, shows 
it for the first time the real scene of living men, and 
calls up the new feeling of numerous relations by 
which it is to be connected with them. 

To the young adventurer in life, who enters upon 
his course with such a mind, everything seems made 
492 



THE FRIEND. 



483 



for delusion. He comes with n spirit whose dearest 
feelings and highest thouglils have sprung tip under 
the intUiences of nature, lie transfers to the reali- 
ties of life the high wild fancies of visionary boy- 
hoo<l : he brings with him into the world the passions 
of solitary and untamed imagination, and hopes 
which he has learned from dreams. Those dreams 
have been of the great and wonderful, and lovely, of 
all w hich in these has yet been disclosed to him : his 
thoughts have dwelt among the wonders of nature, 
among the loftiest spirits of men — heroes, and sages, 
and saints; — those whose deeds, and thoughts, and 
hopes, were high above ordinary mortality, have 
been the familiar companions of his soul. To love 
and to admire has been the joy of his existence. 
Ix)ve and admiration are the pleasures he will de- 
mand of the world. For these he has searched 
eagerly into the ages that are gone : but with more 
ardent and peremptory expectation he requires them 
of that in which his own lot is cast : for to look on 
life with hopes of happiness is a necessity of his na- 
ture, and to him there is no happiness but such as is 
surrounded with excellence. 

See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of 
moral character, in those with whom chance may 
connect hint in the common relations of life. It is 
of those w ith whom he is to live, that his soul first 
demands this food of her desires. From their conver- 
sation, their looks, their actions, their lives, she asks 
lor excellence. To ask from all and to ask in vain, 
would be too dismal to bear: it would disturb him 
too deeply with doubt and perplexity and fear. In 
this hope, and in the revolting of his thoughts from 
the possibility of disappointment, there is a prepara- 
tion for self-delusion: there is an unconscious deter- 
mination that his soul shall be satisfied ; an obstinate 
will to find good every where. And thus his first 
study of mankind is a continued effort to read in them 
the expression of his own feelings. He catches at 
every uncertain show and shadowy resemblance of 
what he seeks ; and unsuspicious in innocence, he is 
first won with those appearances of good which are 
.n fact oidy false pretensions. But this error is not 
carried far; for there is a sort of instinct of rectitude, 
which like the pressure of a talisman given to baffle 
the illusions of enchantment, warns a pure mind 
against hypocri.sy.— There is another delusion more 
difficult to resist and more slowly dissipated. It is 
when he finds, as he often will, some of the real fea- 
tures of excellence in the purity of their native form. 
For then his rapid imagination will gather round 
them all the kindred features that are wanting to per- 
fect beauty ; and make for him, where he could not 
find, the moral creature of his ex|)eclation : — peo- 
pling, even from this human world, his little circle 
of affection, with forms as fair as his heart desired for 
Its love. 

But when, from the eminence of life which he has 
reached, he lifts up his eyes, and sends out his spirit 
to range over the great scene thai is opening before 
hi in and around him, — the whole prospect of civilized 
life — so wide and so magnificent : — when he begins 
to contemplate, in their various stations of power or 



splendor, the leaders of mankind — those men on 
whose wisdom are hung the fortunes of nations — 
those whose genius and valor wield the heroism of a 
people ; — or those, in no inferior " pride of place," 
whose sway is over the mind of society, — chiefs in 
the realm of imagination, — interpreters of the secrets 

of nature, — rulers of human opinion what won- 

der,'when he looks on all this living scene, that hia 
heart should burn with strong affection, that he should 
feel that his own happiness will be lor ever interwo- 
ven with the interests of mankind ? — Here then the 
sanguine hope v^ith which he looks on life, w'ill again 
be blended with his passionate desire of excellence ; 
and he will still be impelled to single out some, on 
whom his imagination and his hopes may rejKJse. To 
whatever department of human thought or action his 
mind is turned with interest, either by the sway of 
public passion or by its own impulse, among states- 
men, and warriors, and philosophers, and poets, he 
will distinguish some favored names on which he may 
satisfy his admiration. And there, just as in the little 
circle of his own acquaintance, seizing eagerly on 
every merit they possess, he will supply more from 
his owTi credulous hope, completing real with ima- 
gined excellence, till living men, with all their imper- 
fections, become to him the representatives of his 
perfect ideal creation : — Till, multiplying his objects 
of reverence, as he enlarges his prospect of life, he 
will have surrounded himself with idols of his own 
hands, and his imagination will seem to discern a 
glory in the countenance of the age, which is but the 
reflection of its own effulgence. 

He will possess, therefore, in the creative power 
of generous hope, a preparation for illusory and ex- 
aggerated admiration of the age in which he lives : 
— and his pre-disposition will meet with many favor- 
ing circumstances, when he has grown up under a 
system of education like ours, which (as perhaps all 
education must that is placed in the hands of a dis- 
tinct and embodied class, who therefore bring to it 
the peculiar and hereditary prejudices of their order) 
has controlled his imagination to a reverence of 
former times, with an unjust contempt of his ow'n. — 
For no sooner does he break loose from this control, 
and begin to feel, as he contemplates the world for 
himself, how much there is surrounding him on all 
sides, that gratifies his noblest desires, than there 
springs up in him an indignant sense of injustice, 
both to the age and to his own mind : and he is im 
pelled warmly and eagerly to give loose to the feel- 
ings that have been held in bondage, to seek out and 
to delight in finding excellence that will vindicate 
the insulted world, while it justifies too, his resent- 
ment of his own undue subjection, and exalts the 
value of his new-found liberty. 

Add to this, that secluded as he has been from 
knowledge, and, in the imprisoning circle of one sys- 
tem of ideas, cut off from his share in the thoughts 
and feelings that are stirring among men, he finds 
himself, at the first steps of his liberty, in a new in- 
tellectual world. Passions and powers w liich he knew 
not of, start up in his soul. The human mind, which 
he had seen but under one aspect, now presents to 
4<J3 



484 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



him a thousand unknown and beautiful forms. He 
sees it, in its varying powers, glancing over nature 
with restless curiosity, and with impetuous energy 
striving for ever against the barriers which she has 
placed around it; sees it with divine power creating 
from dark materials living beauty, and fixing all its 
high and transported fancies in imperishable forms. — 
In the world of knowledge, and science, and art, and 
genius, he treads as a stranger: — in the confusion of 
new sensations, bewildered in delights, all seems 
beautiful ; all seems admirable. And therefore he 
engages eagerly in the pursuit of false or insufficient 
philosophy ; he is won by the allurements of licen- 
tious art ; he follows with wonder the irregular trans- 
ports of undisciplined imagination. — Nor where the 
objects of his admiration are worthy, is he yet skilful to 
distinguish between the acquisitions which the age has 
made for itself, and that large proportion of its wealth 
which it has only inherited; but in his delight of dis- 
covery and growing knowledge, all that is new to his 
own mind seems to him new-born to the world. — To 
himself every fresh idea appears instruction : every 
new e.xertion, acquisition of power: he seems just 
called to the consciousness of himself, and to his true 
place in the intellectual world ; and gratitude and 
reverence towards those to whom he owes this re- 
covery of his dignity, tend much to subject him to 
the dominion of minds that were not formed by na- 
ture to be the leaders of opinion. 

All the tumult and glow of thought and imagina- 
tion, which seizes on a mind of power in such a scene, 
tends irresistibly to bind it by stronger attachment of 
love and admiration to its own age. And there is 
one among the new emotions which belong to its en- 
trance on the world — one — almost the noblest of all 
— in which this exaltation of the age is essenrially 
mingled. The faith in the perpetual progression of 
human nature towards perfection, gives birth to such 
lofty dreams, as secure to it the devout assent of ima- 
gination ; and it will be yet more grateful to a heart 
just opening to hope, flushed with the consciousness 
of new strength, and exulting in the prospect of des- 
tined achievements. There is, therefore, almost a 
. compulsion on generous and enthusiastic spirits, as 
they trust that the future shall transcend the present, 
to believe that the present transcends the past. It is 
only on an undue love and admiration of their own 
age, that they can build their confidence in the ame- 
liorarion of the human race. Nor is this faith, — which 
in some shape, will always be the creed of virtue, — 
without apparent reason, even in the erroneous form 
in which the young adopt it. For there is a perpet- 
ual acquisition of knowledge and art, — an unceasing 
process in many of the modes of exertion of the hu- 
man mind, — a perpetual unfolding of virtues with 
the changing manners of society : — and it is not for a 
young mind to compare what is gained with what has 
passed away ; to discern that amidst the incessant in- 
tellectual activity of the race, the intellectual power 
of individual minds may be falling off; and that amidst 
accumulating knowledge lofty science may disap- 
pea/ i — and still less^to judge, in the more compli- 



cated moral character of a people, what is progression, 
and what is decline. 

Into a mind possessed with this persuasion of the 
perpetual progress of man, there may even impercep- 
tibly steal both from the belief itself, and from many 
of the views on which it rests — somethmg like a dis- 
trust of the wisdom of great men of former ages, and 
with the reverence — which no delusion will ever 
overpower in a pure mind — for their greatness, a fan- 
cied discernment of imperfection ; — of incomplete ex- 
cellence, which wanted for its accomplishment the 
advantages of later improvements: there will be a 
surprise, that so much should have been possible in 
times so ill-prepared ; and even the study of their 
works may be sometimes rather the curious research 
of a speculative inquirer, than the devout contempla- 
tion of an enthusiast; the watchful and obedient 
heart of a disciple listening to the inspiration of his 
master. 

Here then is the power of delusion that will gather 
round the first steps of a youthful spirit, and throw 
enchantment over the world in which it is to dwell. 
Hope realizing its own dreams: — Ignorance dazzled 
and ravished with sudden sunshine : — Power awaken- 
ed and rejoicing in its own consciousness : — Enthusi- 
asm kindlmg among multiplying images of greatness 
and beauty ; and enamoured, above all, of one splen- 
did error: and, springing from all these, such a rap- 
ture of life and hope, and joy, that the soul, in the 
power of its happiness, transmutes things essentially 
repugnant to it, into the excellence of its own nature : 
these are the spells that cheat the eye of the mind 
with illusion. It is under these influences that 
young man of ardent spirit gives all his love, and rev 
erence, and zeal, to productions of art, to theories o< 
science, to opinions, to systems of feeling, and to ch& 
racters distinguished in the world, that are far be- 
neath his own original dignity. 

Now as this delusion springs not from his wor^e 
but his better nature, it seems as if there could be no 
warning to him from within of his danger : for even 
the impassioned joy which he draws at times from 
the works of Nature, and from those of her mightier 
sons, and which would startle him from a dream of 
unworthy passion, serves only to fix the infatuation : 
— for those deep emotions, proving to him that his 
heart is uncorrupted, justify to him all its w'orkings, 
and his mind confiding and delighting in itself, yields 
to the guidance of its own blind impulses of pleasure. 
His chance, therefore, of security, is the chance that 
the greater number of objects occurring to attract 
his honorable passions, may be worthy of them. 
But we have seen that the whole power of circum- 
stances is collected to gather round him such objects 
and influences as will bend his high passions to un- 
worthy enjoyment. He engages in it with a heart 
and understanding unspoiled ; but they cannot long 
be misapplied with impunity. They are drawn 
gradually into closer sympathy with the falsehoods 
they have adopted, till, his very nature seeming to 
change under the corruption, there disappears from 
it the capacity of those higher perceptions and 
494 



THE FRIEND. 



485 



pleasures to which he was torn: and he is cast off 
from iho coniinuiiion of exalieil minds, lo live and to 
perish with the ago to which ho has surrendered 
himself 

If minds under these circumstances of danger are 
preservi'd from decay and overthrow, it can seldom, 
I think, be to themselves that they owe their deliver- 
ance. It must be a fortunate chance which places 
them under the influence of some more enlightened 
mind, from which they may lirst gain suspicion and 
afterwards wisdom. There is a philosophy, which, 
leading them by the light of their best emotions to 
the principles which should give lile to thought and 
law lo genius, will discover to them in clear and 
perfect evidence, the falsehood of the errors that 
have misled them : and restore them lo themselves. 
And this philosophy they will be willing to hear and 
wise to understand ; but they must be led into its 
mysteries by some guiding hand ; for they want the 
impulse or the power to penetrate of themselves the 
recesses. 

If a superior mind should assume the protection 
of others just beginning to move among the dangers 
I have described, it would probably be found, that 
delusions springing fi:om their own virtuous activiiy, 
were not the only difficulties to be encountered. 
Even after suspicion is awakened, the subjection to 
falsehood may be prolonged and deepened by many 
weaknesses both of the intellectual and moral nature; 
weaknesses that will sometimes shake the authority 
af acknowledged truth. There may be intclleclual 
indolence ; an indisposition in the mind to the effort 
of combining the ideas it actually possesses, and 
bringing into distinct form the knowledge, which in 
its elements is already its own: — there may bo, 
where the heart resists the sway of opinion, mis- 
givings and modest self-mistrust, in him who sees, 
that if he trusts his heart, he must slight the judg- 
ment of all around him : — there may be too habitual 
yielding to authority, consisting, more than in indo- 
lence or diffidence, m a conscious helplessness, and 
incapacity of the mind to maintain itself in its own 
place against the weight of general opinion ; — and 
there may be too indiscriminate, too undisciplined a 
sympathy with others, which by the mere infection 
of feeling will subdue the reason. — There must be a 
weakness in dejection to him who thinks, with sad- 
ness, if his faith be pure, how gross is the error of 
the multitude, and that muliitiide how vast : — a re- 
luctance to embrace a creed that excludes so many 
whom he loves, so many whom his youth has revered : 
— a didlculty to his understanding to believe that 
those whom he knows to be, in much that is good 
and honorable, his superiors, can be beneath him in 
this which is the most important of all : — a sympathy 
pleading importunately at his heart to descend to the 
fellowship of h's brothers, and to take their faith and 
wisdom lor his own. — How often, when under the 
impulses of those solemn hours, in which he has felt 
with clearer insight and deeper faiih his sacred 
truths, he labors to win to his own belief those whom 
he loves, will he bo checked by their indilfcrence or 
their laughter! and will he not bear back to his 



meditations a painlid and disheartening sorrow, — a 
gloomy discontent in thot faith which takes in but a 
portion of those whom he wishes to include in all 
his blessings? Will he not be enfeebled by a dis- 
traction of inconsistent desires, when he feels so 
strimgly that the faith which fills his heart, the cir- 
cle within which he would embrace all he loves — 
would repose all his wishes and hopes, and enjoy- 
ments, is yet incommensurate with his affeclions? 

Even when the mind, strong in reason and just 
feeling united, and relying on its strength, has attach- 
ed itself lo Truth, how much is there in the course 
and accidents of life that is for ever silently at work 
for its degradation. There are pleasures deemed 
harmless, tiiat lay asleep the recollections of inno- 
cence : — there are pursuits held honorable, or impos- 
ed by duty, that oppress the moral spirit ; — above all 
there is that perpetual connection W'ith ordinary 
minds in the common intercoiu'se of society ; — that 
restless activity of li"ivoIous conversation, where men 
of all characters and all pursuits mixing together, 
nothing may be talked of that is not of common inte- 
rest to all — nothing, therefore, but those obvious 
thoughts and feelings that float over the surface of 
things: — and all\\hich is drawn from the depth of 
Nature, all which impassioned feeling has made ori- 
ginal in thought, would be misplaced and obtrusive. 
The talent that is allowed to show itself is that which 
can repay admiration by furnishing entertainment: — 
and the display to which it is invited is that which 
flatters the vulgar pride of society, by abasing W'hat 
is too high in excellence for its sympathy. A danger- 
ous seduction to talents — which would make lan- 
guage — that was given to exalt the soul by the fer- 
vid expression of its pure emotions — the instrument 
of its degradation. And even when there is, as in the 
instance I have supposed, too much uprightness to 
choose so dishonorable a triumph, there is a necessity 
of manners, by w'hich every one must be controlled 
who mixes much in society, not to offend those with 
whom he converses by his superiority ; and whatever 
be the native spirit of a mind, it is evident that this 
perpetual adaptation of itself to others — this watch- 
fulness against ils own rising feelings, this studied 
sympathy with mediocrity — must pollute and impo- 
verish the sources of ils strength. 

From much of ils own weakness, and from all the 
errors of its misleading activities, rnay generous youth 
be rescued by the interposition of an enlightened 
mind ; and in some degree it may be guarded by in- 
struction against the injuries to which it is exposed in 
the world. His lot is happy who owes this protec- 
tion to friendship : who has found in a friend the 
watchful guardian of his mind. He will not be de- 
luded, having that light to guide: he will not slum- 
ber with that voice to inspire; he will not be de- 
sponding or dejected, with that bosom to lean on. — 
But how many must there be whom Heaven has left 
unprovided, except in their own strength ; who must 
maintain themselves, unassisted and solitary, against 
their own infirmities and the opposition of the world ! 
For such there may be yet a protector. If a teacher 
. should stand up in their generation, conspicuous 

495 



486 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



above Ihe multitude in superior power, and yet more 
in the assertion and proclamation of disregarded 
Truth — to Him — to his cheering or summoning voice 
all hearts would turn, whose deep sensibility has 
been oppressed by the indifference, or misled by the 
seduction of the times. Of one such teacher who has 
been given to our own age, you have described the 
power when you said, that in his annunciation of 
truths he seemed to speak in thunders. I believe 
that mighty voice has not been poured out in vain ; 
that there are hearts that have received into their in- 
most depths all its varying tones ; and that even now, 
there are many to whom the name of Wordsworth 
calls up the recollection of their weakness, and the 
consciousness of their strength. 

To give to the reason and eloquence of one man, 
this complete control over the minds of others, it is 
necessary, I think, that he should be born in their 
own times. For thus whatever false opinion of pre- 
eminence is attached to the .4ge, becomes at once a 
title of reverence to him : and when with distinguish- 
ed powers he sets himself apart from the .Age, and 
above it as the Teacher of high but ill-understood 
Truths, he will appear at once to a generous imagi- 
nation, in the dignity of one whoso superior mind 
outsteps the rapid progress of society, and will derive 
from illusion itself the power to disperse illusions. It 
is probable too, that he who labors under the errors I 
have described, might feel the power of Truth in a 
writer of another age, yet fail in applying the full 
foice of his principles to his own times ; but when he 
receives them from a living Teacher, there is no room 
for doubt or misapplication. It is the errors of his 
own generation that are denounced ; and whatever 
authority he may acknowledge in the instructions of 
his Master, strikes, with inevitable force, at his vene- 
ration for the opinions and characters of his own 
times. — And finally there will be gathered round a 
living Teacher, who speaks to the deeper soul, many 
feelings of human love, that will place the infirmities 
of the heart peculiarly under his control ; at the 
same time that they blend with and animate the at- 
tachment to his cause. So that there will flow from 
him something of the peculiar influence of a friend : 
while his doctrines will be embraced and asserted, 
and vindicated with the ardent zeal of a disciple, 
such as can scarcely be carried back to distant times, 
or connected with voices that speak only from the 
grave. 

I have done what I proposed. I have related to 
you as I have had opportunities of knowing of the 
diflSculties from within and from without, which may 
oppose the natural development of true feeling and 
right opinion, in a mind formed with some capacity 
for good : and the resources which such a mind may 
derive from an enlightened contemporary writer. — If 
what I have said be just, it is certain that this influ- 
ence will be felt more particularly in a work, adapted 
by its mode of publication to address the feelings of 
the tinie, and to bring to its readers repeated admoni- 
tion and repeated consolation. 

I have perhaps presumed too far in trespassing on 
vour attention, and in giving way to my own thoughts : 



but I was unvi^illing to leave any thing unsaid which 
might induce you to consider with favor the request 
I was anxious to make, in the name of all whose 
state of mind I have described, that you would at 
times regard us more particularly in your instruc- 
tions. I cannot judge to what degree it may be in 
your power to give the Truth you teach, a control 
over understandings that have matured their strength 
in error: but in our class I am sure you will have 
docile learners. Mathetes. 

The Friend might rest satisfied that his exertions 
thus far have not been wholly unprofitable, if no 
other proof had been given of their influence, than 
that of having called forth the foregoing letter, with 
which he has been so much interested, that he could 
not deny himself the pleasure of communicating it to 
his readers. — In answer to his Correspondent, it need 
scarcely here be repeated, that one of the main pur- 
poses of his work is to weigh, honestly and thought- 
fully, the moral worth and intellectual power of the 
age in which we live ; to ascertain our gain and our 
loss; to determine what we are in ourselves positive- 
ly, and what we are compared with our ancestors ; 
and thus, and by every other means within his power, 
to discover what may be hoped for future times, wha* 
and how lamentable are the evils to be feared, and 
how far there is cause for fear. If this attempt 
should not be made wholly in vain, my ingenuous 
Correspondent, and all who are in a state of mind 
resembling that of which he gives so lively a picture, 
will be enabled more readily and surely to distin- 
guish false from legitimate objects of admiration : and 
thus may the personal errors which he would guard 
against, be more effectually prevented or removed, 
by the development of general truth for a general 
purpose, than by instructions specifically adapted to 
himself or to the class of which he is the able repre- 
sentative. There is a life and spirit in knowledge 
which we extract from truths scattered for the bene- 
fit of all, and which the mind, by its own activity, 
has appropriated to itself — a life and spirit, which is 
seldom found in knowledge communicated by formal 
and direct precepts, even when they are exalted and 
endeared by reverence and love for the teacher. 

Nevertheless, though I trust that the assistance 
which my Correspondent has done me the honor to 
request, will in course of time flow naturally from my 
labors, in a manner that will best serve him, I cannot 
resist the inclination to connect, at present, with his 
letter a few remarks of direct application to the sub- 
ject of it — remarks, I say, for to such I shall confine 
myself, independent of the main point out of which 
his complaint and request both proceed, I mean the 
assumed inferiority of the present age in moral dig- 
nity and intellectual power, to those which have pre- 
ceded. For if the fact were true, that we had even 
surpassed our ancestors in the best of what is good, 
the main part of the dangers and impediments which 
my Correspondent has feelingly portrayed, could not 
cease to exist for minds like his, nor indeed would 
they be much diminished ; as they arise out of the 
constitution of things, from the nature of youth, from 
496 



THE FRIEND. 



48f 



the laws that govern the growth of the faculties, and 
from Ilie lu'cessary condition of the great body of 
mnnkiiid. Let us throw ourselves back to the age of 
F.lizaheth, and call up to mind the heroes, the warri- 
ors, the statesmen, the poets, the divines, and the 
mural philosophers, with which the reign of the vir- 
gui queen was illustrated. Or if we be more strongly 
attracted by the moral purity and greatness, and that 
sanctity of civil and religious duty, with which the 
tyranny of Charles tlie First was struggled against, 
let us cast our eyes, in the hurry of admiration, round 
that circle of glorious patriots — but do not let us be 
persuaded, that each of these, in his course of disci- 
pline, was uniformly hel|)ed (()rward by those with 
whom he associated, or by those whose care it was 
to direct him. Then as now, existed objects, to 
which the wisest attached undue importance; tlien, 
as now, judgment was misled by factions and parties 
— time wasted in controversies fruitless, except as far 
o-s they quickened the faculties; then as now, minds 
were venerated or idolized, which owed their influ- 
ence to the weakness of their contemporaries rather 
than to their own power. Then, though great ac- 
tions were wrought, and great works in literature 
and science produced, yet the general taste was ca- 
pricious, fantastical, or grovelling: and in this point as 
in all others, was youth subject to delusion, frequent 
in proportion to the liveliness of the sensibility, and 
strong as the strength of the imagination. Every age 
hath abounded in instances of parents, kindred, and 
friends, who, by indirect influence of example, or by 
positive injunction and exhortation, have diverted or 
discouraged the youth, who, in the simplicity and 
purity of nature, had determined to follow his intel- 
lectual genius through good and through evil, and 
had devoted himself to knowledge, to the practice 
of virtue and the preservation of integrity, in slight 
of temporal rewards. Above all, have not the com- 
mon duties and cares of common life, at all times ex- 
posed men to injury, from causes whose action is the 
more fatal from being silent and unremitting, and 
which, wherever it was not jealously watched and 
steadily opposed, must have pressed upon and con- 
sumed the diviner spirit. 

There are two errors, into which we easily slip 
when thinking of past times. One lies in forgetting 
ni the excellence of what remains, the large over- 
balance of wort hi cssness that has been swept away. 
Ranging over the wide tracts of antiquity, the situa- 
tion of the mind may be likened to that of a travel- 
ler* in some unpeopled part of America, who is at- 
tracted to the burial-place of one of the primitive in- 
habitants. It is conspicuous upon an eminence, "a 
mount ujxin a mount!" lie digs into it, and finds 
that it contains the bones of a man of mighty stature : 
and he is tempted to give way to a belief, that as 
there were giants in those days, so that all men were 
giants. But a second and wiser thought may suggest 
to him, that this tomb W"0uld never have forced itself 
upon his notice, if it had not contained a body that 
was distinguished from others, that of a man who had 

• Vide Ashe's Travels in America. 
Sa 



been selected as a chieftain or ruler for the very rea- 
son that ho 8urpas.sed the rest of his tribe in stature 
and who now lies thus conspicuously iidiumcd upon 
the mountain-top, while the Iwnesof his followers are 
laid unobtrusively together in their burrov\s uiwn tho 
plain below. The second habitual error is, that in 
this comparison of ages we divide time merely into 
past and present, and place these into the balance to 
be weighed against each other, not considering that 
the present is in our estimation not more than a peri- 
od of thirty years, or half a century at most, and that 
the past is a mighty accumulation of many such pe- 
riods, perha])s the whole of recorded time, or at least 
the whole of that portion of it in which our own 
country has been distinguished. We may illustrate 
tiiis by the familiar use of the words Ancient and 
Modern, when applied to poetry — what can be more 
inconsiderate or unjust than to compare a few exist- 
ing writers with the whole succession of their pro- 
genitors? The delusion, from the moment that our 
thoughts are directed to it, seems loo gross to deserve 
mention; yet men will talk for hours uiwn poetry, 
balancing against each other the words Ancient and 
Modern, and be unconscious that they have fallen 
into it. 

* These observations are not made as implying a dis- 
sent from the belief of my Correspondent, that the 
moral spirit and intellectual powers of this country 
are declining; but to guard aga'insl unqualijied adm'm- 
lion, even in cases where admiration has been rightly 
fixed, and to prevent that depression, which must ne- 
cessarily follow, where the notion of the peculiar un- 
favorableness of the present times to dignity of mind, 
has been carried too far. For in projiortion as we 
imagine obstacles to exist out of ourselves to retard 
our progress, will, in fiict, our progress be retarded. 
— Deeming then, that in all ages an ardent mind will 
be baffled and led astray in the manner under con- 
templation, though in various degrees, I shall at pre- 
sent content myself with a few practical and desul- 
tory comments upon some of those general causes, to 
which my correspondent just'.y attributes the errors 
in opinion, and the lowering or deadening of seoili- 
ment, to which ingenuous and aspiring youth is ex- 
posed. And first, for the heart-cheering belief in the 
perpetual progress of the species towards a point of 
unattainable perfection. If the present age do indeed 
transcend the past in what is most beneficial and ho- 
norable, he that perceives this, being in no error, has 
no cause for complaint ; but if it be not so, a youth 
of genius might, it should seem, be preserved from 
any wrong influence of this faith, by an insight into a 
simple truth, namely, that it is not necessary, in order 
to satisfy the desires of our nature, or to reconcile us 
to the economy of Providence, that there should be 
at all times a continuous advance in what is of high- 
est worth. In fact it is not, as a writer of the present 
day has admirably observed, in the power of fiction, 
to portray in words, or of the imagination to con- 
ceive in spirit, actions or characters of more exalted 
virtue, than those which thousands of years ago have 
existed upon earth, as we know from tho records of 
authentic history. Such is the inherent dignity of 
497 



488 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



human nature, that there belong to it sublimities of 
virtues which all men may attain, and which no man 
can transcend : and though this be not true in an 
equal degree, of intellectual power, yet in the persons 
of Plato, Demosthenes, and Homer, — and in those of 
S^hakspeare, Milton, and Lord Bacon, — were en- 
shrined as much of the divinity of intellect as the in- 
habitants of this planet can hope will ever take up 
its abode among them. But the question is not of the 
power or worth of individual minds, but of the gene- 
ral moral or intellectual merits of an age— or a peo- 
ple, or of the human race. Be it so — let us allow 
and believe that there is a progress in the species to- 
wards unattainable perlection, or whether this be so 
or not, that it is a necessity of a good and greatly-gift- 
ed nature to believe it — surely it does not follow, that 
this progress should be constant in those virtues, and 
intellectual qualities, and in those departments of 
knowledge, which in themselves absolutely consid- 
ered are of most value — things independent and in 
their degree indispensable. The progress of the spe- 
cies neither is nor can be like that of a Roman road 
in a right line. It m.ay be more justly compared to 
that of a river, which both in its smaller reaches and 
larger turnings, is frequently forced back towards its 
fountains, by objects which cannot otherwise be elu- 
ded or overcome ; yet with an accompanying impulse 
that will ensure its advancement hereafter, it is either 
gaining strength every hour, or conquering in secret 
some difliculty, by a labor that contributes as effectu- 
ally to further it in its course, as when it moves for- 
ward uninterrupted in a line, direct as thatof the Ro- 
man road with which we began the comparison. 

It suffices to content the mind, though there may 
be an apparent stagnation, or a retrograde movement 
in the species, that something is doing which is ne- 
cessary to be done, and the effects of which, will in 
due time appear; — that something is unremittingly 
gaining, either in secret preparation or in open and 
triumphant progress. But in fact here, as every 
where, we are deceived by creations which the mind 
is compelled to make for itself: we speak of the spe- 
cies not as an aggregate, but as endued with the form 
and separate life of an individual. But human kind, 
what is it else than myriads of rational beings in va- 
rious degrees obedient to their Reason; some torpid, 
st^fne aspiring; some in eager chase to the right hand, 
some to the left; these wasting down their moral na- 
ture, and these feeding it for immortality ? A whole 
generation may appear even to sleep, or may be ex- 
asperated with rage — they that compose it, tearing 
each other to pieces with more than brutal fury. It 
is enough fjr complacency and hope, that scattered 
and solitary minds are always laboring somewhere in 
the service of truth and vntue ; and that by the sleep 
of the multitude, the energy of the multitude may be 
prepared ; and that by the fury of the people, the 
chains of the people may be broken. Happy moment 
was it for England when her Chaucer, who has right- 
ly been called the morning star of her literature, ap- 
peared above the horizon — when her Wieklifi; like 
the sun, " shot orient beams" through the night of Ro- 
noish superstition I— Yet may the darkness and the 



desolating hurricane which immediately followed in 
the wars of York and Lancaster, be deemed in theii 
turn a blessing, with which the land has been visited 

May I return to the thought of progress, of accu- 
mulation, of increasing light, or of any other image 
by which it may please us to represent the improve- 
ment of the species? The hundred years that fol- 
lowed the usurpation of Henry the Fourth, were a 
hurling-back of the mind of the country, a dilapida- 
tion, an extinction ; yet institutions, laws, customs, 
and habits, were then broken down, which would not 
have been so readily, nor perhaps so thoroughly de- 
stroyed by the gradual influence of increasing know- 
ledge ; and under the oppression of which, if they 
had continued to exist, the virtue and intellectual 
prowess of the succeeding century could not have ap- 
peared at all, much less could they have displayed 
themselves with that eager haste, and with those be- 
neficent triumphs which will to the end of time be 
looked back upon with admiration and gratitude. 

If the foregoing obvious distinctions be once clearly 
perceived, and steadily kept in view, I do not see 
why a belief in the progress of human nature towards 
perfection, should dispose a youthful mind, however 
enthusiastic, to an undue admiration of his own age, 
and thus tend to degrade that mind. 

But let me strike at once at the root of the evil 
complained of in my Correspondent's letter. — Protec- 
tion from any fatal effects of seductions, and hin- 
drances which opinion may throw in the way of 
pure and high-minded youth, can only be obtained 
with certainty at the same price by which everything 
great and good is obtained, namely, steady depend- 
ence upon voluntary and self-originating effort, and 
upon the practice of self-examination, sincerely aimed 
at and rigorously enforced. But how is this to be 
expected from youth ? Is it not to demand the fruit 
when the blossom is barely put forth, and is hourly 
at the mercy of frosts and winds? To expect from 
youth these virtues and habits, in that degree of ex- 
cellence to which in mature years they maij be car- 
ried, would indeed be preposterous. Yet has youth 
many helps and aptitudes, for the discharge of these 
difficult duties, which are withdrawn for the most 
part from the more advanced stages of life. For 
youth has its own wealth and independence ; it is 
rich in health of body and animal spirits, in its sensi- 
bility to the impressions of the natural universe, in 
the conscious growth of knowledge, in lively sympa- 
thy and familiar communion with the generous ac- 
tions recorded in history, and with the high passions 
of poetry ; and, above all, youth is rich in the pos- 
session of time, and the accompanying consciousness 
of freedom and power. The young man feels that 
he stands at a distance from the season when his 
harvest is to be reaped, — that he has leisure and may 
look around — may defer both the choice and the exe- 
cution of his purposes. If he make an attempt and 
shall fail, new hopes immediately rush in, and new 
promises. Hence, in the happy confidence of his 
feelings, and in the elasticity of his spirit, neither 
worldly ambition, nor the love of praise, nor dread 
of censure, nor the necessity of worldly maintenance, 
498 



THE FRIEND. 



489 



nor any of those causes wliirh tempt or compel the 
mind liahitiially to look out of ilseil' for support ; nei- 
ther these, nor llie passions of envy, iear, iialred, 
(lesponilency, and tlie rankling of disappointed hopes, 
(nil wiiiih in after life give birth to, and regulate llie 
eflijris of men, and determine tiieir opinions) have 
jHiwer to preside over the rhoice of the young, if the 
ilis[vjsition be not naturally bad, or the circumstances 
liave not l)een in an uncommon degree unfavorable. 
In contemplation, then, of this disinterested and 
free condition of iho youthful mind, I deem it in 
many points peculiarly capable of searching into it- 
self, and of profiling by a few simple questions — such 
us these that follow. Ami chieHy gratified by the 
exertion of my power from the pleasure of intellec- 
tual activity, and from the knowledge thereby ac- 
quired ? In other words, to what degree do I value 
my faculties and my atlainmenls for their own sakcs ? 
or are they chiefly prized by me on account of the 
distinction which they confer, or tlie superiority 
which they give me over others ? Am I aware that 
i-mmediate influence and a general acknowledgment 
of merit, are no necessary adjuncts of a successful 
adherence to study and meditation, in those depart- 
ments of knowledge which are of most value to man- 
kind ? that a recompense of honors and emoluments 
is far less to be expected — in fact, that there is little 
natural connexion between them ? 1 la ve I perceived 
this truth? and, perceiving it, does the countenance 
of philosophy conlin\ie to appear as bright and beau- 
tiful in my eyes? — Has no haze bedimmed it ? has no 
cloud passed over and hidden from me that look 
which was before so encouraging ? Knowing that it 
is my duty, and feeling that it is my inclination, to 
mingle as a social being with my fellow men; pre- 
pared also to submit cheerfully to the necessity that 
will probably exist of relinquishing, for the purpose 
of gaining a livelihood, the greatest portion of m)' 
time to employments where I shall have little or no 
choice how or when I am to act ; have I, at this mo- 
ment, when I stand as it were upon the threshold of 
the busy world, a clear intuition of that pre-eminence 
in which virtue and truth (involving in this latter 
word the sanctities of religion) sit enthroned above 
all denominations and dignities which, in various de- 
grees of exaltation, rule over the desires of men? — Do 
I feel that, if their solemn mandates shall be f()rgot- 
len.or disregarded, or denied the obedience due to 
them when opposed to others, I shall not only have 
lived for no good purpose, but that I shall have sacri- 
ficed my birth-right as a rational being; and that 
every other acquisition will be a bane and disgrace to 
me ? This is not spoken with reference to such sa- 
crifices as present themselves to the youthful imagi- 
nation in the shape of crimes, acts by which the con- 
science is violated ; such a thought, I know, would 
be recoiled from at once, not without indignation; 
but I write in the spirit of the ancient fable of Prodi- 
cus, representing the choice of Hercules — Here is 
the World, a fnmale figure approaching at the head 
of a train of willing or giddy followers: — her air and 
de(X)rtment are at once careless, remiss, self-satisfied, 
and haughty :— and there is Intellectual Prowes.s, 
64 



with a pale check and serene brow, leading in chains 
'IVulh, iier beaulifid and modest captive. The one 
makes iier salutation with a discourse of ea.se, plea- 
sure, freedom, and domestic traiuiuillity ; or, if she 
invite to labor, it is labor in the busy and beaten 
track, with assurance of the complacent regards of 
parents, friends, and of those with whom we as.soci- 
ute. The promise al.so may be upon her lip of the 
huzzas of the multitude, of the smile of kings, and 
the munificent rewards of senates. The other doe» 
not venture to hold forth any of these allurements 
she does not conceal from him whom she addressee 
the impediments, the disappointments, the igilorance 
and prejudice which her follower will have to en- 
counter, if devoted when duty calls, to active life ; 
and if to contemplative, she lays nakedly before him, 
a scheme of solitary and unremitting labor, a life of 
entire neglect perhaps, or assuredly a life exposed to 
scorn, insult, persecution, and hatred ; but cheered 
by encouragement from a grateful few, by applaud 
ing conscience, and by a prophetic anticipation, pei 
haps, of fame — a late, though lasting consequenct 
Of these two, each in this manner soliciting you t*> 
become her adherent, you doubt notw'hich to prefer, 
— but oh ! the thought of moment is not preference, 
but the rffgree of preference ; the passionate and pure 
choice, the inward sense of absolute and unchange- 
able devotion. 

I spoke of a few simple questions — the question 
involved in this deliberation is simple; but at the 
same time it is high and awful : and I would gl.idly 
know whether an answer can be returned saiisfac- 
tory to the mind. — We will for a moment suppose 
thai it cannot: that there is a startling and a hesita- 
tion. — Are we then to despond ? to retire from all 
contest ? and to reconcile ourselves at once to cares 
without a generous hope, and to efforts in which 
there is no more moral life than that which is fijund 
in the business and labors of the unfavored and un- 
aspiring many? No — but if the inquiry have not 
been on just grounds satisfactorily answered, we may 
refer confidently our youth to that nature of which he 
deems himself an enthusiastic follower, and one who 
wishes to continue no less faithful and enthusiastic. — 
We would tell him that there arc paths which he 
has not trodden ; recesses which he has not pene- 
trated, that there is a beauty which he has not seen, 
a pathos which he has not felt — a sublimity to which 
he hath not been raised. If he have trembled be- 
cause there has occasionally taken place in him a 
lapse of which he is conscious; if he fiiresee open 
or secret attacks, which he has had intimations that 
he will neither be strong enough to resist, nor watch- 
ful enough to elude, let him not hastily ascribe this 
weakness, this deficiency, and the painful apprehen- 
sions accompanying them, in any degree to the virtues 
or noble qualities with which youth by nature is fur- 
nished ; but let him first be assured, before he l(K)k3 
about for the means of attaining the insight, the dis- 
criminating ])owers, and the confirmed wisdom of 
manhood, that his soul has more to demand of the 
appropriate excellencies of youth, than youth has yet 
supplied, to it ; — that the evil under which he labors 



490 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



IS not a superabundance of the Instincts and the ani- 
mating s))irit of that age, but a falling short, or a 
failure. — But what can he gain from this admonition? 
he cannot recall past time ; he cannot begin his 
journey afresh ; he cannot untwist the links by which, 
in no undelightful harmony, images and sentiments 
are wedded in his mind. Granted that the sacred 
light of childhood is and must be for him no more 
than a remembrance. He may, notwithstanding, be 
remanded to nature; and with trust-worthy hopes; 
founded less upon his sentient than upon his intellec- 
tual being — to nature, as leading on insensibly to the 
society of reason ; but to reason and will, as leading 
back to the wisdom of nature. A re-union, in this 
order accomplished, will bring reformation and a 
timely support ; and the two powers of reason and 
nature, thus reciprocally teacher and taught, may 
advance together in a track to which there is no 
limit 

We have been discoursmg (by implication at least) 
of infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth, of plea- 
sures lying upon the unfolding intellect plenteously 
as morning dew drops — of knowledge inhaled insen- 
sibly like the fragrance — of dispositions stealing into 
the spirit like music from unknown quarters — of im- 
ages uncalled for and rising up like exhalations — of 
hopes plucked like beautiful wild flowers from the 
ruined tombs that border the highways of antiquity, 
to make a garland for a living forehead : — in a word, 
we have been treating of nature as a teacher of 
truth through joy and through gladness, and as a 
creatress of the faculties by a process of smoothness 
and delight. We have made no mention of fear, 
shame, sorrow, nor of ungovernable and vexing 
thoughts; because, although these have been and 
have done mighty service, they are overlooked in 
that stage of life when youth is pa.ssing into manhood 
— overlooked, or forgotten. We now apply for suc- 
cor which we need, to a faculty that works after a 
different course : that faculty is Reason : she gives 
more spontaneously, but she seeks for more ; she 
works by thought, through feeling ; yet in thoughts 
she begins and ends. 

A familiar incident may elucidate this contrast in 
the operations of nature, may render plain the man- 
ner in which a process of intellectual improvements, 
the reverse of that which nature pursues, is by reason 
introduced: There never perhaps existed a school- 
boy who, having when he retired to rest, carelessly 
blown out his candle, and having chanced to notice, 
as he lay upon his bed in the ensuing darkness, the 
sullen light wliich had survived the extinguished 
flame, did not, at some time or other, watch that 
light as if his mind were bound to it by a spell. It 
fades anti revives — gathers to a point — seems as if it 
would go out in a moment — again recovers ils 
strength, nay becomes brighter than before : it con- 
tinues to shine with an endurance, which in its ap- 
parent weakness is a mystery — it protracts its exist- 
ence so long, clinging to the power which supports 
it, that the observer, who had laid down in his bed 
so easy-minded, becomes sad and melancholy : his 
syra.pathies are touched — it is to him an intimation 



and an image of departing human life, — the thought 
comes nearer to him — it is the life of a veneratea 
parent, of a beloved brother or sister, or of an aged 
domestic ; who are gone to the grave, or whose des 
tiny it soon may be thus to linger, thus to hang upon 
the last point of mortal existence, thus finally to de- 
part and be seen no more. This is nature teaching 
seriously and sweetly through the affections — melt- 
ing the heart, and, through that instinct of tenderness, 
developing the understanding. — In this instance the 
object of solicitude is the bodily life of another. Let 
us accompany this same boy to that period between 
youth and manhood, when a solicitude may be 
awakened for the moral life of himself. — Are there 
any powers by which, beginning with a sense of in- 
ward decay that affects not however the natural life, 
he could pall to mind the same image and hang over 
it with an equal interest as a visible type of his own 
perishing spirit? — Oh! surely, if the being of the 
individual be under his own care — if it be his first 
care — if duty begin from the point of accounlable- 
ness to our conscience, and through that, to God and 
human nature ; — if without such primary sense of 
duty, all secondary care of teacher, of friend, or pa- 
rent, must be baseless and fruitless; if, lastly, the 
motions of the soul transcend in worth those of the 
animal functions, nay give to them their sole value ; 
then truly are there such powers : and the image of 
the dying taper may be recalled and contemplated, 
though with no sadness in the nerves, no disposition 
to tears, no unconquerable sighs, yet with a melan- 
choly in the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves 
from thought to thought, a steady remonstrance, and 
a high resolve. — Let then the youth go back, as oc- 
casion \\']\[ permit, to nature and to solitude, thus 
admonished by reason, and relying upon this newly 
acquired support. A world of fresh sensations will 
gradually open upon him as his mind puts off its in- 
firmities, and as instead of being propelled restlessly 
towards others in admiration, or too hasty love, he 
makes it his prime business to understand himself. 
New sensations, I affirm, will be opened out — pure, 
and sanctioned by that reason which is their original 
author; and precious feelings of disinterested, that is 
self-disregarding joy and love may be regenerated 
and restored : — and, in this sense, he may be said to 
measure back the track of life he has trod. 

In such disposition of mind let the youth return to 
the visible universe : and to con'Tsalion with an- 
cient books ; and to those, if such there be, which in 
the present day breathe the ancient spirit; and let 
him feed upon that beauty which unfolds itself, not 
to his eye as it sees carelessly the things which can- 
not possibly go unseen, and are remembered or not 
as accident shall decide, but to the thinking mind; 
which searches, discovers, and treasures up, — infusing 
by meditation into the objects with which it convei'ses 
an intellectual life; whereby they remain planted in 
the memory, now, and for ever. Hitherto the youth, 
I suppose, has been content for the most part to look 
at his own mind, after the manner in which he ranges 
along the stars in the firmament with naked unaided 
sight: let him now apply the telescope of art — to call 
500 



THE FRIEND. 



491 



tlie invisible stars out of their hiding places; and let 
him endeavor to look tlirongh the system of his be- 
ing, with the organ of reason ; sinnmoned to pene- 
trate, as fiir as it has jwwer, in discovery of tlie 
impelling forces and the governing laws. 

These expectations are not immoderate : they de- 
mand nothing more than the perception of a few 
l>lain truths; namely, that knowledge eflicacious for 
tlie production of virtue is the ultimate end of all 
elfori, the sole dispenser of complacency and repose. 
A perception also is implied of the inherent superior- 
ity of contemplation to action. The KiiiE.NDdoes not 
in this contradict his own words, where he has said 
heretofore, that "doubtless it is nobler to act than to 
think." In those words, it was his purjKJse to censure 
that barren contemplation, which rests satisfied with 
it.self in cases where the tl.oughts are of such quality 
that they may be. and ought to be imbodied in action. 
But he speaks now of the general superiority of 
thought to action : — as proceeding and governing all 
action that moves to salutary purposes ; and, secondly, 
as leading to elevation, the absolute possession of the 
individual mind, and to a consistency or harmony of 
the being within itself, which no outward agency can 
reach to disturb or to impair: — and lastly, as pro- 
ducing works of pure science; or of the combined 
faculties of imagination, feeling, and reason ; — works 
which, both from their independence in their origin 
ii|>on accident, their nature, their duration, and the 
wide spread of their influence, are entitled rightly to 
take place of the noblest and most beneficent deeds 
of heroes, statesmen, legislators, or warriors. 

Yet, beginning from the perception of this estab- 
lished superiority, we do not suppose that the youth, 
whom we wish to guide and encourage, is to be in- 
sensible to those influences of wealth, or rank, or sta- 
tion, by which the bulk of mankind are swayed. Our 
eyes have not been fixed u[X)n virtue which lies apart 
from human nature, or transcends it. In fact there 
is no such virtue. We neither suppose nor wish him 
to undervalue or slight these distinctions as modes of 
power, things that may enable him to be more useful 
to his contemporaries; nor as gratifications that may 
confer dignity upon his living person; and, through 
him, upon those who love him ; nor as they may con- 
nect his name, through a family to be foinided by his 
success, in a closer chain of gratitude with some por- 
tion of (vjsterity, who shall speak of him, as among 
their ancestry, with a more tender interest than the 
mere general bond of patriotism or humanity would 
supply. We suppose no indiflt;rence to, much less a 
contempt of, these rewards; but let them have their I 
due place; let it be ascertained, when the soul is 
searched mto, that they are only an auxiliary motive 
to exertion, never the principal or originating force. 
if this be too much to expect from a youth who, I 
take fi)r granted, possesses no ordinary endowments, 
and whom circumstances with respect to the more ! 
dangerous passions have favored, then, indeed, must 
tlie noble spirit of the country be wasted away: then 
would our institutions be deplorable; and the educa- ' 
tion prevalent among us utterly vile and deliasing. I 
But my Correspondent, who drew forth these , 
ga2 



thoughts, has said rightly, that the character of the age 
may not without injustice be thus branded : he will 
not deny that, without sjicaking of other countries, 
there is in these islands, in the departments of natural 
philosophy, of mechanic ingenuity, in the general 
activities of the country, and in the particular excel- 
lence of individual minds, in high stations civil or 
military, enough to excite admiration and love in the 
sober-mimled, and more than enough to intoxicate 
the youthful and inexperienced. I will compare, 
then, an aspiring youth, leaving the schools in which 
he has been disciplined, and preparing to bear a part 
in the concerns of the world, I will compare him in 
this season of eager admiration, to a newly-invested 
knight appearing with his bhuik unsignalized shield, 
upon some day of solemn tournament, at the Court 
of the Fairy-queen, as that sovereignly was conceived 
to exist by the moral and imaginative genius of our 
divine Spenser. He does not himself immediately 
enter the lists as a combatant, but he looks round him 
with a beating heart : dazzled by the gorgeous pa- 
geantry, the banners, the impresses, the ladies of 
overcoming beauty, the persons of the knights — now 
first seen by him, the fame of whose actions is car- 
ried by the traveller, like merchandise, through the 
world ; and resounded upon the harp of the minstrel. 
— But I am not at liberty to make this comparison. 
If a youth were to begin his career in such an as- 
semblage, with such examples to guide and to ani- 
mate, it will be pleaded, there should be no cause 
for apprehension : he could not falter, he could not be 
misled. But ours is, notwithstanding its manifold 
excellencies, a degenerate age: and recreant knights 
are among us far outnumbering the true. A false 
Gloriana in these days imposes worthless services, 
which they who perform them, in their blindness, 
know not to be such ; and which are recompensed by 
rewards as worthless — yet eagerly grasped at, as if 
they were the immortal guerdon of virtue. 

1 have in this declaration insensibly overstepped 
the limits which I had determined not fi» p.\.ss; let me 
he forgiven: for it is hope which hath carried me 
forward. In such a mixed a.ssemblage as our age 
presents, with its genuine merit and its large over- 
balance of alloy, I may boldly ask into what errors, 
either with respect to person or thing, could a young 
man fall, who had sincerely entered upon the couise 
of moral discipline which has been recommended, 
and to which the condition of youth, it has been 
proved, is favorable ? His opinions could no wheie 
deceive him beyond the point to which, after a sea- 
son, he would find that it was salutary for him to 
have been deceived. For. as that man cnimot set ii 
right value upon health who has never known sick- 
ness, nor feel the blessing of ease who has beeii 
through his life a stranger to pain, so can there be no 
confirmed and passionate love of truth for him who 
has not experienced the hoi lowness of error. — Range 
against each other as advocates, op|V)se as combat- 
ants, two several intellects, each strenuously assert- 
ing doctrines which he sincerely believes ; but the 
one contending for the worth and beauty of that gar- 
ment which the other has outgrown and cast away 
501 



492 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Mark the superiority, tlie ease, the dignity, on the 
side of the more advanced mind, how he overlooks 
his subject, commands it from centre to circumfer- 
ence, and hath the same thorough knowledge of the 
tenets which his adversary, with impetuous zeal, but 
in confusion also, and thrown off his guard at every 
tarn of the argument, is laboring to maintain ! If it 
be a question of the fine arts (jMetry for instance) the 
riper mind not only sees that his opponent is deceived ; 
but, what is of far more importance, sees how he is 
deceived. The imagination stands before him with 
all its imperfections laid open; as duped by shows, 
enslaved by words, corrupted by mistaken delicacy 
and false refinement, — as not having even attended 
with care to the reports of (he senses, and therefore 
deficient grossly in Ilie rudunents of her own power. 
He has noted how, as a supposed necessary condition, 
the understanding sleeps in order that the fancy may 
dream. Studied in the history of society and versed 
in the secret laws of thought, he can pass regularly 
through all the gradations, can pierce iniiillibly all 
the windings, which false taste througli ages has pur- 
sued — from the very time when first, through inex- 
perience, heedlessness, or affectation, she took her 
departure from the side of Truth, her original pa- 
rent. Can a disputant thus accoutred be with- 
stood ? — to whom, further, every movement in the 
thoughts of his antagonist is revealed by the light of 
his own experience; who, therefore, sympathises with 
weakness gently, and wins his way by forbearance; 
and hath, when needful, an irresistible power of 
onset, — arising from gratitude to the truth which he 
vindicates, not merely as a positive good for man- 
kind, but as his own especial rescue and redemption. 

I might here conclude : but my Correspondent to- 
wards the close of his letter, has written so feelingly 
upon the advantages to be derived, in his estimation, 
from a living instructor, that I must not leave this 
part ofthe subject without a word of direct notice. The 
Friend cited, some time ago, a passage from the prose 
works of Milton, eloquently describing the manner 
in which good and evil grow up together in the field 
ofthe world almost inseparably; and insisting, conse- 
quently, upon the knowledge and survey of vice as 
necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and 
the scanning of error to' the confirmation of Truth. 

If this be so, and I have been reasoning to the same 
effect in the preceding paragraph, the fact, and the 
thoughts which it may suggest, will, if rightly applied, 
tend to moderate an anxiety for the guidance of a 
more experienced or superior mind. The advantage, 
where it is possessed, is far from being an absolute 
good : nay, such a preceptor, ever at hand, might 
prove an oppression not to be thrown off, and a fatal 
hinderaiice. Grant that in the general tenor of his 
intercourse with his pupil he is forbearing and cir- 
cumspect, inasmuch as he is rich in that knowledge 
(above all other necessary for a teacher) which can- 
not exist without a liveliness of memory, preserving 
for him an unbroken image of the winding, excursive, 
and often retrograde course, along which his own in- 
tellect has passed. Grant that, furnished with these 
diatinct remembrances, he wishes that the mind of 



his pupil should be free to luxuriate in the enjoy 
ments, loves, and admirations appropriated to its age, 
that he is not in haste to kill what he knows will in due 
time die of itself; or be transmuted, and put on a no- 
bler form and higher faculties otherwise unattaina- 
ble. In a word, that the teacher is governed habit- 
ually by the wisdom of patience waiting with plea- 
sure. Yet perceiving how much the outward help 
of art can facilitate the progress of nature, he may be 
betrayed into many unnecessary or pernicious mis- 
takes where he deems his interference warranted by 
substantial experience. And in spite of all his cau- 
tion, remarks may drop insensibly from him which 
may wither in the mind of his pupil a generous sym- 
pathy, destroy a sentiment of approbation or dislike, 
not merely innocent but salutaiy; and for the expe- 
rienced disciple how many pleasures may thus be cut 
off what joy, what admiration and what love! while 
in their stead are introduced into the ingenuous mind 
misgivings, a mistrust of its own evidence, disposi- 
tions to affect to feel where there can be no real feel- 
ing, indecisive judgments, a superstructure of opin- 
ions that has no base to support it, and words, uttered 
by rote with the impertinence of a parrot or a mock- 
ing-bird, yet which may not be listened to with the 
same indifference, as they cannot be heard without 
some feeling of moral disapprobation. 

These results, I contend, whatever may be the ben- 
efit to be derived from such an enlightened Teacher, 
are in their degree inevitable. And by this process, 
humility and docile dispositions may exist towards the 
Master, endued as he is with the power which per- 
sonal presence confers ; but at the same time they 
will be liable to overstep their due bounds, and to 
degenerate into passiveness and prostration of mind. 
This towards him! while, with respect to other liv- 
ing men, nay even to the mighty spirits of past times, 
there may be associated with such weakness a want 
of modesty and humility. Insensibly may steal in 
presumption and a habit of sitting in judgment in 
cases where no sentiment ought to have existed but 
diffidence or veneration. Such virtues are the sacred 
attributes of Youth ; its appropriate calling is not to 
distinguish in the fear of being deceived or degraded, 
not to analyze with scrupulous minuteness, but to ac- 
cumulate in genial confidence ; its instinct, its safety, 
its benefit, its glory, is to love, to admire, to feel, and 
to labor. Nature has irrevocably decreed, that our 
prime dependence in all stages of life after Infancy 
and Childhood have been passed through (nor do I 
know that this latter ought to be excepted) must be 
upon our own minds ; and that the way to knowledge 
shall be long, difficult, winding, and oftentimes re- 
turning upon itself. 

What has been said is a mere sketch ; and that only 
of a part of the interesting country into which we 
have been led : but my Correspondent will be able 
to enter the paths that have been pointed out. Should 
he do this and advance steadily for a while, he need 
not fear any deviations from the truth which will be 
finally injurious to him. He will not long have hia 
admiration fixed upon unworthy objects ; he will nei- 
ther be clogged nor drawn aside by the love of friends 
502 



THE FRIEND. 



493 



or kiiidrt-d, betraying his understanding throngii his 
affections ; he will neither bo bowed down by con- 
ventional arrangements of manners producing too of- 
ten a lifele^8 decency: nor will the rock of his spirit 
wear away in the endless hciiting of the waves of 
the world : neither will that [xjrtion of his own lime, 
which he must surrender to lalxirs by which his live- 
lihood is to be earned or his social duties performed, 
be uuprolitable to himself indirectly, while it is di- 
rectly useful to others: for that time has been prima- 
rily surrendered through an act of obedience to a mo- 
ral law established by himself, and therefore he 
moves then also along the orbit of perfect liberty. 

Let it be remembered, that the advice requested 
does not relate to the government of the more dan- 
gerous passions, or to the fundamental jirinciples of 
right and wrong as acknowledged by the universal 
conscience of mankind. I may therefore assure my 
youthful Correspondent, if he will endeavor to look 
into himself in the manner in which 1 have e.xhorled 



him to do, that in him the wish will he realized, to 
him in due time the prayer granted, which was ut- 
tered by that living Teacher of whom he sjicaks with 
gratitude as a bcneliiclor, when, in his character of a 
jihilosophical Poet, having thought of Morality as im- 
plying in its essence voluntary obedience, and pro- 
ducing the effect of order, ho transfers in the Irans- 
[wrt of imagination, the law of moral to physical na- 
tures, and having contemplated, through the medium 
of that order, all modes of existence as subservient to 
one spirit, concludes his address to the power of Duty 
in the following words : 

To humbler fundions, awful Power! 

1 cull Ihc'O : I myself coinincnd 

Unto lliy guidunco from this hour ; 

Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 

Give unto me, made lowly wise, 

The spirit of self sacrifice ; 

The covfidmrc of reason give ! 

Jlnd in the light of Truth Ihv Bondman let me live I 

vv. w. 



2rnr iFttentr* 



SECTION THE SECOND. 

ON THE GROUNDS OF MORALS AND RELIGION, 

AND THE 
DISCIPLINE OF THE MND REQUISITE FOR A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF THE SAME 



I know, the seeming and gelf-pleasing wisdom of our times consists much in cavilling and unjustly carping at all things 
that see light, and that there are many who eiirnestly hunt after the puhlicke fame of Learning and .hidgmint hy this 
easily-trod and despicable path, which, notwithstanding, they tread with as much confidincc as folly : for that, often- 
times, which they vainly and unjustly brand with opprobrie, outlives their fate, and flourisheth when it is forgot that ever 
any such, as they, had Bemg. — Dedication to Lord Herbert of Ambrose Parey's Works by Thomas Johnson, the 
Translator, lfj34. 



ESSAY I. 

We cannot but look up with reverence to the advanced 
natures of the naturalists and moralists in highest repute 
amongst us -. and wish they had been heightened by a more 
noble principle, which had crowned all their various sciences 
with tho principal science, and in their brave strayings after 
truth helpt them to better fortune than only to meet with 
her handmaids, and kept them from the fate of Ulysses, 
who wandering through the shades mot all the ghosts, yet 

could not see the nueen. J. II. (JOHN HALL?) Ais 

Motion to the Parliament of England concerning the Jld- 
vancemoit of Learning. 

The preceding section had for its express object the 
principles of our duty as citizeas, or morality as ap- 
plied to politics. According to his scheme there re- 



mained for THE Friend first, to treat of the principle« 
of morality generally, and then on those of religion. 
But since the commencement of this edition, the 
question has repeatedly arisen in my mind, wh.ether 
morality can be said to have any principle distinguish- 
able from religion, or religion any substance divisible 
from morality ? Or should I attempt to distinguish 
them by their objects, so that morality were the reli- 
gion which we owe to things and persons of this life, 
and religion our morality toward God and the perma- 
nent concerns of our own souls, and those of our bre- 
thren : yet it would bo evidenl, that the latter must 
involve the former, while any pretence to the f;)rmer 
without the latter would be as bold a mockery as, if 
having withheld an estate from the rightful owner. 



494 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



we should seek to appease our conscience by the 
plea, that we had not failed to bestow alms on him 
in his beggary. It was never my purpose, and it does 
not appear to be the want of the age, to bring toge- 
ther the rules and inducements of worldly prudence. 
But to substitute these for the laws of reason and con- 
science, or even to confound them under one name, 
is a prejudice, say rather a profanation, which I be- 
came more and more reluctant to flatter by even an 
appearance of assent, though it were only in a point 
of form and technical arrangement. 

At a time, when my thoughts were thus employed, 
I met with a volume of old tracts, published during 
the interval from the caplivity of Charles the First to 
the restoration of his son. Since my earliest manhood 
it had been among my fbndest regrets, that a more 
direct and frequent reference had not been made by 
our historians to the books, pamphlets, and flying 
sheets of that momentous period, during which all 
the possible forms of truth and error (the latter being 
themselves far the greater part caricatures of truth) 
bubbled up on the surface of the public mind, as in 
the ferment of a chaos. It would be difficult to con- 
ceive a notion or a fancy, in politics, ethics, theology, 
or even in physics and physiology, which had not been 
anticipated by the men of that age : in this as in most 
other respects sharply contrasted with the products 
of the French revolution, which was scarcely more 
characterized by its sanguinary and sensual abomina- 
tions than (to borrow the words of an eminent living 
poet) by 

A dreary want at once of books and men. 

The parliament's army was not wholly composed of 
mere fanatics. There was no mean proportion of en- 
thusiasts: and that enthusiasm must have been of no 
ordinary grandeur, which could draw from a common 
soldier, in an address to his comrades, such a dissua- 
sive from acting in " the cruel spirit of fear!" such 
words and such sentiments, as are contained in the 
following extract which I would fain rescue from 
oblivion,* both for the honor of our fore-fathers, and 
in proof of the intense difference between the repub- 
licans of that period, and the democrats, or rather de- 
magogues, of the present. "I judge it ten times 
more honorable for a single person, in witnessing a 
truth to oppose the world in its power, wisdom and 
authority, this standing its full strength, and he singly 
and nakedly, than fighting many battles by force of 
arms, and gaining them all. I have no life but truth : 
and if truth be advanced by my suffering, then my 
life also. If truth live, I live : if justice live, I live : 
and these cannot die, but by any man's suffering for 
them are enlarged, enthroned. Death cannot hurt 
me. I sport with him, am above his reach. I live 
an immortal life. What we have within, that only 
can we see without I cannot see death ; and he that 



* The more so because every year consumes its quota. 
The late Sir Wilfred Lawson's predecessor, from some 
pique or other, left a large and unique collection, of the 
pamphlets published from the commencement of the Parlia- 
ment war to the restoration, to his butler, and it supplied the 
chandlers' and druggists' shops of Penrith and KendaJ fur 
many years. 



hath not his freedom is a slave. He is in the arms of 
that, the phantom of which he beholdeth and seem- 
eth to himself to flee from. Thus, you see that the 
king hath a will to redeem his present loss. You see 
it by means of the lust after power in your own 
hearts. For my part I condemn his unlawful seeking 
after it. I condemn his falsehood and indirectness 
therein. But if he should not endeavor the restoring 
of the kingliness to the realm, and the dignity of its 
kings, he were false to his trust, false to the majesty 
of God that he is intrusted with. The desire of re- 
covering his loss is justifiable. Yea, I should con- 
demn him as unbelieving and pusillanimous, if he 
should not hope for it. But here is his misery and 
yours too at present, that ye are unbebeving and pu- 
sillanimous, and are, both alike, pursuing things of 
hope in the spirit of fear. Thus you condemn the 
parliament for acknowledging the king's power so far 
as to seek to him by a treaty ; while by taking such 
pains against him you manifest your own belief that 
he hath a great power — which is a wonder, that a 
prince despoiled of all his authority, naked, a prison- 
er, destitute of all friends and helps, wholly at the 
disposal of others, tied and bound too with all obliga- 
tions that a parliament can imagine to hold him, 
should yet be such a terror to you, and fright j'ou into 
such a large remonstrance, and such perilous proceed- 
ings to save yourselves from him. Either there is 
some strange power in him, or you are full of fear 
that are so affected with a shadow. 

But as you give testimony to his power, so you 
take a course to advance it; for there is nothing that 
hath any spark of God in it, but the more it is sup- 
pressed, the more it rises. If you did indeed believe, 
that the original of power were in the people, you 
would believe likewise that the concessions extorted 
from the king would rest with you, as doubtless, sucfi 
of them as in righteousness ought to have been given, 
would do; but that your violent courses disturb the 
natural order of things, on which they still tend to 
their centre : and so far from being the way to secure 
what we have got, they are the way to lose them, 
and (for a time at least) to set up princes in a higher 
form than ever. For all things by force compelled 
from their nature will fly back with the greater ear- 
nestness on the removal of that force : and this, in 
the present case, must soon weary itself out, and 
hath no less an enemy in its own satiety than in the 
disappointment of the people. 

Again: you speak of the king's reputation — and 
do not consider that the more you crush him, the 
sweeter the fragrance that comes from him. While 
he suflfers, the spirit of God and glory rests upon him. 
There is a glory and a freshness sparkling in him by 
suffering, an excellency that was hidden, end which 
you have drawn out. And naturally men are ready 
to pity sufltrers. When nothing will gain me, afflic- 
tion will. I confess his sufferings make me a royalist, 
who never cared for him. He that doth and can 
sufller shall have my heart : you had it while you 
suflfered. But now your severe punishment of him 
for his abuses in government, and your own usurpa- 
tions, will not only win the hearts of the people to 
504 



THE FRIEND. 



495 



the oppressed sufTering kinct, but provoke them to 
rage against you, as liaving robbed tlicm of the inter- 
est wliich they hud in his royalty- Fortlie king is in 
the people, and the people in the king. The king's 
being is not solitary, but as he is m union with his 
people, who are his strength in which he lives ; and 
the people's being is not naked, but an interest in the 
greatness and wisdom of the king who is their honor 
which lives in Ihera. And though you will disjoin 
yourselves from kings, God will not, neither will I. 
God is King of kings, kings' and prinees' God, as 
well a people's, theirs as well as ours, and theirs 
eminently (as the speech enforces, God of Israel, that 
is, Israel's God above all other nations: and so king 
of kings,) by a near and especial kindred and com- 
munion. Kmgliness agrees with all Christians, who 
are indeed Christians. For they are themselves of a 
royal nature, made kings with Christ, and cannot but 
be friends to it, being of kin to it : and if there were 
not kings to honor, they would want one of the ap- 
pointed objects to bestow that fulness of honor which 
is in their breasts. A virtue would lie unemployed 
within them, and in prison, pining and restless from 
the want of its outward correlative. It is a bastard 
religion, that is inconsistent with the mnjesty and the 
greatness of the most splendid monarch. Such spi- 
rits are strangers from the kingdom of heaven. 
Either they know not the glory in which God lives : 
or they are of narrow minds that are corrupt them- 
selves, and not able to bear greatness, and so think 
that God will not, or cannot qualify men for such 
high places with correspondent and proportionable 
power and goodness. Is it not enough to have re- 
moved the malignant bodies which eclipsed the royal 
sun, and mixed their bad influences with his? And 
would you extinguish the sun itself to secure your- 
selves ? O this is the spirit of Inndage to fear, and 
not of love and a sound mind. To assume the office 
and the name of champions for the common interest, 
and of Christ's soldiers, and yet to act for self safety, 
is so poor and mean a thing that it must produce most 
vile and absurd actions, the scorn of the old pagans, 
but for Christians who in all things are to love Iheir 
neighbor as themselves, and God above both, it is of 
all affections the unworthiest. Let me be a fool and 
boast, if so I may show you, while it is yet time, a 
little of that rest and security which 1 and those of 
the same spirit enjoy, and which you have turned 
your backs upon ; self, like a banished thing, wan- 
dering in strange ways. First, then, I fear no party, 
or interest, for 1 love all, I am reconciled to all, and 
therein I find all reconciled to me. I have enmity to 
none but the son of perdition. It is enmity begets 
insecurity: and while men live in the flesh, and in 
enmity to any party, or interest, in a private, divided, 
and self good, there will be. there cannot but be, 
perpetual wars: except that one particular should 
quite ruin all other parts and live alone, which the 
universal must not, will not suflTer. For to admit a 
part to devour and absorb the others, were to destroy 
the whole, which is God's presence therein; and 
such a mind in any part doth not only fight with 
another part, but against the whole. Every faction 
33 



of men, therefore, striving to make themselves abso- 
lute, and to owe their safety to their strength, and 
not to their sym|)athy, do directly war ngiiiiist Clod 
who is love, peace, and a general good, gives being 
to all and cherishes all, and, therefore, can have nei- 
ther peace or security. 15ut we being enlarged into 
the largeness of God. and comprehending all things 
in our bosoms by the divine spirit, are at rest with 
all, and delight in all ; for we know nothing but what 
is, in its essence, in our own hearts. Kings, nobles, 
are much beloved of us, because they are in us, of 
us, one with us, we as Christians being kings and 
lords by the anointing of God." 

But such sentiments, it will be said, are the flights 
of Speculative Mi.nds. Be it so ! Yet to soar is 
nobler than to creep. We attach, likewise, some 
value to a thing on the mere score of its rarity ; and 
Speculative Minds, alas! have been rare, though not 
equally rare, in all ages and countries of civilized 
man. With us the very word seems to have abdi- 
cated its legitimate sense. Instead of designating a 
mind so constituted and disciplined as to find in its 
own wants and instincts an interest in truths for their 
truth's sake, it is now used to signify a practical 
schemer, one who ventures beyond the bounds of 
experience in the formation and adoption of new 
ways and means for the attainment of wealth, or 
power. To possess the end in the means, as it is 
essential to morality in the moral world, and the con- 
tra-dislinclion of goodness from mere prudence, so is 
it, in the intellectual world, the moral constituent of 
genius, and that by which true genius is contra-dis- 
tinguished from mere talent. {See t/ie postscript at the 
end of this essay.) 

The man of talent, who is, if not exclusively, yet 
chiefly and characteristically a man of talent, seeks 
and values the means wholly in relation to some ob- 
ject not therein contained. His means may be pe- 
culiar; but his ends are conventional, and common 
to the mass of mankind. Alas! in both cases alike, 
in that of genius, as well as in that of talent, it too 
often happens, that this diversity in the "morale" of 
their several intellects, extends to the feelings and 
impulses properly and directly moral, to their dispo- 
sitions, habits, and maxims of conduct. It character- 
izes not the intellect alone, but the whole man. 
The one substitutes prudence for virtue, legality in 
act and demeanor, for warmth and purity of heart : 
and too frequently becomes jealous, envious, a covet- 
er of other men's good gifts, and a detractor from 
Iheir merits, open or secretly, as his fears or his pas- 
sions chance to preponderate.* 



* According to the principles of Spurzheim's Cranioscopy 
(a scheme, the indicntive or svomonic parla of which have a 
stronger support in facts than the theory in reason or common 
sense) wo should find in the skull of such an individual the 
organs of circumspection and appropriation disproportion- 
ately large and prominent compared with those of itlealitp 
and benevolence. It id certain that the organ of appropriation 

' or (more correctly) the part of the skull asserted to he signifi- 
cant of that tendency and correspondent to the organ, is 

I strikingly large in a cast of the head of ihc famous Dr. Dodd ; 
and it was found of equal dimension in a literary man, 

j whose skull puzzled tlic cranioscopist more than it did nia 

505 



496 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



The other, on the contrary, might remind us of the 
zealots for legitimate succession after the decease of 
our sixth Edward, who not content with having 
placed the rightful sovereign on the throne, would 
wreak their vengeance on " the meek usurper," who 
had been seated on it by a will against which 
she had herself been the first to remonstrate. For 
with that unhealthful preponderance of impulse over 
motive, which, though no part of genius, is too often 
its accompaniment, he lives in continued hostility to 
prudence, or banishes it altogether ; and thus deprives 
Mrtue of her guide and guardian, her prime function- 
ary, yea, the very organ of her outward life. Hence 
a benevolence that squanders its shafts and still 
misses its aim, or like the charmed bullet that, level- 
led at the wolf brings down the shepherd ! Hence 
desultoriness, extremes, exhaustion 

And thereof comes in the end despondency and madness! 
WORDSWORTH. 

Let it not be forgotten, however, that these evils 
are the disease of the man, while the records of 
biography furnish ample proof, that genius, in the 
higher degree, acts as a preservative against them : 
more remarkably, and in more frequent instances, 
when the imagination and preconstructive power 
have taken a scientific or philosophical direction : as 
in Plato, indeed in almost all the first-rate philoso- 
phers — in Kepler, Milton, Boyle, Newton, Leibnitz, 
and Berkley. At all events, a certain number of 
speculative minds is necessary to a cultivated state 
of society, as a condition of its progressiveness; and 
nature herself has provided against any too great in- 
crease in this class of her productions. As the gifted 
masters of the divining Rod to the ordinary miners, 
and as the miners of a country to the husbandmen, 
mechanics, and artisans, such is the proportion of the 
Trismegisli, to the sum total of speculative minds, 
even of those, I mean, that are truly such ; and of 
these again, to the remaining mass of useful laborers 
and " operatives " in science, literature, and the learn- 
ed professions. 

This train of thought brings to my recollection a 
conversation with a friend of my youth, an old man 
of humble estate ; but in whose society I had great 
pleasure. The reader will, I hope, pardon me if I 
embrace the opportunity of recalling old affections, 
afforded me by its fitness to illustrate the present sub- 
ject. A sedate man he was, and had been a miner 
from his boyhood. Well did he represent the old 
" long syne," when every trade was a mystery and 
had its own guardian saint ; when the sense of self- 
importanee was gratified at home, and Ambition had 
a hundred several lotteries, in one or other of which 
every freeman had a ticket, and the only blanks were 
drawn by Sloth, Intemperance, or inevitable Calam- 
ity ; when the detail of each art and trade (like the 
oracles of the prophets, interpretable in a double 
sense) was ennobled in the eyes of its professors by 
being spiritually improved into symbols and memen- 
tos of all doctrines and all duties, and every crafts- 



Nature, it should seem, makes no distinction between manu- 
scripts and money-drat'ta, though the law does. 



man had, as it were, two versions of his Bible, one 
in the common language of the country, another in 
acts, objects, and products of his own particular craft. 
There are not many things in our elder popular lite- 
rature, more interesting to me than those contests, or 
Amoibean eclogues, between workmen for the su- 
perior vs'orth and dignity of their several callings, 
which used to be sold at our village fairs, in stitched 
sheets, neither untitled or undecorated, though with- 
out the superfluous costs of a separate title-page. 

With this good old miner I was once walking 
through a corn-field at harvest time, when that part 
of the conversation to which I have alluded, look 
place. At times, said I, when you were delving in 
the bowels of the arid mountain or food less rock, it 
must have occurred to your mind as a pleasant 
thought, that in providing the scythe and sword you 
were virtually reaping the harvest and protecting the 
harvest-man. Ah ! he replied with a sigh, that gave 
a fuller meaning to his smile, out of all earthly 
things there come both good and evil: the good 
through God, and the evil from the evil heart. From 
the look and weight of the ore I learnt to make a 
near guess, how much iron it would yield; but 
neither its heft, nor its hues, nor its breakage would 
prophesy to me, whether it was to become a thievish 
pick-lock, a murderer's dirk, a slave's collar, or the 
woodman's axe, the feeding ploughshare, the defend- 
er's sword, or the mechanic's tool. So perhaps, my 
}foung friend ! I have cause to be thankful, that the 
opening upon a fresh vein gives me a delight so full 
as to allow no room for other fancies, and leaves 
behind it a hope and a love that support me in my 
labor, even for the labor's sake. 

As, according to the eldest philosophy, life being 
in its own nature aeriform, is under the necessity of 
renewing itself by inspiring the connatural, and 
therefore assimilable air, so is it with the intelligen- 
tial soul with respect to truth : for it is itself of the 
nature of truth. Vzvojxhr] ik ieapia;, Kat i-inita Sdov, 
(p-iaiv tvav (piKo^tdfiova vrrdp^^et. Ploti.!«US. But 
the occasion and brief history of the decline of true 
speculative philosophy, with the origin of the sepa- 
ration of ethics from religion, I must defisr to the 
following number. 



POSTSCRIPT. 
As I see many good, and can anticipate no ill con- 
sequences, in the attempt to give distinct and appro- 
priate meanings to words hitherto synonymous, or at 
least of indefinite and fluctuating application, if only 
the proposed sense be not passed upon the reader as 
the existing and authorized one, I shall make no other 
apology for the use of the word, Talent, in this pre- 
ceding Essay and elsewhere in my works than by 
annexing the following explanation. I have been in 
the habit of considering the qualities of intellect, the 
comparative eminence in which characterizes indi- 
viduals and even countries, under four kinds — 
Genius, Talent, Sense, and Cleverness. The 
first I use in the sense of most general acceptance, 
as the faculty which adds to the existing slock of 
506 



THF FRIEND. 



497 



power and knowledge by new views, new combina- 
tions, Ac. In short, I define Genu's, as or- finality in 
intelleciiial constrnction: tlie moral accompnniment 
and aclnnling principle of which consists, perha().«, 
in the carrying on of the freshness and lijehngs of 
childhood into the |X)W'rs of manhood. 

By Tai.knt, on t' e other hand, 1 mean the com- 
parative lacilily of vcqiiiriiii,', arran2;ing, and applying 
the slock furpislied by others and already existing in 
books or other conservatories of intellect. 

By Se.vse I tmdcrstand that just balance of the 
(acuities which is to the judgment what health is to 
the Ixidy. The mind seems to act en masse, by a syn- 
hetic rather than an analytic process: even as the 
outward senses, from which the metaphor is taken, 
perceive immediately, each as it were by a peculiar 
tact or intuition, without any consciousness of the me- 
chanism by which the perception is realized. This 
is oflon exemplified in well-bred, unadcctcd, and in- 
nocent women. I know a lady, on whose judgment, 
from constant experience of its rectitude, I could rely 
almost as on an oracle. But when she has sometimes 
proceeded to a detail of the grounds and reasons for 
her opinion — then, led by similar experience, I have 
been tempted to interrupt her with — "I w'ill take 
your advice," or, " I shall act on your opinion : for I 
am sure you are in the right But as to the fors and 
because^, leave them to me to find out." The gene- 
ral accompaniment of Sense is a disposition to avoid 
extremes, whether in theory or in practice, with a de- 
sire to remain in sympathy with the general mind of 
the age or country, and a feeling of the necessity and 
utility of compromise. If Genius be the initiative, 
and Talent the administrative, Sense is the conserva- 
tive branch, in the intellectual republic. 

By Cleverness (which I dare not with Dr. John- 
son call a loiv word, while there is a sense to be ex- 
pressed which it alone expresses) I mean a compara- 
tive readiness in the invention and use of means, for 
the realizing of objects and ideas — often of such ideas, 
which the man of genius only could have originated, 
and which the clever man perhaps neither fully com- 
prehends nor adequately appreciates, even at the mo- 
ment that he is prompting or executing the machine- 
ry' of their accomplishment. In short. Cleverness is 
a sort of genius for instrumentality. It is the brain 
in the hand. In literature Cleverness is more fre- 
quently accompanied by wit, Genius and Sense by 
humor. 

If 1 take the three great countries of Europe, in 
respect of intellectual character, namely, Germany, 
England, and France, I should characterize them 
thus — premising only that in the first line of the two 
first tables I mean to imply that Genius, rare in all 
countries, is equal in both of these, the instances 
equally numerous — and characteristic therefore not 
in relation to each other, but in relation to the third 
country. The other qualities are more general cha- 
racteristics. 

GERMANY. 

Genius, 
Talent, 
Fancv. 

65 



The latter chielly as exhibited in wild combination 
and in pomp of ornament. N B. Imagination is im- 
plied in Genius. 

ENGLAND. 
Genius, 

Sense, 

IIu.MOR. 

FRANCE. 

Cleverness, 

Talent, 

Wit. 
So again with regard to the forms and effects, in 
which the qualities manifest themselves, i. e. intel- 
lectually. 

GERMANY. 
Idea, or Law anticipated,* 
Totalitv,+ 
Distinctness. 

ENGLAND. 
Law discovered,}: 
Selectio.n, 
Clearness. 

FRANCE. 
Theory invented, 
Particularitv,'^ 
Palpability. 

Lastly, we might exhibit the same qualities in their 
moral, religious, and political manifestations : in the 
cosmopolitism of Germany, the contemptuotis nation- 
ality of the Englishman, and the ostentatious and 



* Thia as co-ordinate with Genius in tlio first table, applies 
likewise to the few only: and conjoined with the two follow- 
ing qualities, as peneral characteristics of German intellect, 
includes or sujiposes, as its consequences and accompaniments, 
speculation, system, method; which in a somewhat lower 
class of minds appear as notionality (or a predilection for 
voumeria. mundus intellisibilis, as contra-distinguished from 
pkanomena, or mundus sensibilis) scheme ; arrangement ; 
orderliness. 

tin totality I imply encyclopaedic learning, exhaustion of 
the subjects treated of, and the passion for completing and 
the love of the complete. 

t See the following Essays on Method. It might have 
been expressed — as the contemplation of ideas objectively, as 
existing powers, while the German of equal genius is predis- 
posed to contemplate law subjectively, with anticipation of a 
correspondent in nature. 

^Tendency to individualize, embody, insulate, ex. gr. the 
vitreous and the rebinous fluids instead of the positive and 
negative forces of the power of electricity. Thus too, it was 
not sufBcient that oxygen was the principal, and with one 
exception, the only then known acidifying substance ; the 
power and principle of acidification must be embodied and 
as it were impersonated and hypostasized in this gas. Hence 
the idnlism of the French, here expressed in one of its results, 
viz. palpability. Ideas are hero out of the question. 1 had 
almost said, that Ideas and a Parisian Philosopher arc incom- 
patible terms, since the latter half, I mean, of the reign of 
Lewis XVI. But even the Conceptions of a Frenchman, 
whatever he admits to be cnncrivablc. must be imaeeuble, 
and the imageable must be fancied tangible — the non-ap- 
parency of either or both being accounted for by the dispro- 
portion of our senses, not by the nature of the cunceptioua 
507 



498 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



boastlul nationality of the Frenchman. The craving 
ot sympathy marks the German : inward pride the 
Englishman: vanity the Frenchman. So again, en- 
thusiasm, visionariness seems the tendency of the 
German: zeal, zealotry of the English: fanaticism of 
tlie French. But the thoughtful reader will find 
these and many other characteristic points contained 
in, and deducible from the relations in which the 
mind of the three countries bears to Time. 

GERMANY. 
Past and Future. 

ENGLAND. 

Past and Present. 

FRANCE. 

The Present. 

A whimsical friend of mine, of more genius than 
discretion, characterizes the Scotchman of literature 
(confining his remark, however, to the period since 
the Union) as a dull Frenchman and a superficial 
German. But when I recollect the splendid excep- 
tions of Hume, Robertson, Smollett, Reid, Thom- 
son (if this last instance be not objected to as savor- 
ing of geographical pedantry, that truly amiable man, 
and genuine poet having been born but a few fur- 
longs from the English border,) Dugald Stewart, 
Burns, Walter Scott, Hogg and Campbell — not 
to mention the very numerous physicians and promi- 
nent dissenting ministers, born and bred beyond the 
Tweed — I hesitate in recording so wild an opinion, 
which derives its plausibility, chiefly from the cir- 
cumstance so honorable to our northern sister, that 
Scotchmen generally have more, and a more learned, 
educalion than the same ranks in other countries, be- 
low the first class; but in part likewise, from the 
common mistake of confounding the general charac- 
ter of an emigrant, whose objects are in one place 
and his best affections in another, with the particular 
character of a Scotchman : to which we may add, 
perhaps, the clannish spirit of provincial literature, 
fostered undoubtedly by the peculiar relations of 
Scotland, and of which therefore its metropolis may 
be a striking, but is far from being a solitary, instance. 



ESSAY II. 



' H bSos /car(i. 
The road downward. 

HERACLIT. Fragment. 



Amour de moi moi-meme ; mais bien calcule ; was 
the motto and maxim of a French philosopher. Our 
fancy inspirited by the more imaginative powers of 
hope and fear enables us to present to ourselves the 
future as the present : and thence to accept a scheme 
of self-love for a system of morality. And doubtless, 
an enlightened self-interest would recommend the 
same course of outward conduct, as the sense of duty 
would do; even though the motives in tlie former 



case had respect to this life exclusively. But to show 
the desirableness of an object, or the contrary, is one 
thing: to excite the desire, to constitute the aversion, 
is another : the one being to the other as a common 
guide-post to the " chariot instinct with spirit," which 
at once directs and conveys, or (to use a more trivial 
image) as the hand, and hour-plate, or at the utmost 
the regulator, of a watch to the spring and wheel 
work, or rather to the whole watch. Nay, where the 
sufficiency and exclusive validity of the former are 
adopted as the maxim (regula maxima) of the moral 
sense, it would be a fairer and fuller comparison to 
say, that it is to the latter as the dial to the sun, indi- 
cating its path by intercepting its radiance. 

But let it be granted, that in certain individuals 
from a happy evenness of nature, formed into a habit 
by the strength of education, the influence of exam- 
ple, and by favorable circumstances in general, the 
actions diverging from self-love as their centre should 
be precisely the same as those produced from the 
Christian principle, which requires of us that we 
should place our self and our neighbor at an equi- 
distance, and love both alike as modes in which we 
realize and exhibit the love of God above all : where- 
in would the difference he the7i? I answer boldly: 
even in that, for which all actions have their whole 
worth and their main value — in the agents them- 
selves. So much indeed is this of the very substance 
of genuine morality, that wherever the latter has 
given way in the general opinion to a scheme of 
ethics founded on utilitjr, its place is soon challenged 
by the spirit of honor. Paley, who degrades the 
spirit of honor into a mere club-law among the 
higher classes originating in selfish convenience, and 
enforced by the penalty of excommunication from the 
society which habit had rendered indispensable to the 
happiness of the individuals, has misconstrued it not 
less than Shaftsbury, who extols it as the noblest in- 
fluence of noble natures. The spirit of honor is more 
indeed than a mere conventional substitute for ho- 
nesty ; but on the other hand instead of being a finer 
form of moral life, it may be more truly described as 
the shadow or ghost of virtue deceased. For to take 
the word in a sense, which no man of honor would 
acknowledge, may be allowed to the writer of sa- 
tires, but not to the moral philosopher. Honor im- 
plies a reverence for the invisible and supersensual 
in our nature, and so far it is virtue ; but it is a virtue 
that neither understands itself or its true source, and 
therefore often unsubstantial, not seldom fantastic, 
and always more or less capricious. Abstract the 
notion from the lives of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
or Henry the Fourth of France: and then compare it 
with the 1 Corinth, xiii. and the epistle to Philemon, 
or rather with the realization of this fair ideal in the 
character of St. Paul* himself I know not a better 



*Thi8 has struck the betti r clnss even of inliiljls. Collins, 
one of the most learned of our English Deists, is said to have 
declared, that contradictory as miracles appeared to his 
reason, he would beheve in them notwithstandins, if it could 
be proved to him that St. Paul had asserted any one iis hav- 
ing been worked by himself \n the modern sense of the word, 
miracle : adding, " ^*^^ Paul wns so perfect a gentleman and 
a man of honor!" When I call duelling, and similar aberra- 

5C8 



THE FRIEND. 



499 



test. Nor can I think of any investigation, that 
would be more instructive wliere it would be safe, 
but none likewise of greater delicacy from tlie pro- 
bability of misinterpretation, tiian a history of the rise 
of iioNOii in the Kuropean monarchies as connected 
witii the corruptions of Ciirislianily; and an inquiry 
nilo the specific causes of the incHicacy which has 
attended the combined ellorts of divines and moral- 
ists against tiie practice and obligation of duelling. 

Of a widely dilFcrent character from this moral 
litotai!, yet as a derivative from the same root, we 
may contemplate the heresies of the Gnostics in the 
early ages of the church, and of the fiimijy of love, 
with other forms of Antinomianism, since the Refor- 
mation to the present day- But lest in uttering truth 
1 should convey falsehood and fall myself into the 
error which it is my object to expse, it will be requi- 
site to distinguish an apprehension of the whole of a 
truth, even where that apprehension is dim and in- 
distinct, from a partial perception of the same rashly 
asstnned, as a preception of the whole. The first is 
rendered inevitable in many things for many, in some 
points for all, men from the progressiveness no less 
than from the imperfection of humanity, which itself 
dictates and enforces the precept, Believe that thou 
mayest understand. The most knowing must at 
times be content with the facit of a sum too complex 
or subtle for us to follow nature through the antece- 
dent process. The Greek verb, awUvai, which we 
render by the word, understand, is literally the same 
as our own idiomatic phrase, to go along with. Hence 
in subjects not under the cognizance of the senses 
wise men have always attached a high value to gen- 
eral and long-continued assent, as a presumption of 
truth. After all the subtle reasonings and fair analo- 
gies which logic and induction could supply to a 
mighty intellect, it is yet on this ground that the 
Socrates of Plato mainly rests his faith in the immor- 
tality of the soul, and the moral Government of the 
universe. It had been held by all nations in all 
ages, but with deepest conviction by the best and 
wisest men, as a belief connatural with goodness and 
akin to prophecy. The same argument is adopted by 
Cicero, as the principal ground of his adherence to 
divination. Gentem quidem nullam video neque tam 



tlons of honor, a moral heresy ; I refer to the force of the 
fJrcek nipfcif as signifying a principle or opinion taken up 
l>y the will for the will's sake, as a proof and plcdiro to itself 
of its own power of self-determination, independent of all 
other motives. In the gloomy eratificalion derived or antici- 
PHlnd from the exercise of this awful power — the condition 
of all moral Eood while it is latent, and hidden, as it were, in 
Ihe centre; but the essential cause of fiendish guilt, when it 
makes iL-elf existeniial and peripheric— si (luando in circum- 
fereniiam crumpat : (in both cases I have purposely adopted 
the language of the old mystic theosophcrs) —I find the only 
explanation of a moral phenomenon not very uncommon in 
Ihe last miimonts of condemned felons — viz. Ihe obstinate de- 
nial, not of the main guilt, which mii?ht be accounted for by 
ordinary motives, but of some particular act which had been 
proved beyond all possibility of doubt, and attested by the 
criminal's own accomplices and fellow sufferers in their last 
confessions : and this loo an act, the non-perpetration of 
which, if believed, could neither mitigate the sentence of the 
law, nor even the opinions of men after the sentence had been 
carried into execution. 

Tt 



immanem tamque barbaram, qua; non significari fu- 
tura ot a quibusdam intelligi pra;dicique posse cei> 
seat.* I confess. I can never read the Lh Divinatione 
of this great orator, statesman, and patriot, without 
feeling myself inclined to consider this opinion as an 
instance of the second class, namely, of fractional 
truths integrated by fancy, passion, accident, and that 
preponderance of the positive over the negative in 
the memory, which makes it no less tenacious of co- 
incidences than forgetful of failures. 

Countess. What ! dost thou not believe, that oft in dreams 
A voice of warning speaks pruphctic to us ? 

If'allenstcin. I will not doubt that there may have been 
such voices ; 
Yet 1 would not call them 
Voices of warning, that announce to us 
Only the inevitable. As the sun, 
Eic it is risen, sometimes paints its image 
In the atmosphere ; so often do the spirits 
or great events stride on before events 
And in to-day already icalks to-morrow. 
That which we read of the Fourth Henry's death 
Did ever vex and haunt me, like a tale 
Of my own future destiny. The king 
Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife, 
Long ere Kavaillac arm'd himself therewith. 
His quiet mind forsook him : Uie phantasma 
Started him in his Iiouvre, chased him forth 
Into the open air. Like funeral knells 
Sounded that coronation festival ; 
And still with boding sense he heard the tread 
Of those feet, that even then were seeking him 
Throughout the streets of Paris. 

VVALLENSTEIN, part ii. act v. seme i. 

I am indeed firmly persuaded, that no doctrine was 
ever widely diffused, among various nations through 
successive ages, and under different religions (such 
for instance, as the tenets of original sin and redemp- 
tion, those fundamental articles of every known reli- 
gion profei=sing to have been revealed,) which is not 
founded either in the nature of things, or in the ne- 
cessities of human nature. Nay, the more strange 



* (Translation.)— I find indeed no people or nation, how- 
ever civilized or cultivated, or however wild and barbarous, 
but have deemed that there are antecedent signs of future 
events, and some men capable of understanding and predict- 
ing them. 

I am tempted to add a passage from my own trnnslatiou of 
Schiller's VVallenslein, the more so that the work has been 
long ago used up, as " winding sheets for pilchards," or 
extant only by (as I would fain flatter myself) the kind par- 
tiality of the trunk-makers : though with exception of works 
for which public admiration supersedes or includes individual 
commendations, I scarce remember a book that has been 
more honored by the express attestations in its favor of emi- 
nent and even of popular literati, among whom I take this 
opportunity of expressing my acknowledgments to the aulhor 
of VVaverley. Guy Manncring, &c. How (nnked Ulysses, ad- 
dressing his guardian goddess) shall I be able to recognize 
Proteus, in the swallow that skims round our houses whom I 
have been accustomed to behold as a swan of Phcebus 
measuring his movements to a celestial music ? In both 
alike, she replied, thou canst recognize the god. 

So supported, I dare avow that I have thought my transla- 
tion worthy of a more favorable reception from the public and 
their literary guides and purveyors. But when I recollect, 
that a much better and very far more valuable work, ihe 
Rev. Mr. Carey's incomparable translation of Dante, had 
very nearly met with the same fate, I lose all right, and, I 
trust, all inclination to complain ; an inclination, which the 
mere sense of its folly and uselessness will not always suffice 
to preclude. 

509 



500 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



and irreconcileable such a doctrine may appear to the 
understanding, the judgments of which are ground- 
ed on general rules abstracted from the world of the 
senses, the stronger is the presumption in its favor. 
For whatever satirist may say, or sciolists imagine, 
the human mind has no predilection for absurdity. I 
would even extend the principle (proportionately I 
mean) to sundry tenets, that from their strangeness or 
dangerous tendency, appear only to be generally re- 
probated, as eclipses in the belief of barbarous tribes 
are to be frightened away by noises and execrations ; 
but which rather resemble the luminary itself in this 
one respect, that after a longer or shorter interval of 
occultation, they are still found to re-emerge. It is 
these, the re-appearance of which (nomine tantum 
mutato,) from age to age, gives to ecclesiastical his- 
tory a deeper interest than that of romance and 
scarcely less wild, for every philosophic mind. I am 
far from asserting that such a doctrine (the Antino- 
mian, for instance, or that of a latent mystical sense 
in the words of Scripture, according to Emanuel 
Swedenborg) shall be always the best possible, or not 
a distorted and dangerous, as well as partial, repre- 
sentation of the truth, on which it is founded. For 
the same body casts strangely different shadows in 
different positions and different degrees of light. But 
I dare, and do, affirm that it always does shadow out 
some important truth, and from it derives its main in- 
fluence over the faith of its adherents, obscure as 
their perception of this truth may be, and though 
they may themselves attribute their belief to the su- 
pernatural gifts of the founder, or the miracles by 
which his preaching had been accredited. See Wes- 
ley's Journal. But we have the highest possible au- 
thority, that of Scripture itself to justify us in putting 
the question: Whether miracles can, of themselves, 
work a true conviction in the mind ? There are spi- 
ritual truths which must derive their evidence from 
within, which whoever rejects, "neither will he be- 
lieve though a man were to rise from the dead " to 
confirm them. And under the Mosaic law a miracle 
in attestation of a false doctrine subjected the mira- 
cle-worker to death: whether really or only seem- 
ingly supernatural, makes no difference in the pre- 
sent argument, its power of convincing, whatever 
that power may be, whether great or small, depend- 
ing on the fulness of the belief in its miraculous na- 
ture. Est quibus esse videtur. Or rather, that I may 
express the same position in a form less likely to of- 
fend, is not a true efficient conviction of a moral truth, 
is not " the creating of a new heart," which collects 
the energies of a man's whole being in the focus of 
the conscience, the one essential miracle, the same 
and of the same evidence to the ignorant and learn- 
ed, which no superior skill can counterfeit, human or 
dagmoniacal ? Is it not emphatically that leading of 
the Father, without which no man can come to 
Christ ? Is it not that implication of doctrine in the 
miracle, and of miracle in the doctrine, which is the 
bridge of communication between the senses and the 
soul? That predisposing warmth that renders the 
understanding susceptible of the specific impression 
from the historic, and from all other outward seals of 



testimony ? Is not this the one infallible criterion of 
miracles, by which a man can know whether they be 
of God ? The abhorrence in which the most savage 
or barbarous tribes hold witchcraft, in which how- 
ever their belief is so intense * as even to control the 
springs of life, — is not this abhorrence of witchcraft 
under so full a conviction of its reality a proof, how 
little of divine, how little fitting to our nature, a mira 
cle is, when insulated from spiritual truths, and dis- 
connected from religion as its end ? What then can 
we think of a theological theory, which adopting a 
scheme of prudential legality, common to it with 
" the sty of Epicurus " as far at least as the springs 
of moral action are concerned, makes its whole reli- 
gion consist in the belief of miracles ! As well 
might the poor African prepare for himself a fetisch 
by plucking out the eyes from the eagle or the lynx, 
and, enshrining the same, worship in them the power 
of vision. As the tenet of professed Christians (I 
speak of the principle not of the men, whose hearts 
will always more or less correct the errors of their 
understandings) it is even more absurd, and the pre- 
text for such a religion more inconsistent than the re- 
ligion itself. For they profess to derive from it their 
whole faith in that futurity, which if they had not 
previously believed on the evidence of their own 
consciences, of Moses and the Prophets, they are as- 
sured by the great Founder and Object of Christian- 
ity, that neither will they believe it, in any spiritual 
and profitable sense, though a man should rise from 
the dead. 

For myself, I cannot resist the conviction, built on 
particular and general history, that the extravagances 
of Antinomianism and Solifidianism are little more 
than the counteractions to this Christian paganism : 
the play, as it were, of antagonist muscles. The feel- 
ings will set up their standard against the understand- 
ing, whenever the understanding has renounced its 
allegiance to the reason : and what is faith but the 
personal realization of the reason by its union with 
the will? If we would drive out the demons of fa- 
naticism from the people, we must begin by exorcising 
the spirit of Epicureanism in the higher ranks, and 
restore to their teachers the true Christian enlhnsi- 
as7??,t the vivifying influences of the altar, the censer, 
and the sacrifice. They must neither be ashamed 
of nor disposed to explain away, the articles of pre- 
venient and auxiliary grace, nor the necessity of being 
born again to the life from which our nature had be- 
come apostate. They must administer indeed th»» 
necessary medicines to the sick, the motives of fear 
as well as of hope ; but they must not withhold from 
them the idea of health, or conceal from them that 
the medicines for the sick are not the diet of the 
healthy. Nay, they must make it a part of the cura- 
tive process to induce the patient, on the first symp- 

* I refer the reader to Hearne's Travels among the Copper 
Indians, and to Bryan Edwards's account of the Oby in the 
West Indies, grounded on judicial documents and personal 
observation. 

t The original meaning of the Greek, Enthousiasmos, is; 
the influence of the divinity, such as was supposed to take 
possession of the priest during the performance of the ser- 
vices at the altar. 

510 



THE FRIEND. 



501 



toms of recovery, to look forward wilh prnyer and 
aspiration to llial state, in whicli pirfecl love shiillelli 
out/car. Above all, they must not seek to make the 
mysteries of liiiili what the world calls raliomd by 
theories of original sin and redemption borrowed 
analogically from the imper(i?clion of human law and 
the contrivances of state expedience. 

Among the numerous examples with which I might 
enforce this warning, I refer, not w ilhout reluctance, to 
the most eloquent, and one of the most learned ofour 
divines; a rigorist, indeed, concerning the authority 
of the Church, but a Latitudinarian in the articles of 
its faith ; who stretched the latter almost to the ad- 
vanced posts of Socinianism, and strained the Ibnner 
to a hazardous conformity with the assumptions of the 
Roman hierarchy. With what emotions must not a 
pious mind peruse such passages as the following: — 
" Death reigned upon them whose sins could not be 
Imputed as Adam's was; but although it was not 
wholly imputed upon their own account, yet it was 
imputed upon theirs and Adam's. For God was so 
exasperated with mankind, thai bein^ nngri/ he would 
still continue that punishment to lesser sins and sin- 
ners, which he had first threatened to Adam only. 
The case is this : Jonathan and Michal were Saul's 
children. It came to pass, that seven of Saul's issue 
v\-ere to be hanged ; all equally innocent — equally cul- 
pable.* David took the five sons of Michal, for she 
had lefl him unhandsomely. Jonathan was his friend, 
»nd therefore he spared his son, Mephiboshelh. Here 
it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons (ob- 
seinx, no guilt ivas attached to either of them) whether 
David should take the sons of Michal or of Jona- 
than ; but it is likely, that, as upon the kindness which 
David had to Jonathan, he saved his son, so upon the 
just provocation of Michal, he made that evil to fall 
upon them, which, it may be, they should not have 
suffered, if their mother had been kind. Ad.vm was 
ToGoD, as Micn.\L to David " ! ! ! (Taylor's Polcm. 
Tracts, p. 711.) And this, with many passages equally 
gross, occurs in a refutation of the doctrine of origmal 
sin, on the ground of its incongruity with reason, and 
its incompatibility with God's justice! Exasperated 
with those whom the Bishop has elsewhere, in the 
same treatise, declared to have been " innocent and 
most unfortunate" — the two things that most concili- 
ate love and pity! Or, if they did not remain inno- 
cent, yet, those whose abandonment to a mere nature, 
while they were subjected to a law above nature, he 
affirms to be the irresistible cause that they, one and 
all, rfiVisin! — and this at once illustrated and justified 
by one of the worst actions of an imperfect mortal! 
So far could the resolve to coerce all doctrines within 
the limits of reason (i. e. the individual's power of 
comprehension) and the prejudices of an Armuiian 
against the Calvinist preachers, carry an highly-gifted 
and exemplary divine. Let us be on our guard, lest 
Eimilar effects should result from the zeal, however 
well-grounded in some respects, against the Church 



Calvinists of our days. The writer's belief is per- 
haps, cqui-dislant from that of both parties, the Gro- 
tian and the Genevan. 15ut, confuiing my remark 
exclusively to the doctrines and the practical deduc- 
tions from them, I could never read Bishop Taylor's 
Tract on the doctrine and practice of Repentance, 
without being tempted to characterize high Calvin- 
ism as (comparatively) a lamb in wolfs skin, and 
strict Arminianism as approaching to the reverse. 

Actuated by these motives, I have devoted the fol- 
lowing essay to a brief history of the rise and occa- 
sion of the Latitudinarian system in its first birth- 
place in Greece, and a faithful exhibition both of its 
parentage and its offspring. The reader will find it 
strictly correspondent to the motto of both essays, 
j'l oioi Kartf — the way downwards. 



ESSAY III. 

ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE 
SECT OF SOPHISTS IN GREECE.. 



♦ Thoee two words are aJded without the least ground in 
Ecripture, according to which (2 Samuel, xxi.) no charge was 
laid to them but that thny were the children ol' Saul! and 
sacriliccd to a puiiit of state expedience. 



'H Sios Karu. 
The road downward. 

HERACLIT. Fragment. 



As Pythagoras, (584 a. c.) declining the title of the 
wise man, is said to have first named himself Philo- 
sopher, or lover of wisdom, so Protagoras, followed 
by Gorgias, Prodicus, &c. (444 a. c.) found even the 
former word too narrow for his own opinion of him- 
self; and first assumed the title of Sophist : this word 
originally signifying one w'ho prolijsses the power of 
making others wise, a wholesale and retail dealer in 
wisdom — a wisdom-monger, in the same sense as we 
say, an iron-monger. In this and not in their abuse 
of the arts of re.isoning, have Plato and Aristotle 
placed the essential of the sophistic character. Theii 
sophisms were indeed its natural products and accom- 
paniments, but must yet be distinguished from it, as 
the fruits from the tree. "E/x7ropos ns, (caVjjXoy, 
aDT07ruiAi;f Trf'pt r« tTj; ■^iy^in pia^rfjiara — a vender, a 

market man, in moral and ititelleclual knowledges 
{connoissances) — one who hires himself out or puts 
himself up at auction, as a carpenter and upholsterer 
to the heads and hearts of his customers — such are 
the phrases, by which Plato at once describes and 
satirizes the proper sophist. Nor does the Stagyrite 
fall short of his great master ami rival in the reproba- 
tion of these professors of wisdom, or differ from him 
in the grounds of it. He too gives the baseness of 
the motives joined with the impudence and delusive 
nature of the pretence as the generic character. 

Next to this pretence of selling wisdom and elo- 
quence, they were distinguished by their itineracy. 
Athens was, indeed, their great emporium and place 
of rendezvous; but by no means their domicile. 
Such were Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, 
Polus, Callicles, Trasymachus, and a whole host of 
511 



502 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



sophists minorum gentium : and though many of the 
tribe, like the Euthydemus and Dionysiodorus so 
dramatically portrayed by Plato, were mere empty 
disputants, sleight-of-word jugglers, this was far from 
being their common character. Both Plato and Aris- 
totle repeatedly admit the brilliancy of their talents 
and the extent of their acquirements. The lollowing 
passage from the Tima^us of the former will be my 
best commentary as well as authority. " The race 
sophists, again, I acknowledge for men of no common 
powers, and of eminent skill and experience in many 
and various kinds of knowledge, and these too not 
seldom truly fair and ornamental of our nature ; but 
I fear that somehow, as being itinerants from city to 
city, loose from all permanent ties of house and home, 
and everywhere aliens, they shoot wide of the pro- 
per aim of man whether as philosopher or as citizen." 
The few remains of Zeno the Eleatic, his parado.xes 
against the reality of motion, are mere identical pro- 
positions spun out into a sort of whimsical conun- 
drums, as in the celebrated parado.x entitled Achilles 
and the Tortoise, the whole plausibility of which 
rests on the trick of assuming a minimum of time 
while no minimum is allowed to space, joined with 
that of exacting from Intelligibilia (PJs/jraa) the con- 
ditions peculiar to objects of the senses ((^aivrf/ztuo.) 
The passages still e.ttant from the works of Gorgias, 
on the other hand, want nothing but the form* of a 
premise to undermine by a legitimate deductio ad 
absurdum all the philosophic sj^stems that had been 
hitherto advanced with the exception of the Hera- 
clitic, and of that too as it was generally understood 
and interpreted. Yet Zeno's name was and ever 
will be held in reverence by philosophers ; for his 
object was as grand as his motives were honorable — 
that of assigning the limits to the claims of the 
senses, and of subordinating them to the pure reason : 
while Gorgias will ever be cited as an instance of 
prostituted genius from the immoral nature of his 
object and the baseness of his motives. These and 
not his sophisms constituted him a sophist, a sophist 
whose eloquence and logical skill rendered him only 
the more pernicious. 

Soon after the repulse of the Persian invaders, and 
as a heavy counter-balance to the glories of Mara- 
thon and Plataea, we may date the commencement 
of ihat corruption first in private and next in public 
life, which displayed itself more or less in all the 
free states and communities of Greece, but most of 
all in Athens. The causes are obvious, and such as 
in popular republics have always followed, and are 
themselves the effects of, that passion for military 
glory and political preponderance, which may be 
well called the bastard and the parricide of libert)'. 
In reference to the fervid but light and sensitive 
Athenians, we may enumerate, as the most operative, 
the giddiness of sudden aggrandizement ; the more 



* Viz. If either the worM itself as an animated whole ac- 
cording to the Italian school ; or if atoms, according to 
Democritus ; or any one primal element, as water or fire 
according to Thales or Empedocles, or if a nous, as explain- 
ed by Ana» igoias ; be assumed as Uie absolutely first ; 
then, &.C. 



intimate connection and frequent intercourse with the 
Asiatic states ; the intrigues with the court of Persia ; 
the intoxication of the citizens at large, sustained and 
increased by the continued allusions to their recent 
exploits, in the flatteries of the theatre, and the fune- 
real panegj'rics ; the rage for amusement and public 
shov\s ; and lastly the destruction of the Athenian 
constitution by the ascendency of its democratic ele- 
ment. During the operation of these causes, at an 
early period of the process, and no unimportant part 
of it, the Sophists made their first appearance. 
Some of these applied the lessons of their art in their 
persons, and traded for gain and gainful influence in 
the character of demagogues and public orators ; but 
the greater number offered themselves as instructors 
in the arts of persuasion and temporary impression, to 
as many as could come up to the high prices at which 
they rated their services. Ncoiv Kai v'Xovcrioiv enfiia^i 
^ripevrai (these are Plato's words) — Hireling hunters 
of the young and rich, they offered to the vanity of 
youth and the ambition of wealth a substitute for 
that authority, which by the institutions of Solon had 
been attached to high birth and property, or rather to 
the moral discipline, the habits, attainments, and di- 
recting motives, on which the great legislator had 
calculated (not indeed as necessary or constant ac- 
companiments, but yet) as the regular and ordinary 
results of comparative opulence and renowned an- 
cestry. 

The loss of this stable and salutary influence was 
to be supplied by the arts of popularity. But in order 
to the success of this scheme, it was necessary that 
the people themselves should be degraded into a 
populace. The cupidity for dissipation and sensual 
pleasure in all ranks had kept pace with the in- 
creasing inequality in the means of gratifying it. 
The restless spirit of republican ambition, engender- 
ed by their success in a just war, and by the roman- 
tic character of that success, had already formed a 
close alliance with luxury in its early and most 
vigorous state, when it acts as an appetite to enkin- 
dle, and before it has exhausted and dulled ihe vital 
energies by the habit of enjoyment. But this corrup- 
tion was now to be introduced into the citadel of the 
moral being, and to be openly defended by the very 
arms and instruments which had been given f{)r the 
purpose of preventing or chastising iis approach. 
The understanding was to be corrupted by the per- 
version of the reason, and the feelings through the 
medium of the understanding. For this purpose all 
fixed principles, whether grounded on reason, religion, 
law or antiquity, were to be undermined, and then 
as now, chiefly by the sophistry of submitting all 
positions alike, however heterogeneous, to the crite- 
rion of the mere understanding, disguising or con- 
cealing the fact, that the rules which alone they 
applied, were abstracted from the objects of the 
senses, and applicable exclusively to things of quan- 
tity and relation. At all events, the minds of men 
were to be sensualized ; and even if the arguments 
themselves failed, yet the principles so attacked were 
to be brought into doubt bj' the mere frequency of 
hearing all things doubted, and the most sacred of all 
dl2 



THE FRIEND. 



503 



now oponly ilcnied, and now insulted by sneer and 
ndidile. For by the constitulion of our nature, as 
(lit ns It is human nature, so awful is truth, that as 
long as we have faith in its attainability and hopes of 
its attainment, there exists no bril)e strong enoujjh 
to tempt us wholly and permanently from our alle- 
giance. 

Religion, in its widest sense, signifies the act and 
habit of reverencing the Invisible, as the highest 
both in ourselves and in nature. To this the senses 
and their immediate objects are to be made subser- 
vient, the one as its organs, the other as its exponents: 
and as such therefore, having on their own account 
no true value, because no inherent u-orl/i. They are 
a lai.guaijc, in short: and taken independently of 
their representative function, from words they be- 
come mere empty sourids, and difler from noise only 
hv exciting expectations which they cannot gratify — 
fit ingredients of the idolatrous c/iarm, the potent 
Abracadabra, of a sophisticated race, who had sacri- 
ficed the religion of faith to the superstition of the 
senses, a race of animals, in whom the presence of 
reason is manifested solely by the absence of instinct. 

The same principle, which in its application to the 
whole of our being becomes religion, considered 
speculaliveb/ is the basis of mclaphysical science, that, 
namely, which requires an evidence beyond that of 
sensible concretes, which latter the ancients genera- 
lized in the word, physica, and therefore, (prefixing 
the preposition, mcta, i. e. beyond or transcending) 
named the superior science, metaphysics. The In- 
visible was assumed as the supporter of the apparent, 
ruii' if>aivo^ui'ij)v — as their substance, a terra which, in 
any other interpretation, expresses only the striving 
of the imaginative power under conditions that in- 
volve the necessity of its frustration. If the Invisible 
be denied, or (which is equivalent) considered invisi- 
ble from the defect of the senses and not in its own 
nature, the science even of observation and experi- 
ment lose their essential copula. The component 
parts can never be reduced into an harmonious whole, 
hut must owe their systematic arrangement to acci- 
dents of an ever-shifting perspective. Much more 
then must this apply to the moral world disjoined 
from religion. Instead of morality, we can at best 
have only a scheme of prudence, and this too a pru- 
dence fallible and short-sighted : for were it of such 
a kind as to be bona fida coincident with morals in 
reference to the agent as well as to the outward ac- 
tion, ils first act would be that of abjuring its own 
usurped primacy. JJif celestial observations alone can 
even terrestrial charts be constructed scientifically. 

The first attempt therefore of the sophists was to 
.separate ethics from the faith in the Invisible, and to 
stab morality through the side of religion — an attempt 
to which the idolatrous polytheism of Greece fur- 
nished too many facilities. To the zeal v^ith which 
he counteracted this plan by endeavours to purify 
and ennoble that popular belief, which, from obedi- 
ence to the laws, he did not deem him-self permitted 
lo subvert, did Socrates owe his martyr-cup of hem- 
lock. Still while any one principle of morality re- 
mained, religion in some form or other must remain 
Tt2 



inclusively. Therefore, as they commenced by as- 
sailing the former through the latter, so did they con- 
tinue their warfiire by reversing the operation. 'l"he 
principle was confounded with the particular acts, in 
which under the guidance of the understanding or 
judgment it was to manifest itself 

Thus the rule of expediency, which properly be- 
longed to one and the lower part of morality, was 
made lo be the whole. And so far there was at least 
a consistency in this : for in two ways only could it 
subsist. It must either be the mere servant of reli- 
gion, or its usurper and substitute. \'iewed as prin- 
ciples, they were so utterly heterogeneous, that by no 
grooving could the two be fitted into each other — by 
no intermediate could they be preserved in lasting 
adiiesion. The one or the other was sure to decom- 
pose the cement. We cannot have a stronger histo- 
rical authority lor the truth of this statement, than 
the words of Polybius, in which he allributes the 
ruin of the Greek states to the frequency of perjury, 
which they had leanit from the sophists to laugh at 
as a trifle that broke no bones, nay, as in some cases, 
an expedient and justifiable exertion of the power 
given us by nature over our own words, without 
which no man could have a secret that might not be 
extorted from him by the will of others. In the same 
spirit, the sage and observant historian allributes the 
growth and strength of the Roman republic to the 
general reverence of the invisible powers, and the 
conseciuent horror in which the breaking of an oath 
was held. This he states as the causa causarum, us 
the ultimate and inclusive cause of Roman grandeur. 

Under such convictions therefore as the sophists 
labored with such fatal success to produce, it needed 
nothing but the excitement of the passions under cii- 
cumstances of public discord to turn the argumeni.< 
of expedience and self-love against the whole scheme 
of morality founded on them, and to procure a favor- 
able hearing of the doctrines, which Plato attributes 
to the sophist Callicles. The passage is curious, and 
might be entitled, a Jacobin Head, a genuine antique, 
in high preservation. " By nature," exclaims this 
Napoleon of old, " the worse off is alwa3's the more 
infamous, that, namely, which suffers wrong ; but ac- 
cording to the law it is the doing of wrong. For no 
man of noble spirit will lei himself be wronged : this 
a slave only endures, who is not worth the life he 
has, and under injuries and insults can neither help 
himself or those that belong to him. Those, who 
first made the laws, were, in my opinion, feeble crea- 
tures, which in fact the greater number of men are ; 
or they would not remain entangled in these spider- 
webs. Such, hovvever, being the case, laws, honor, 
and ignominy were all calculated for the advantage 
of the law-makers. But in order lo frighten away 
the stronger, whom they could not coerce by fair con- 
test, and to secure greater advantages for themselves 
than their feebleness could otherwise have procured, 
they preached up the doctrine, that it was base and 
contrary lo right to wish to have any thing bej'ond 
others; and that in this wish consisted the essence of 
injustice. Doubtless it was very agreeable to them, 
if being creatures of a meaner class they were allowed 
513 



504 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



to share equally with their natural superiors. But 
nature dictates plainly enough another code of right, 
namely, that the nobler and stronger should possess 
more than the weaker and more pusillanimous. 
Where the power is, there lies the substantial right. 
The whole realm of animals, nay the human race 
itself as collected in independent states and nations, 
demonstrate, that the stronger has a right to control 
the weaker for his own advantage. Assuredly, they 
have the genuine notion of right, and follow the law 
of nature, though truly not that which is held valid 
in our governments. But the minds of our youths 
are preached away from them by declamations on the 
beauty and fitness of letting themselves be mastered, 
till by these verbal conjurations the noblest nature is 
tamed and cowed, like a young lion bom and bred in 
a cage. Should a man with full untamed force but 
once step forward, he would break all your spells and 
conjurations, trample your contra-natural laws under 
his feet, vault into the seat of supreme power, and in 
a splendid style make the right of nature be valid 
among you." 

It would have been well for mankind, if such had 
always been the language of sophistry ! A selfishness, 
that excludes partnership, ail men have an interest in 
repelling. Yet the principle is the same; and if for 
power we substitute pleasure and the means of plea- 
sure, it is easy to construct a system well fitted to cor- 
rupt natures, and the more mischievous in proportion 
as it is less alarming. As long as the spirit of philoso- 
phy reigns in the learned and highest class, and that 
of religion in all classes, a tendency to blend and 
unite will be found in all objects of pursuit, and the 
whole discipline of mind and manners will be calcu- 
lated in relation to the worth of the agents. With 
the prevalence of sophistry, when the pure will (if 
indeed the existence of a will be admitted in any 
other sense than as the temporary main current in 
the wide gust-eddying stream of our desires and aver- 
sions) is ranked among the means to an alien end, in- 
stead of being itself the one absolute end, in the par- 
ticipation of which all things are worthy to be called 
good — with this revolution commences the epoch of 
division and separation. Things are rapidly improv- 
ed, persons as rapidly deteriorated; and for an indefi- 
nite period the powers of the aggregate increase, as 
the strength of the individual declines. Still, how- 
ever, sciences may be estranged from philosophy, the 
practical from the speculative, and one of the two at 
least may remain. Music may be divided from poe- 
try, and both may continue to exist, though with di- 
minished influence. But religion and morals cannot 
be disjoined without the destruction of both: and 
that this does not take place to the full extent, we 
owe to the frequency with which both take shelter 
in the heart, and that men are always better or worse 
than the maxims which they adopt or concede. 

To demonstrate the hollowness of the present sys- 
tem, and to deduce the truth from its sources, is not 
possible for me without a previous agreement as to 
the principles of reasoning in general. The attempt 
could neither be made within the limits of the pre- 
eent work, nor would its success greatly affect the im- 



mediate moral interests of the majority of the read- 
ers for whom this work was especially written. For 
as sciences are systems on principles, so in the life of 
practice is morality a principle without a system. 
Systems of morality are in truth nothing more than 
the old books of casuistry generalized, even of that 
casuistry, which the genius of Protestantism gradu- 
ally worked oflf from itself like an heterogeneous hu- 
mor, together with the practice of auricular confes- 
sion : a fact the more striking, because in both in- 
stances it was against the intention of the first teach- 
ers of the reformation: and the revival of both was 
not only urged, but provided for, though in vain, by 
no less men than Bishops Saunderson and Jeremy 
Taylor. 

But there is yet another prohibitory reason — and 
this I cannot convey more effectually than in the words 
of Plato to Dionysius — 

AXXa -noldv Ti fii]V tovt i^iv, d) irSt Aiui'vaiov Koi 
Aoipi^os, TO ipiiriifia, S irdvTtiiv aiTiov l^i KaKuiv; ita\- 
\ov 6e fi TTcnl TovTov i)5is fi' Ttj ^v^rj eyyiyvojxivri, 'ijv it 
fxfi Tii ta(ipt^}icri.Tai, Ttjs dXij-Siias 5vru)j dv fiffroTt 
TV)(OL. nXarii)!/ Acii)VDai(j) twi;- ittr. 

(Travsltttion) — But what a question is this which you pro- 
pose, Oh son of Dionysius and Doris! — what is the origin and 
cause of all evil ■? But rather is the darkness and travail con- 
cerning this, that thorn in the soul which unless a man shall 
have had removed, never can he partake of the truth that is 
verily and indeed truth. 

Yet that I may fulfil the original scope of the 
Friend, I shall attempt to provide the preparatory 
steps for such an investigation in the following Es- 
says on the Principles of Method cominon to all in- 
vestigations : which 1 here present, as the basis of my 
future philosophical and theological writings, and as 
the necessary introduction to the same. And in ad- 
dition to this, I can conceive no object of inquiry 
more appropriate, none which, commencing with the 
most familiar truths, with facts of hourly experience, 
and gradually winning its way to positions the most 
comprehensive and sublime, will more aptly prepare 
the mind for the reception of specific knowledge, 
than the full exposition of a principle which is the 
condition of all intellectual progress, and which may 
be said even to comliUde the science of education, 
alike in the narrowest and in the most extensive 
sense of the word. Yet as it is but fair to let the 
public know beforehand, what the genius of my phi- 
losophy is, and in what spirit it will be applied by 
me, whether in politics or religion, I conclude with 
the following brief history of the last 130 years, by a 
lover of Old England : 

Wise and necessitated confirmation and explana- 
tion of the law of England, erroneously entitled The 
English Revolution of 1088 — Mechanical Philosophy, 
hailed as a kindred revolution in philosophy, and es- 
poused, as a common cause, by the partizans of the 
revolution in the state. 

The consequence is, or was, a system of natural 

rights instead of social and hereditary privileges — 

acquiescence in historic testimony substituted for 

faith — and yet the true historical feeling, the feehng 

514 



THE FRIEND. 



505 



of being an historical people, generation linked to 
generation by ancestral reputation, by tradition, by 
heraldry — iliis noble feeling, I say, openly stormed or 
perilniisly uiulermined. | 

lma^;niaiion excluded from poesy; and Hincy para- 
mount in physics; the eclipse of the ideal by the 
mere shadow of tlie sensible — subllciion for supposi- 
tion. Pltbs pru Senatu PopidiM/ue — ihe wealth of ' 
nations for the well-being of nations, and of man ! ' 

Anglo-mania in France; followed by revohition in 
America — constitution of America appropriate, per- 
haps, to America; but elevated from a particular ex- 
periment to an universal model. The word constitu- { 
tion altered to mean a capitulation, a treaty, imposed 
by the people on their own government, as on a con- 
tjuered enemy — hence giving sanction to falsehood, 
and universality to anomaly !!.' | 

Despotism ! Despotism ! Despotism ! of finance 

in statistics — of vanity in social converse ^-of pre- 
sumption and overweening contempt of the ancients 
in individuals ! 

Fre.ncii Revolution! — Pauperism, revenue laws, 
government by clubs, committees, societies, reviews, 
and newspapers ! 

Thus it is that nation first seta fire to a neighboring 
nation ; then catches fire and burns backward. 

Statesmen should know that a learned class is an 
essential element of state — at least of a Christian 
state. But you wish for general illumination ! You 
begin with the attempt to popularize learning and 
philos(jphy; but )'ou will end in the pltheificalion of 
knowledge. A true philosoj)hy in the learned class 
is essential to a true religious feeling in all classes. 

In fine, religion, true or false, is and ever has been 
the moral centre of gravity in Christenilom, to which 
all other things must and will accommodate them- 
selves. 



ESSAY IV. 



O is itKaiov i?-i xoitii', okovc -ndi X9^ ^X^'" ^/^^ '^'" "'^ 
-oii i.XAii\ovi. El /ifv oAa)j</iiXo<ro^ia? KaTaT!t(pp6vri- 
Kitf, idv Kaipciv li ie nap' iripov dfOjuioaj ij avrbi 
fjcXHova iupti<ai tUv vap' ijxdi, CKUva riita. ci 6' apa 
Tii nao' rjnuiv aol ipiaKti, Tijir}TiQv Kal tpie /irfAig-a. 
JIAAXaN- AiaN: trrir" Sevrepa. 

Trannlaliort — Hear then what are the terms on which you 
11(1(1 I ouKht to Bland toward each othiT. If you Ixild 
phildsdpliy altogelher in contC[npl, bid it farewell. Or if you 
have heard from any other persun, or have y(iurs(df found 
out u belter than mine, then give linnor to that, whichever 
it be. But if the doctrine tauihl in lliese our works please 
you, then it is but just that you should honor me too in the 
funic proportion. PLATO'S 2d Letter to Dion. 



What is that which first strikes us, and strikes us 
at once, in a man of education ? And which, among 
educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man of 
superior mind, that (as was observed with eminent 
propriety of Uie late Edmund Burke) " wo cannot 
6G 



stand under the same arch-way during a shower of 
rain, without Jiiulina: him out ?" Kot the weight or 
novelty of his remarks; not any unusual interest of 
facts commtinicaled by him ; ll>r we may suppose 
both the one and the other precluded by the shortness 
of our intercourse, and the triviality of the subjects. 
The diflerence will be impressed and felt, though the 
conversation should be confined to the stale of the 
weather or the pavement. Still less will it ari.se from 
any peculiarity m his words and phrases. For if he 
be, as we now assume, a twW-educated man as well 
as a man of superior powers, he will not fail to fol- 
low the golden rule of Julius Cajsar, Insolens verbum, 
tanquam scopulum, evitare. Unless where new th.ngs 
necessitate new terms, he will avoid an uinistial word 
as a rock. It must have been among llic cuilicst les- 
sons of his youth, that the breach of this precept, at 
all limes hazardous, becomes ridiculous in the topics 
of ordinary conversation. There remains but one 
other point of distinction possible; and this must be, 
and in fact is, the true cause of the impression made 
on us. It is the unpremeditated and evideiiliy habi- 
tual arrangement of his words, grounded on the habit 
of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) 
in every sentence, the whole that he then intends to 
communicate. However irregular and desultory his 
talk, there is method in the fragments. 

Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man, 
though perhaps shrewd and able in his particular call- 
ing; whether ho be describing or relating. We im- 
mediately perceive, that his memory alone is called 
into action ; and that the objects and events recur in 
the narration in the same order, and with the same 
accompaniments, however accidental or impertinent, 
as they had first occurred to the narrator. The ne- 
cessity of taking breath, the efforts of recollection, 
and the abrupt rectification of its fiiilures, produce all 
his pauses ; and with exception of the " and then," 
the "and there," and the still less significant, "and 
so" they constitute likewise all his connections. 

Our discussion, however, is confined to Method as 
employed in the formation of the understanding, and 
in the constructions of science and literature. It 
would indeed be superfluous to attempt a proof of its 
importance in the business and economy of active or 
domestic life. From the cotter's hearth or the work- 
shop of the artisan, to the palace or the arsenal, the 
first merit, thai which admits neither substitute nor 
equivalent, is that every thing is in its place. Where 
this charm is wanting, every other merit either loses 
ils name, or becomes an additional ground of accusa- 
tion and regret. Of one, by whom it is eminently 
possessed, we say proverbially, he is like clockwork. 
The resemblance extends beyond the point of regu- 
larity, and yet falls short of the truth. I5oih do, in- 
deed, at once divide and announce the silent and 
otherwise indistinguishable lapse of time. But the 
man of methodical industry and honorable pursuits, 
does more: he realizes its ideal divisions, aiid gives 
a character and individuality to its moments. If the 
idle are described as killing time, he may he justly 
said to call it into life and moral being, while ho 
makes it the distinct object not only of the conscious 
515 



506 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



ness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours, 
and gives them a soul : and tliat, the very essence 
of whicli is to fleet away, and evermore to have been, 
he takes up into his own permanence, and communi- 
cates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. 
Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, 
thus directed, are thus methodized, it is less truly 
affirmed, that He lives in time, than that Time lives 
in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops and 
punctual marks in the records of duties performed, 
will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant 
when time itself shall be no more. 

But as the importance of Method in the duties of 
social life is incomparably greater, so are its practical 
elements proportionably obvious, and such as relate 
to the will far more than to the understanding. 
Henceforward, therefore, we contemplate its bear- 
ings on the latter. 

The difference between the products of a well- 
disciplined and those of an uncultivated understand- 
ing, in relation to what we will now venture to call 
the Science of Method, is often and admirably exhi- 
bited by our Dramatist. We scarcely need refer our 
readers to the Clown's evidence, in the first scene of 
the second act of " Measure for Measure," or the 
Nurse in " Romeo and Juliet." But not to leave the 
position, without an instance to illustrate it, we will 
take the " easy-yielding" Mrs. Quickly's relation of 
the circumstances of Sir John Falslaff's debt to her. 

Falstnff- What is the gross sum that I owe thee f 
Mrs. Quickly. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thy- 
self and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a 
parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my dolphin chamber, at the round 
table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednes<lay in VVhitsun week 
when the prince broke thy head for likening liis father to a 
singing-man in Windsor — thou didst swear to me then, as I 
was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady 
thy wife. Canat thou deny it ? Did not good-wife Keech, 
the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quick- 
ly 1 — coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar : telling us she 
had a good dish of prawns — whereby thou didst desire to eat 
some — whereby I told Ihee they were ill for a green wound, 
&c. &c. &c. HENRY IV. \st pt. act.ii. sc. 1. 

And this, be it observed, is so far from being car- 
ried beyond the bounds of a fair imitation, that " the 
poor soul's " thoughts and sentences are more closely 
interlinked than the truth of nature would have re- 
quired, but that the connections and sequence, which 
the habit of Method can alone give, have in this in- 
stance a substitute in the fusion of passion. For the 
absence of Method, which characterizes the unedu- 
cated, is occasioned by an habitual submission of the 
understanding to mere events and images as such, 
and independentof any power in the mind to classify 
or appropriate them. The general accompaniments 
of time and place are the only relations which per- 
sons of this class appear to regard in their statements. 
As this constitutes their leading feature, the contrary 
excellence, as distinguishing the well-educated man, 
must be referred to the contrary habit. Method, 
therefore, becomes natural to the mind which has 
been accustomed to contemplate not (kings only, or 
for their own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the 
relations of things, either their relations to each other, 
or .to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of 



the hearers. To enumerate and analyze these rela 
tions, with the conditions under which alone they arcs 
discoverable, is to teach the science of Method. 

The eiu'iable results of this science, when know- 
ledge has been ripened into those habits which at 
once securo fiid evince its possession, can scarcely be 
exhibited mor^ forcibly as well as more pleasingly, 
than by contrarting with the former extract from 
Shakspeare the nerr-vt^ )n given by Hamlet to Horatio 
of the occurrencer e'unpg his proposed transportation 
to England, and the tv.nits that interrupt ■>d his voy- 
age. 

Ham. Sir, in my heat >^C'•e was a kind i fighting 
That would not let me sleet. ■ iieihought I la.v 
Worse than the mulines in th l Iboee. Rnshly, 
And prais'd be rashness for it — -7,ct us ki^ot.- 
Our indiscretion sometimes ser, ",. us oc.'(, 
M'/ieii our deep plots do fail : o^ ' ki..' ,'i « ach \ > 
There's a dvBinity that shapes ok i''t.; 
Rongh-hew them hoic we will. 

Hor. That is most certain. 

Ham. Up from my cabin, 
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the darl> 
Grop'd I to find out them ; had my desire; 
Finger'd tlieir pocket ; and, in fine, withdrew 
To my own room again; making so bold, 
Mu fears forgetting manners, to unseal 
Their grand commission : where /found, Horatio 
A royal knavery — an e.'iact command. 
Larded with many sivcral sorts of rcasnns 
Importing Denmark's health, and England's to 
With, ho ! such bugs and goldms in my life, 
That on the supervize, no leisure bated. 
No, nnt to slay the grinding of the axe. 
My head should bo struck olf ! 

Hor, Is 't possible ? 

Ham. Here's the commission. — Read it at more leisure. 

Act. V. sc. 2 

Here the events, with the circumstances of time 
and place, are all stated with equal compression and 
rapidity, not one introduced which could have been 
omitted without injury to the intelligibility of the 
whole process. If any tendency is discoverable, as 
far as the mere facts are in question, it is the tenden- 
cy to omission: and, accordingly, the reader will ob- 
serve, that the attention of the narrator is called back 
to one material circumstance, which he was hurrying 
by, by a direct question from the friend to whom the 
story is communicated, " How was this sealed V 
But by a trait which is indeed peculiarly character- 
istic of Hamlet's mind, ever disposed to generalize, 
and meditative to excess (but which, with due abate- 
ment and reduction, is distinctive of every powerful 
and methodizing intellect), all the digressions and en- 
largements consist of reflections, truths, and princi- 
ples of general and permanent interest, either directly 
expressed or disguised in playful satire. 



■ I sat me down ; 



Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair, 
/ once did hold it, as our statists do, 
A baseness to write fair, and labored muck 
How to forget that learning : but, sir. now 
It did me yeoman's service. WUt thou know 
Tlif efl'ecl of what I wrote 1 

Hiir. Ay, good my lord. 

Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king. 
As England was his faithful tributary ; 
As love between them, like the palm, might flourish; 
As peace should still her wheatcn garland wear. 
And many such like As's of great charge — 

516 



THE FRIEND. 



507 



That on tlio view and knowing of these contents 
III- shuiiUI ilio bcnrrrs put to sudden death, 
NuEhrivini; liino alUiwed. 

Hor. I low WU8 this sealed ? 

Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. 
I hnd my lathiir's eisnot in my (iiirsc, 
Which was iho model of Ihat Danish seal ; 
roidc'd the writ up in the form of the other ; 
•SiibscriliLd it ; puve 't the impression ; placed it safely. 
The changeling never known. Now, the next day 
Was our sea-fii;ht ; and what to this was sequent, 
Thou knowest already. 

flor. So Guildcnslcrn and Rosencranlz go to 't 7 

Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment. 
They are not near my conscience : their defeat 
Poih by tluir own insinuation grow. 
' Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes 
Dctwecit the pass and fell incensed points 
Of mighty apposites. 

It would, perhaps, be siifllcient to remark of the 
preceding passage, in connection with the humorous 
specimen of narration, 

" Fermenting o'er with frothy circumstances," 
in Henry IV'.; that if overlooking the different value 
of the matter in each, w'e considered the form alone, 
we should find both unmethodical ; Hamlet from the 
excess, Mrs. Quickly from the want, of reflection 
atid generalization ; and that Method, therefore, must 
result from the due mean or balance between our 
passive impressions and the mind's own re-action on 
the same. (Whether this re-action do not suppose or 
imply a primary act positively or/ginaling in the mind 
itself, and prior to the object in order of nature, though 
co-mstantaneous in its manifestation, will be hereafter 
discussed.) But we had a further purpose in thus 
conlrasiing these extracts from our "myriad-minded 
Bard," (ixvpiovovi av>ip.) We wished to bring fiirward, 
each for itself, these two elements of Method, or (to 
adopt an arithmetical term) its two mam factors. 

Instances of the want of generalization are of no 
rare occurrence in real life: and the narrations of 
Shakspeare's Hostess and the Tapster, differ fi-om 
those of the ignorant and Unthinking in general, by 
their superior humor, the poet's own gift and infu- 
sion, not by iheir want of Method, which is not 
greater than we often meet with in that class, of 
wliich they are the dramatic representatives. In- 
stances of the opposite fault, arising from the excess 
of generalization and reflection in minds of the oppo- 
site class, will, like the minds themselves, occur less 
frequently in the course of our own personal experi- 
ence. Yet they will not have been wanting to our 
readers, nor will they have ))assed unobserved, thotigh 
the great poet himself {& tijv iavrSv -^v^ljv liau v\i)v 
riva aaiajxaTov liOpipSi; iroiKiAai? /xopijiiiaas*) has more 
conveniently supplied the illustrations. To complete, 
therefore, the purpose afiireinentioned, that of pre- 
senting each of the two coinponents as separately as 
possible, we chose an instance in which, by the sur- 
plus of its own activity, Hamlet's mind disturbs the 
arrangement, of which that very activity had been 
the cause and impulse. Thus exuberance of mind, 
on the one hand, interferes with the forms of Meth- 



Translation. — He that moulded his own soul, as some in- 
corporeal material, into various forms. THEJIISTIUS. 



od ; but sterility of mind, on the other, wanting tlio 
spring and imptilse to mental action, is wholly de- 
structive of Method itself For in attending lu) 
exclusively to the relations which the past or passing 
events and objects bear lo general truth, and the 
moods of his own Thought, the most intelligent man 
is sometimes in danger of overlooking that other re- 
lation, in which they are likewise to be placed to the 
apprehension and synijialhies of his hearers. His 
discourse appears like soliloquy intermixed with dia- 
logue. But the uneducated and unreflecting talker 
overtake all mental relations, both logical and psy- 
chological; and consequently precludes all Method, 
that is not purely accidental. Hence the nearer the 
things and incidents in time and place, the more dis- 
tant, disjointed, and impertinent to each other, and to 
any common puriwse, will ihey appear in his narra- 
tion : and this from the want of a staple, or starting- 
post, in the narrator himself; from the absence of the 
leading Thought, which, borrowing a phrase from 
the nomenclature of legislation, wo may not inaptly 
call the Initiative. On tho contrary, where the 
habit of Method is present and effective, things the 
most remote and diverse in time, place, and outward 
circumstance, are brought into mental contiguity 
and succession, the more striking as the less ex- 
pected. But while we would impress the necessity 
of this habii, the illustrations adduced give proof that 
in undue preponderance, and when the prerogative 
of the mind is stretched into despotism, the discourse 
may degenerate into the grotesque or the fiintas- 
tical. 

With what a profound insight into ;he constitution 
of the human soul is this exhibited to us in the char- 
acter of tho Prince of Denmark, where flying from 
the sense of reality, and seeking a repricNe from the 
pressure of its duties, in that ideal activity, the over- 
balance of which, with the consequent indisposition 
lo action, is his disease, he compels the reluctant good 
sense of the high yet healthful-minded Horatio, to 
follow him in his wayward meditation amid the 
graves? " To what base uses we may return, Hora- 
tio! Why mat/ vol imagination trace the noMe dust 
of Alexander, till he find it slopping a hung-hole? 
HoR. It leere to consider too curiously to consider so. 
Ham. No, faith, not a jot ; but to follow him thither 
with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it. As 
thus : Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexan- 
der returnelh to dust — the dust is earth ; of earth we 
male loam : and why of that loam, whereto he was con- 
verted, might they not stop a beer-barrel ? 

Imperial Cecsar dead and turn'd to clay. 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!" 

But let it not escape our recollection, that when 
the objects thus connected are proportionate to the 
connecting energy, relatively to the real, or at least 
to tiie desirable sympathies of mankind ; it is from 
the same character Ihat we derive the genial method 
in llie famous soliloquy, "To be? or not to be?" 
which, admired as it is, and has been, has yet re- 
ceived only the first fruits of the admiration due lo it. 

We have seen that from the confluence of innu- 
617 



508 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



merable impressions in each moment of time the 
passive memory must needs tend to confusion — a 
rule, the seeming exceptions to which (the thunder- 
bursts in Lear, for instance) are really confirmations 
of its truth. For, in many instances, the predomi- 
nance of some mighty Passion takes the place of the 
guiding Tiiought, and the result prevents the method 
of Nature, rather than the habit of the Individual. 
For Thought, Imagination, (and we may add, Passion,) 
are, in their very essence, the first, connective, the 
latter co-adunative : and it has been shown, that if 
the excess lead to Method misapplied, and to connec- 
tions of the moment, the absence, or marked defici- 
ency, either precludes Method altogether, both form 
and substance : or (as the following extract will ex- 
emplify) retains the outward form only. 

My liege and madam ! to expostulate 

What majesty should be, what duty is. 

Why day is day, night night, and time is time. 

Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. 

Therefore — since brevity is the soul of wit, 

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, 

I will be brief. Your noble son is mad : 

Mad call I it— for to define true madness, 

What is't, but to be nothing else but mad! 

But let that go. 

Queen. More matter with less art. 

Pol. Madam! I swear, I use no art at all. 
That he is mad, 'tis true : 'tis true, 'tis pity : 
And pity 'tis, 'tis true (a foolish figure ! 
But farewell it, for Twill use no art.) 
Mad let us grant him then : and now remains. 
That we find out the cause of this effect : 
Or rather say the cause of this defect : 
For this effect defective comes by cause. 
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus 
Perpend. HAMLET, act ii. scene 2. 

Does not the irresistible sense of the ludicrous in 
this flourish of the soul-surviving body of old Poloni- 
us's intellect, not less than in the endless confirma- 
tions and most undeniable matters of fact, of Tapster 
Pompey, or " the hostess of the tavern," prove to our 
feelings, even before the word is found which pre- 
sents the truth to our understandings, that confusion 
and formality are but the opposite poles of the same 
null-point. 

It is Shakspeare's peculiar e.xcellence, that through- 
out the whole of his splendid picture gallery (the 
reader will excuse the confest inadequacy of this 
metaphor), we find individuality every where, mere 
portrait no where. In all his various characters, we 
still feel ourselves communing with the same human 
nature, which is every where present as the vegeta- 
ble sap in the branches, sprays, leaves, buds, blos- 
soms, and fruits, their shapes, tastes, and odors. 
Speaking of the effect, i. e. his works themselves, 
we may define the excellence of their method as 
consisting in that just proportion, that union and in- 
terpenetration of Ihe universal and the particular, 
which must ever pervade all works of decided genius 
and true science. For Method implies a progressive 
transition, and it is the meaning of the word in the 
original language. The Greek Mc&oSo^, is literally 
a way, or pal/i of Transit. Thus we extol the Ele- 
ments of Euclid, or Socrates' discourse with the 
»\ave in the Menon, as methodical, a term which no 



one who holds himself bound to think or speak cor- 
rectly, would apply to the alphabetic order or ar- 
rangement of a common dictionary. But as, without 
continuous transition, there can be no Method, so 
without a pre-conception there can be no transition 
with continuity. The term. Method, cannot there- 
fore, otherwise than by abuse, be applied to a mere 
dead arrangement, containing in itself no principle 
of progression. 



ESSAY V. 



Scienliis idem quod plantis. Si planta aliqna uti in animo 
habeas, de radice quid fiat, nil refert : si vcro transferre 
cupiaa in aliud solum, tutius est radicibus uti quam surcu- 
lis. Sic traditio, qu» nunc in usu est, exhibet plane tanquam 
truncos (pulchrcjs illos quideni) scientiarum ; sed tamen 
absque radicibus fabro lignario carte commodos, at plantatori 
inutilts. Quud si, disciplinoe ut crescant, libi cordi sit, do 
truncia minus sis solicitus : ad id curam adiiibc, ut radices 
illwssetiam cum aliquantulo terree adha;renlis, cxiraliantur: 
dummodo hoc pacto et scientiam propriam revisere, vesti- 
gia que cognitinnis tute remeteri possis ; et earn sic trans 
plantaie in animum alienum, sicut crevit in tuo. 

BACON de Augment. Scient. I. vi. c. ii. 

Translation. — It is with science as with trees. If it be your 
purpose to malie some particular use of the tree, you need 
not concern yourself about the roots. But if you wish to 
transfer it into another soil, it is then safer to employ the 
roots, than the scyons. Thus the mode of teaching most 
common at present exhibits clearly enough the trunks, as it 
were, of the sciences, and those too of handsome growth; 
but nevertheless, without the roots, valuable and convenient 
as they undoubtedly are to the carpenter, they are useless 
to the planter. But if you have at heart the advancement 
of education, as that which proposes to itself ihe general 
discipline of the mind for its end and aim, be less anxious 
concerning the trunks, and lot it be your care, that the 
roots should be extracted entire, even though a small por- 
tion of the soil should adhere to them : so that at all events 
you may be able, by this means, both to review your scien- 
tific acquirements, re-measuring as it were, the steps of 
your knowledge for your own satisfaction, and at the same 
lime to transplant it into the minds of others, just as it 
grew in your own. 



It has been observed, in a preceding page, that the 
RELATIONS of objects are prime materials of Method, 
and that the contemplation of relations is the indis- 
pensable condition of thinking methodically. It be- 
comes neces.sary therefore to add, tliat there are two 
kinds of relation, in which objects of mind may be 
contemplated. The first is that of Law, which, in 
its absolute perfection, is conceivable only of the Su- 
preme Being, whose creative idea not only appoints 
to each thing its position, but in that position, and in 
consequence of that position, gives it its qualities, 
yea, it gives its very existence, as that particular thing. 
Yet in whatever science the relation of the parts to 
each other and to the whole is predetermined by a 
truth originating in the mind, and not abstracted or 
generalized from observation of the parts, there w 
affirm the presence of a law, if we are speaking of 
the physical sciences, as of Astronomy for instance ; 
or the presence of fundamental ideas, if our discourse 
be upon those sciences, the truths of which as truths 
518 



THE FRIEND. 



509 



absolute, not merely have an independent origin in 
the mind, but couiinue to exist in and for tlie mind 
alone. Such, lor instance, is Geometry, and sucli are 
tlie ideas of a perfect circle, of asymplols, &:c. 

We have thus assigned rhe (irst phice in the science 
of Melliod to Law ; and first of the lirst, to Law, as 
the absolute fdnd which comprehending in itself the 
substance of every possible degree precludes IVom its 
conception all degree, not by generalization but by 
its own plenitude. As such, therefore, and as the 
sufficient cause of the reality correspondent iherelo, 
we contemplate it as exclusively an attribute of the 
Supreme Being, inseparable from the idea of God : 
adding, however, that from the contemplation of law 
in this, its only perfect form, must be derived all true 
insight into all other grounds and principles necessary 
to Method, as tlie science common to all sciences, 
which in each Tvy^drci ov uWo dtri/f tTh iizi^iifttf^. 
Alienated from this (intuition shall we call it? or 
8leadta.st faith ?) ingenious men may produce schemes, 
conducive to the peculiar purposes of particular sci- 
ences, but no scientific system. 

But though we caimot enter on the proof of this 
assertion, we dare not remain exposed to the suspi- 
cion of having obtruded a mere private opinion, as a 
fundamental truth. Our authorities are such that 
our only difiiculty is occasioned by their number. 
The following extract from Aristocles (preserved with 
other interesting fragments of the same writer by Eu- 
sebius) is as explicit as peremptory. "E.(pi\ouo<pnac 
fiiv IlXaro)!', ii Kai Tt; aAAoj rail' Trujrori, yvijaiwg Kai 
rcXfiuJs" ii^tS ii iifi ivvaaSai ra av^jimitiva KariSttv i'lfiUi, 
II fir) TO Sua -rpoTcpov i(pS'c!)]- EusEB. Pnep. Evan, 
xi. 3.* And Plato himself in his De Republica, hap- 
pily still extant, evidently alludes to the same doc- 
trine. For personating Socrates in the discussion of 
a most im|X)rtant problem, namely, whether political 
justice is or is not the same as private honesty, after 
many inductions, and much analytic reasoning, ho 
breaks off with these words — ev y 'iaSi, i rXai'/cuv, 
(Ls i lyn} loi,a, AKPIBilS MEN TOYTO 'EK TOIOV- 
TflN MEOO^riN, OIAIS NYN EN TOIS AOrOIS 
XPflMEOA, OY MUnOTE AABilMEN" AAAA TAP 
MAKPOTEPA KAI nAEIflN OAOS H EHi TOYTO 
ATOYSAt — not however, he adds, precluding the 
former (the analytic, and inductive, to wit) which 
have their place likewise, in which (but as subordi- 
nate to the other) they are both useful and requisite. 
If any doubt could be entertained as to the purport 
of these words, it would be removed by the fact 
stated by Aristotle in his Ethics, that Plato had dis- 

* Translation. — Plato, uhn philosophized IPKilimately and 
perfectively if ever any man did in any ace, hold it for an 
axiom, that it is not possible fur us to have an int.ii:lit into 
Ihincs human (i. e. the nature and relations of man, and 
the objects presented by nature for his investigation,) 
without any previous contemplation (or inlclleclual visi<in) 
of things divine : that is, of truths thai are to bo afiirmed 
concerning the absolute, as far as they can be made known 
to us. 

T (Translation). — But know well, O Glaucon, as my firm 
persuasion, thai by such methods, as we have hitherto used 
in this inquisition, wo can never attain to a satisfactory in- 
sight; for it is a longer and ampler way that conducts to this. 
— PLATO Ve revublica, iv 



cussed the problem, whether in order to scientific 
ends wo must set out from principles, or ascend to- 
wards them : in other words, w hether the synthetic 
or analytic be the right method. But as no such 
question is directly discussed in the published works 
ol" the great master, Aristotle must either have re- 
ceived it orally from Plato himself; or have fotmd it 
in the aypacpa ^oyftara, the private text book or ma- 
nuals constructed by his select disciples, and intelli- 
gible to those only who like themselves had been en- 
trusted with the esoteric (interior or unveiled) doc- 
trines of Platonisni. Comparing this therefore with 
the writings, which he held it safe or not profane lo 
make public, we may safely conclude, that Plato con- 
sidered the investigation of truth a posteriori as that 
which is employed in explaining the rcsull.tiA' a nwre 
scientific process to tho.se, for whom the knowledge 
of the results was alone requisite and suflicient ; or 
in preparing the mind for legitimate method, by ex- 
posing the insufficiency or self-contradictions of the 
proofs and results obtained by the contrary process. 
Hence therefore the earnestness with which the ge- 
nuine Platonists opposed the doctrine (that all demon- 
stration consisted of identical propositions) advanced 
by Stilpo, and maintained by the Megaric school, who 
denied the synthesis, and as Hume and others in 
recent times, held geometry itself to be merely ana- 
lytical. 

The grand problem, the solution of which forms, 
according to Plato, the final object and distinctive 
character of philosophy is this : for all that exists con- 
dilionally (i. e. the existence of which is inconceiva- 
ble except under the condition of its dependency on 
some other as its antecedent) to find a ground that is 
unconditional and absolute, and thereby to reduce the 
aggregate of human knowledge to a system. For the 
relation common to all being known, the appropriate 
orbit of each becomes discoverable, together with its 
pecuhar relations to its concenlrics in the common 
sphere of subordination. Thus the centrality of the 
sun having been established, and the law of the dis- 
tances of the planets from the sun having been deter 
mined, we possess the means of calculating the dis 
tanceof each from the other. But as all objects of 
sense are in continual flux, and as the notices of them 
by the senses must, as far as they are true nolices, 
change with them, while scientific principles (or laws) 
are no otherwise principles of science than as they 
are permanent and always the same, the latter were 
appointed to the pure reason, either as its products or 
ast implanted in it. And now the remarkable fact 
forces itself on our attention, viz. that the material 
world is found to obey the same laws as had been de- 
duced independently from the reason: and that the 
masses act by a force, which cannot be conceived to 



% Which of iheso Iwo doctrines was Plato's own opinion, it 
is hard to say. In many paBsages of his works, the latter (i. 
e. the doctrine of innate, or rather of connate, ideas) seems lo 
be it; but from the character and avowed i)i;rposc of these 
works, as addressed to a promiscuous public, and theroforo 
preparatory and for the discipline ol' the mind raiher than di- 
rectly doctrinal, it is not improbable that Plato chose it as the 
more popular representation, and as belonging to the poetto 
drapery of his Pbilosophcmeta. 

519 



510 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



result from the component parts, known or imagina- 
ble. In the phenomena of magnetism, electricity, 
galvanism, and in chemistry generally, the mind is 
led instinctively, as it were, to regard the working 
powers as conducted, transmitted, or accumulated by 
the sensible bodies, and not as inherent. This fact 
has, at all times, been the strong hold alike of the ma- 
terialists and of the spiritualists, equally solvable by 
the two contrary hypotheses, and fairly solved by 
neither. In the clear and masterly* review of the 
elder philosophies, which must be ranked among the 
most splendid proofs of judgment no less than of ge- 
nius: and more expressly in the critique on the atomic 
orcorpusculardoctrineof Democritus and his followers 
as the one extreme, and that of the pure rationalism 
of Zeno and the Eleatic school as the other, Plato has 
proved incontrovertibly, that in both alike the basis 
is too narrow to support the superstructure ; that the 
grounds of both are false or disputable ; and that, if 
these were conceded, yet neither the one nor the 
other is adequate to the solution of the problem: viz. 
what is the ground of the coincidence between rea- 
son and experience ? Or between the laws of matter 
and the ideas of the pure intellect? The only an- 
swer vi'hich Plato deemed the question capable of 
receiving, compels the reason to pass out of itself and 
seek the ground of this agreement in a snpersensual 
essence, which being at once the ideal of the reason 
and the cause of the material world, is the pre-estab- 
lisher of the harmony in and between both. Reli- 
gion therefore is the ultimate aim of philosophy, in 
consequence of which philosophy itself becomes the 
supplement of the sciences, both as the convergence 
of all to the common end, namely, wisdom; and as 
supplying the copula, which modified in each in the 
comprehension of its parts to one whole, is in its prin- 



* I can conceive no better reincdy for the overweening self- 
complacency of modern philosophy, than the annulment of its 
pretended originality. The attempt has been made by Dutens, 
but he failed in it by flyin; to the opposite e.^treme. When 
he should have confined himself to the philosophies, he e.x- 
tended his attack to the sciences and even to the main disco- 
veries of hater limes ; and thus instead of vindicating the an- 
cients, he became the calumniator of the moderns : as far at 
least as detraction is calumny. It is my intention to give a 
course of lectures in the course of the present season, com- 
prising the origin, and progress, the fates and fortunes of phi- 
losophy, from Pythagoras to Locke, with the lives and succes- 
sion of the philosophers in each sect: tracing the progress of 
speculative science chiefly in relation to the gradual develop- 
ment of the human mind, but without omitting the favorable or 
inauspicious influence of circumstances and the accidents of 
individual genius. The main divisions will be, 1. From Thales 
and Pythagoras to the appearance of the Sophists, 'i. And of 
Socrates. The character tmd effects of Socrates' life and doc- 
trines, illustrated in the instances of Xenophon, as his most 
faithful representative, and of Antisthenes or the Cynic sect as 
the one partial view of his philosophy, and of Aristippus or 
the Cyrenaic sect as the other and opposite extreme. 3. Pla- 
to and Platonism. 4. Aristotle and the Peripatetic school. 5. 
Zeno and Stoici.am, Epicurus and Epicurianism, with the ef- 
fects of these in the Roman Republic and empire. 6. The 
rise of the Eclectic or Alexandrian philosophy, the aUemptto 
set up a pseudo-Platonic Polytheism against Christianity, the 
degradation of philosophy itself into mysticism and magic, 
and its final disappearance, as philosophy, under Justinian. 
7. The resumption of the Aristotelian philosophy in the thir- 
teenth century, and the successive re-appearance of the differ- 
f nt sects from the restoration of literature to our own times 

S. T. G 



ciples common to all, as integral parts of one sj'stem. 
And this is Method, itself a distinct science, the im^ 
mediate offspring of philo.sophy, and the link or mor- 
danl by which philosophy becomes scientific and the 
sciences philosophical. 

The second relation is that of Theory, in which 
the existing forms and qualities of objects, discovered 
by observation or experiment, suggest a given arrange- 
ment, of many under one point of view: and this not 
merely or principally in order to facilitate the remem- 
brance, recollection, or communication of the same; 
but for the purposes of understanding, and in most 
instances of controlling them. In other words, all 
Theoiiv supposes the general idea of cause and ef- 
fect. The scientific arts of Medicine, Chemistry, and 
Physiology in genrral, are examples of a method hith- 
erto founded on this second sort of relation. 

Between these two lies the Method in the Fine 
Arts, which belongs indeed to this second or exter- 
nal relation, because the effect and position of the 
parts is always more or less influenced by the know- 
ledge and experience of their previous qualities ; but 
which nevertheless constitute a link connecting the 
second form of relation with the first. For in all, that 
truly merits the naine of Poetry in its most compre- 
hensive sense, there is a necessary predominance of 
the Ideas (i. e. of that which originates in the artist 
himself, and a comparative indifference of the mate- 
rials. A true musical taste is soon dissatisfied with 
the Harmonica, or any similar instrument of glass or 
steel, because the body of the sound (as the Italians 
phrase it,) or that effect which is derived from the 
materials, encroaches too far on the effect from the 
proportions of the notes, or that which is given to Mu- 
sic by the mind. To prove the high value as well 
as the superior dignity of the first relation ; and to 
evince, that on this alone a perfect Method can be 
grounded, and that the methods attainable by the se- 
cond are at best but approximations to the first, or 
tentative exercise in the hope of discovering it, form 
the first object of the present disquisition. 

These truths we have (as the most pleasing and 
popular mode of introducing the subject) hitherto il- 
lustrated from Shakspeare. But the same truths, 
namely the necessity of a mental Initiative to all Me- 
thod, as well as a careful attention to the conduct of 
the mind in the exercise of Method itself, may be 
equally, and here perhaps more characteristically, 
proved from the most familiar of the Sciences. We 
may draw our elucidation even from those which are 
at present fashionable among us: from Botany or 
from Chemistry. In the lowest attempt at a me- 
thodical arrangement of the former science, that of 
artificial classification for the preparatory purpose of 
a nomenclature, some antecedent must have been 
contributed by the mind itself; some purpose must 
have been in view ; or some question at least must 
have been proposed to nature, grounded, as all ques- 
tions are, upon some idea of the answer. As for in- 
stance, the assumption, 

" That two great sexes animate the world." 

For no man can confidently conceive a fact to be 
universally true who does not with equal confidence 
520 



THE FRIEND. 



611 



anticipate its necessiti/, and who does not believe that 
necessity to be denioiistrablo by an insight into its 
nature, whenever and wherever such insight can be 
obtained. Wo aciinowlcdge, we reverence the obh- 
pations of Botany to Linnaeus, who, adopting from 
Bartholinus and others llicsexuahty of plants, ground- 
ed tliereon a scheme of dassific and distinelivo marks, 
by which one man's experience may be communicated 
to others, and the objects safely reasoned on while 
absent, and recognized as soon as and whenever they 
are met with. He invented on universal character 
for the language of notany,charceable with no great- 
er imperfections than are to be found in thoalpliabets 
of every particular language. As for the study of the 
ancients, so of the works of nature, an accidence and 
a diction.iry are the first and indispensable requisites: 
and to the illustrious Swede, Botany is indebted for 
both. But neither was the central idea of vegetation 
itself, by the light of which we might have seen the 
collateral relations of the vegetable to the inorganic 
and to the animal world ; nor the constitutive nature 
and inner necessity of sex itself, revealed to Lin- 
n.-EUS.* Hence, as in all other cases where the mas- 



* The word nature ha3 been used in two senses, viz. active- 
ly nnd pnssively ; enerselic (=forma formans,) and material 
(=forma formala.) In the lirst (Ihe sense in which the word 
16 used in the text) it signifies the inward principle of what- 
ever is requisite for the reality of a thing as crislcnt : \vhi\ti 
the essence, or essential property, sicnifies the inner principle 
of all that appertains to the possibilit!/ of a thing. Hence, in 
Hccurate language, wo say the essence of a mathematical cir- 
cle or other geometrical figure, not the nature : because in 
the conception of forms purely geometrical there is no ex- 
pression or implication of their real existence. In the second. 
or material sense, of the word Nature, we mean by it Ihe sum 
total of all things, so far as they are objects of our senses, 
and consequently of possible experience — the aggregate of 
phenomena, whether existing for our outward senses, or for 
our inner sense. The doctrine concerning material nature 
would therefore (the word Physiology being both ambiguous 
in Itself, and already otherwise appropriated) he more proper- 
ly entitled Phenomenology, distinguished inio its two grand 
divisions, Somatalogy and Psychology. The doctrine con- 
cerning energetic nature is comprised in the science n( Dyna- 
mics : the union of which with Phenomenology, and the alli- 
ance of both with the sciences of the Possible, or of the Con- 
c«ivable, viz. Logic and RIathematics, constitute J^atural 
Thilosophy. 

Having thus explained Ihe term Nature, we now more espe- 
cially entreat the reader's attention to the sense, in which 
here, and every where through this Essay, we use the word 
Iilea. We assert, that the very impulse to universalize any 
phenomenon involves the prior assumption of some efUcient 
law in nature, which in a thousand difTerenl forms is evermore 
one and the same ; entire in e.ich, yet comprehending all ; and 
incapable of being abstracted or generalized from any number 
of phenomena, because it is itself pre-supposed in each and 
all as their common ground and condition: and because 
every definition of a genus is the adequate definition of the 
lowest species alone, while the efficient law must contain the 
ground of all in all. It is attributed, never derived. The ut- 
most we ever venture to say is, that the falling of an apple 
suggested the law of gravitation to Sir 1. Newton. Now a 
law and an idea are correlative terms, and differ only as ob- 
ject and subject, as being and truth. 

Such is the doctrine of the Novum Organum of Lord B-i- 
con, agreeing (as we shall more largely show in the text) in 
all esRPntial points with the true doctrine of Plato, the appa- 
rent differences being for the greater part occasioned by the 
f'.rerian sage having applied his principles chiefly to the in- 
vosligilion ot Ihe mind, nnd Ihe method of ovolvino its pow- 
ers, and the English philosopher to ihe dovclopemont of na- 
ture. Tliat our great countryman speaks too often dctract- 
34 Uu 



ter-light is missing, so in this: the reflective mind 
avoids Scylla only to lose itself on Charybdis. If we 
adhere to the general notion of sex, as abstracted 
from the more obvious modes and forms in which the 
sexual relation manifests itself, we soon meet with 
whole classes of plants to which it is found inappli- 
cable. If arbitrarily, we give it infinite extension, it 
is dissipated into the barren truism, that all specific 
products suppose specific means of production. 



ESSAY VI. 



'AiraiTuv ^tjtkvtc; Xdyov c^u>&Ci', avaips(Tt XSyov. 

Seeking the re.ison of all things from without, they preclude 
reason. TIIEOPU. in Mel. 



Thus a growth and a birth are distinguished by 
the mere verbal definition, that the latter is a whole 
in itself, the former not : and when we would apply 
even this to nature, we are baffled by objects (the 
flower polypus, &c. &c.) in which each is the other. 
All that can be done by the most patient and active 
industry, by the widest and most continuous research- 
es ; all that the amplest survey of the vegetable 
realm, brought under immediate contemplation by 
the most stupendous connections of species and va- 
rieties, can suggest; all that minutest dissection and 
exactest chemical analysis, can unfold ; all that 
varied experiment and the position of plants and of 
their component parts in every conceivable relation 
to light, heat, (and whatever else we distinguish as 
imponderable substances) to earth, air, water, to the 
supposed constituents of air and water, separate and 
in all proportions — in short all that chemical agents 
and re-agents can disclose or adduce; — all these 
have been brought, as conscripts, into the field, with 
the completest accoutrement, in the best discipline, 
under the ablest commanders. Yet after all that was 
effected by LinnKUs himself, not to mention the 
labors of Csesalpinus, Kay, Gesner, Tournefort, and 
the other heroes who preceded the general adoption 
of the sexual system, as the basis of artificial arrange- 
ment — after all the successive toils and enterprises 
of Hedwig, Jt;ssiKU, Mirbei,, Smith, Knight, El- 
lis, &c. &c. — what is Botany at this present hour? 
Little more than an enormous nomenclature ; a huge 
catalogue, ii'en orrang't', yearly and monthly augment- 
ed, in various editions, each with its own scheme of 
technical memory and its own conveniencies of re- 
ference! A dictionary in which (to carry on the 
metaphor) an Ainsworth arranges the contents by 



ingly of the divine Philosopher must be explained, partly by 
Ihe tone given to thinking minds by the Reformation, the 
founders and fathers of which saw in the Aristotelians, or 
schoolmen, the antagonists of Protestantism, and in the Italian 
Plalonists the despiscrs and secret enemies of Clirislianily ; 
and p.Trlly, by his having formed his notions of Plato s doc- 
trines from the absurdities and phantasms of his misinlerpre- 
tcrs. rather than froiu an unprejudiced study of the original 
works. 

521 



512 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



the initials ; a Walker by the endings ; a Scapula by 
the radicals; and a Cominius by the similarity of 
the uses and purposes ! The terms system, method, 
science, are mere improprieties of courtesy, when 
applied to a mass enlarging by endless oppositions, 
but without a nerve that oscillates, or a pulse that ! 
throbs, in sign of growth or inward sympathy. The 
innocent amusement, the healthful occupation, the I 
ornamental accomplishment oi amateurs (most honor- i 
able indeed and deserving all praise as a preventive 
substitute for the stall, the kennel, and the subscrip- 
tion-room), it has yet to expect the devotion and 
energies of the philosopher. 

So long back as the first appearance of Dr. Dar- 
win's Pliytonomia, the writer, then in earliest man- 
hood, presumed to hazard the opinion, that the phy- 
siological botanists were hunting in a false direction, 
and sought for analogy where they should have 
looked for antithesis, lie saw, or thought he saw, 
that the harmony between the vegetable and animal 
world, was not a harmony of resemblance, but of 
contrast ; and their relation to each other that of cor- 
responding opposites. They seemed to him (whose 
mind had been formed by observation, unaided, but 
at the same time unenthralled, by partial experiment) 
as two streams from the same fountain indeed, but 
flowing the one due west, and the other direct east; 
and that consequently, the resemblance would be as 
the proximity, greatest in the first and rudimental 
products of vegetable and animal organization. 
Whereas, according to the received notion, the high- 
est and most perfect vegetable, and the lowest and 
rudest animal forms, ought to have seemed the links 
of the two systems, which is contrary to fact. Since 
that time, the same idea has dawned in the minds of 
philosophers capable of demonstrating its objective 
truth by induction of facts in an unbroken series of 
correspondences in nature. From these men, or 
from minds enkindled by their labors, we hope here- 
after to receive it, or rather the yet higher idea to 
which it refers us, matured into laws of organic na- 
ture ; and thence to have one other splendid proof, 
that with the knowledge of Law alone dwell Power 
and Prophecy, decisive Experiment, and, lastly, a 
scientific method, that dissipating with its earliest 
rays the gnomes of hypothesis and the mists of the- 
ory, may, within a single generation, open out on 
the philosophic seer discoveries that had baffled 
the gigantic, but blind and guideless industry of 
ages. 

Such too, is the case with the assumed indecom- 
posible substances of the Laboratorv. They are 
the symbols of elementary powers and the exponents 
of a law, which, as the root of all these powers, the 
chemical philosopher, whatever his theory may be, 
is instinctively laboring to extract. This instinct, 
again, is itself but the form, in which the idea, the 
mental Correlative of the law, first announces its in- 
cipient germination in his own mind : and hence 
proceeds the striving after unity of principle through 
all the diversity of forms, with a feeling resembling 
that which accompanies our endeavors to recollect a 
forgotten name; when we seem at once to have and 



not to have it ; which the memory feels but cannot 
find. Thus, as " the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," 
suggest each other to Shakspeare's Theseus, as soon 
as his thoughts present him the one form, of which 
they are but varieties ; so water and flame, the dia- 
mond, the charcoal, and the mantling champagne, 
with its ebullient sparkles, are convoked and frater- 
nized by the theory of the chemist. This is, in 
truth, the first charm of chemistrj', and the secret 
of the almost universal interest excited by its dis- 
coveries. The serious complacency which is afford- 
ed by the sense of truth, utilit)', permanence, and 
progression, blends with and enobles the exhilarating 
surprise and the pleasurable stingof curiosity, which 
accompany the propounding and the solving of an 
Enigma. It is the sense of a principle of connection 
given by the mind, and sanctioned by the corres- 
pondency of nature. Hence the strong hold which 
in all ages chemistry has had on the imagination. If 
in Shakspeark we find nature idealized into poetry, 
through the creative power of a profound yet ob- 
servant meditation, so through the meditative obser- 
vation of a Daw, a Woollaston, or a Hatchett ; 



" By some connatural force. 



Powevful at greatest distance to unite 
With secret amity things of like kind," 

we find poetry, as it were, substantiated and realized 
in nature : yea, nature itself disclosed to us, geminam 
islam naluram, qua; fiit et facif, et creatur, as at once 
the poet and the poem .' 



ESSAY VII. 



Tavirj Totvvv Staipia ;\;Cpif |^ev, ov; vvv Sfj eXeyeg ^«Xo- 
&cd fiovdg re, Kal (pi\ori)(yovg, kuX TrpaKTiKOvs, Kai 
vwpif av Tfpi (1)1' b \6yos, oiig jiioi'ouj av rig opSojs 
vpoati-KOL (j>i)i.oc76(povg, i>s ^ilv yiyvoxrKavrag, rivoi 
e?tv lirisrvitri CKa^r] tovtuv tUv £5r(5->7/<wr, b Tvyx^dvu 
Sv aWo avTiis TTigtiri^rj^triS- IIAATilN. 

{Th-anslation.) — In the following then I distinguish, first, 
those whom you indeed may call Philolheorists, or Philo- 
lechnists, or Practicians, and secondly those whom alone 
you may rightly denominate P/iilosophers, as knowing 
what the science of all these branches of science is. which 
may prove to be something more than the mere aegreeate 
of the knowledges in any particular science. PLATO. 



From Shakspeare to Plato, from the philosophic 
poet to the poetic philosopher, the transition is easy, 
and the road is crowded with illustrations of our pre- 
sent subject. For of Plato's works, the larger and 
more valtiable portion have all one common end, 
which comprehends and shines through the particu- 
lar purpose of each several dialogue ; and this is to 
establish the sources, to evolve the principles, and 
exemplify the art of Method. This is the clue 
without which it would be difficult to exculpate the 
noblest productions of the divine philosopher from the 
charge of being tortuous and labyrinthine in their 
progress, and unsatisfactory in their ostensible results 
The latter indeed appear not seldom to have been 
522 



THE FRIEND. 



513 



dravvTi for the purpose of starting a new problem, 
ratlier than that of solving the one proposed ns the 
subject of tho previous discussion. But with the 
clear insight that the pnrfxise of the writer is not so 
much to establish any particular truth, as to remove 
the obstacles, the continuance of which is preclusive 
of all truth ; the whole scheme assumes a dillerent 
aspect, and justifies itself in all its dimensions. We 
see, that to open anew a well of springing water, not 
to cleanse the stagnant tank, or fill, bucket by bucket, 
the leaden cistern; that the Kducation of the intel- 
lect, by awakening the principle and metliod of self- 
developement, was his proposed object, not any spe- 
cific information that can be conveyed in it from with- 
out: not to assist in storing the passive mind with the 
various sorts of knowledge most in request, as if the 
human soul were a mere repository or banqueting- 
room, but to place it in such relations of circumstance 
as should gradually excite the germinal power that 
craves no knowledge but what it can lake up into 
itself, what it can appropriate, and re-produce in fruits 
of its own. To shape, to dye, to paint over, and to 
mechanize the mind, he resigned, as their proper 
trade, to the sophists, against whom he waged open 
and unremitting war. For the ancients, as well as 
the moderns, had their machinery for the extempora- 
neous mintage of intellects, by means of which, off- 
hand, as it were, the scholar was enabled to make a 
figure on any and all subjects, on any and all occa- 
sions. They too had their glittering vapors, that (as 
the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists — 

lityd \ai 5iai ^vSpd aiv apyols 
AtTTcp yvu))it)v Kai SidXc^iv Kal vovv li/ilv irapi^ovciv, 
K.at TcpaTtiav Kal iitplXe^iv Kal Kpovtnv Kal KardX/icfuv. 
APISTO*. Ne^. Ek. S. 

IMITATED. 

Great goddesses are they to lazy folks, 
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech. 
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect, 
And how to talk about it and about it. 
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy. 

In fine, as improgressive arrangement is not Me- 
thod, so neither is a mere mode or set fashion of doing 
a thing. Are further facts required ? We appeal to 
the notorious fact that Zoology, soon after the com- 
mencement of the latter half of the last century, was 
falling abroad, weighed down and crushed, as it 
were, by the inordinate number and maniibldness of 
facts and phenomena apparently separate, without 
evincing the least promise of systematizing itself by 
any inward combination, any vital interdependence 
of its parts. John Hunter, who appeared at times 
almost a stranger to the grand conception, which yet 
never ceased to work in him as his genius and go- 
verning spirit, rose at length in the horizon of physi- 
ology and comparative anatomy. In his printed 
works, the one directing thought seems evermore to 
flit before him, twice or thrice only to have been 
seized, and after a momentary detention to have been 
again let go : as if the words of the charm had been 
incomplete, and it had appeared at his own will only 
to mock its calling. At length, in the astonishing 
67 



preparations for his museum, he constructed it for tho 
scientific apprehension out of the unspoken alphabet 
of nature. Yet notwithstanding the imperfection in 
the annunciation of the idea, how exhilarating have 
been the results! We dare apjical to *AnER\ETHY, 
to EvERARD Home, to Hatciiett, whose communi 
cation to Sir Everard on the egg and its analogies, in 
a recent paper of the latter (itself of high excellence) 
in the Philosophical Transactions, we point out as 
being, in the proper sense of the term, the develope- 
ment of a fact in the history of physiology, and to 
which we refer as exhibiting a luminous instance of 
what we mean by the discovery of a central phenome- 
non. To these we appeal, whether whatever is 
grandest in the views of Cuvier be not either a re- 
flection of this light or a continuation of its rays, well 
and wisely directed through fit media to its appropri- 
ate object.t 

W^e have seen that a previous act and conception 
of the mind is indispensable even to the mere sem- 
blances of Method ; that neither fashion, mode, nor 
orderly arrangement can be produced without a 
prior purpose, and a " pre-cogitation ad intentionem 
ejus quod quaritur," though this purpose have been 
itself excited, and this " pre-cogitation " itself ab- 
stracted from the perceived likenesses and diflferences 
of the objects to be arranged. But it has likewise 
been shown, that fashion, mode, ordonnance, are not 
Method, inasmuch as all Method supposes a princi- 
ple OF UNITY with progression ; in other words, 
progressive transition without breach of continuity. 
But such a princi[)le, it has been proved, can never 
in the sciences of experiment or in those of observa- 
tion be adequately supplied by a theory built on gen- 
eralization. For what shall determine the mind to 
abstract and generalize one common point rather 
than another? and within what limits, from what 
number of individual objects, shall the generalization 
be made? The theory must still require a prior the- 
ory for its own legitimate construction. With the 
mathematician the definition mahes the object, and 
pre-establishes the terms which, and which alone, 
can occur in the after-reasoning. If a circle be found 
not to have the radii from the centre to the circum- 
ference perfectly equal, which in fact it would be 
absurd to expect of any material circle, it fbllows 
that it was not a circle : and the tranquil geometri- 
cian would content himself with smiling at the Q,uid 

* Since the first delivery of this sheet, Mr. Aberncthy has 
realized this anticipation, dictated solely by the writer's 
wishes, and at that time justified only by his general admira- 
tion of Mr. A's talents and principles ; but composed without 
the least knowledge that he was then actually engaged in 
proving the assertion here hazarded, at large and in detail. 
See his eminent " Physiological Lectures," lately published 
in one volume octavo. 

t Nor should it be wholly unnoticed, that Cuvier, who, we 
understand, was not born in France, and is not of unmixed 
French extraction, had prepared himself for his illustrious 
labors (as we learn from a reference in the first chapter of 
his great work, and should have concluded from the general 
stylo of thinking, though tho language betrays suppression, as 
one who doubted the sympathy of his readers or audience) 
in a very diflTorent school of methodology and philosophy than 
Paris could have afforded. 

523 



514 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



pro Quo of the simple objector. A mathematical 
ilieoria seu contemplatio may therefore be perfect. 
For the mathematician can be certain, that he has 
contemplated all that appertains to his proposition. 
The celebrated Euler, treating on some point re- 
specting arches, makes this curious remark, " All 
experience is in contradiction to this; sed potius 
fidendum est analysi ; i. e. but this is no reason for 
doubling the analysis." The words sound paradoxi- 
cal ; but in truth mean no more than this, that the 
properties of t-pace are not less certainly the proper- 
ties of space because they can never be entirely 
transferred to material bodies. But in physics, that 
is, in all the sciences which have for their objects 
the things of nature, and not the entia rationis — more 
philosophically, intellectual acts and the products of 
those acts, existing exclusively in and for the intellect 
itself— the definition must follow, and not precede the 
reasoning. It is representative not constitutive, and 
is indeed little more than an abbreviature of the pre- 
ceding observation, and the deductions therefrom. 
But as the observation though aided by experiment, 
is necessarily limited and imperfect, the definition 
must be equally so. The history of theories, and the 
frequency of their subversion by the discovery of a 
single new fact, supply the best illustrations of this 
truth.* 

As little can a true scientific method be grounded 
on an hypothesis, unless where the hypothesis is an 
exponential image or picture-language of an idea 
which is contained in it more or less clearly; or the 
symbol of an undiscovered law, like the characters 
of unknown quantities in algebra, ibr the purpose of 



* The following extract from a most respectable scientific 
Journal contains an exposition of the impossibility of a per- 
fect Theory in Physics, the more striking because it is di- 
rectly against the purpose and intention of the writer. We 
content ourselves with one question, What if Kepler, what if 
Newton in his investigations concerning the Tides, had held 
themselves bound to this canon, and instead of propounding a 
law, had employed themselves exclusively in collecting mate- 
rials for a Theory ? 

" The magnetic influence has long been known to have a 
variation which is constantly changing ; but that change is so 
slow, and at the same time so diflorent in various idiftrcnt ?) 
parts of the world, that it would be in vain to seek for the 
means of reducing it to established rules, until all its local 
and particular circumstances are clearly ascertained and re- 
corded by accurate observations made in various parts of the 
globe. The necessity and importance of such observations 
are now pretty generally understood, and they have been act- 
ually carrying on for some years past ; but these [and by pari- 
I ty of reason the incomparably greater mimbcr that remain 
to be made) must be collected, collated, proved, and after- 
wards brought together into one focus before ever a founda- 
tion can be formed upon which any thing like a sound and 
stable Theory can be constituted for the explanation of such 
changes." — Journal of Science and the Jirts, No. vii. p. 103. 

An intelligent friend, on reading the words "into one 
focus," observed: But what and where is the lcns7 I how- 
ever fully agree with the writer. All this and much more 
must have been achieved before " a sound and stable Theo- 
ry " could be " constituted "—which even then (except as far 
as it might occasion the discovery of a law) might possibly 
explain {ex plicis plana reddere.) but never account for. the 
facts in question. But the most satisfactory comment on these 
and similar assertions would be afforded by a matter of fact 
history of the rise and progress, the accelerating and retarding 
monjerjta, of science In the civilized world. 



submitting the phenomena to a scientific calculus In 
all other instances, it is itself a real or supposed phe- 
nomenon, and therefore a part of the problem which 
it is to solve. It may be among the foundation-stones 
of the edifice, but can never be the ground. 

But in experimental philosophy, it may be said how 
much do we not owe to accident? Doubtless: but 
let it not be forgotten, that if the discoveries so made 
stop there; if they do not excite to some master idea, 
if they do not lead to some i-aw (in whatever dress 
of theory or hypothesis the fashion and prejudices 
of the time may disguise or disfigure it: the discover- 
ies may remain for ages limited in their uses, insecure 
and tmproductive. How many centuries, we might 
have said millennia, have passed, since the first acci- 
dental discovery of the attraction and repulsion of 
light bodies by rubbed amber, &c. Compare the in- 
terval with the progress made within less than a cen- 
tury, after the discovery of the phenomena that led 
immediately to a theory of electricity. That here 
as in many other instances, the tiieory was supported 
by insecure hypotheses ; that by one theorist two he- 
terogeneous fluids are a.ssumed, the vitreous and the 
resinous; by another, a plus and minus of the same 
fluid ; that a third considers it a mere modification of 
light; while a fourth composes the electrical aura of 
oxygen, hydrogen, and caloric : this does but place 
the truth we have been evolving in a stronger and 
clearer light. For abstract from all these supposi- 
tions, or rather imaginations, that which is common 
to, and involved in them all ; and we shall have nei- 
ther notional fluid or fluids, nor chemical compounds, 
nor elementary matter, — but the idea of (wo — opposite 
—forces, tending to rest by equilibrium. These are 
the sole factors of the calculus, alike in all the theo- 
ries. These give the law, and in it the method, both 
of arranging the phenomena and of substantiating 
appearances into facts of science ; with a success 
proportionate to the clearness or confiisedness of the 
insight into the law. For this reason, we anticipate 
the greatest improvements in the method, the nearest 
approaches to a system, of electricity from these phi- 
losophers, who have presented the law most purely, 
and the correlative idea as an idea ; those, namely, 
who, since the year 1798, in the true spirit of experi- 
mental dynamics, rejecting the imagination of any 
material substrate, simple or compound, contemplate 
in the phenomena of electricity the operation of a law 
which reigns through all nature, the law of polari- 
ty, or the manifestation of one power by opposite 
forces : who trace in these appearances, as the most 
obvious and striking of its innumerable forms, the 
agency of the positive and negative poles of a power 
essential to all material construction ; the second, 
namely, of the three primary principles, for which the 
beautiful and most appropriate symbols are given by 
the mind in three ideal dimensions oi' space. 

The time is, perhaps, nigh at hand, when the same 
comparison between the results of two unequal peri- 
ods ; the interval between the knowledge of a fact, 
and that from the discovery of the law, will be ap- 
plicable to the sister science of magnetism. But how 
great the contrast between magnetism and electrici- 
524 



THE FRIEND. 



bid 



city, at the present moment! From the remotest an- 
tiquity, the attraction ol" iron by the magnet was 
known and noticed; but cenluP)' after century, it re- 
mained the undisturbed properly of [wets and orators. 
The (act of the magnet and the fable of plin>nix 
stood on the same scale of utility. In the tliirteenlh 
century, or perhaps earlier, the polarity of the magnet 
and its communicabilily to iron was discovered; and 
soon suggcsled a purix«e so grand and im|Kirtant, 
that it may well be deemed the proudest trophy ever 
raised by accident* in the service of mankind — the 
invention of the compass. But it led to no idea, to no 
law, and consequently to no Method : though a vari- 
ety of phenomena, as startling as they are mysterious, 
have forced on us a presentiment of its intimate con- 
nection with all the great agencies of nature; of a 
revelation, in ciphers, the key to which is still want- 
ing. We can recall no incident of human history 
that impresses the imagination more deeply than the 
moment when Columbus,t on an unknown ocean, 
first perceived one of these startling facts, the change 
of the magnetic needle! 

In what shall we seek the cause of this contrast 
between the rapid progress of electricity and the sla- 



• If accident it were : if the compass did not obscurely tra- 
vel to lis from the remotest east: if its existence there does 
not point to an age and a race, to which scholars of highest 
rank in the world of letters. Sir VV. Jones, Bailly, Schlegel 
have attached faith ! That it was known before the era gen- 
erally a!i.4unicd for its invention, and not spoken of as a novel- 
ty, has been proved by Mr. Southcy and others. 

t It cannot be deemed alien from the purposes of this dis- 
quisition, if we are anxious to attract the attention of our 
readers to the importance of speculative meditation, even for 
the icorldlv interests of mankind ; and to that concurrence of 
nature and hii^loric event with the great revolutionary move- 
ments of individual genius, of which so many instances occur 
in the study of History — how nature (why should we hesitate 
in saying, that which in nature itself is more than nature ?) 
seems to come forward in order to meet, to aid, and to reward 
every idea excited by a contemplation of her methods in the 
spirit of filial care, and with ihe humility of love I It is with 
this view that we extract from an ode of Chiabrera's Ihe fol- 
lowing lines, which, in the strength of the thought and the 
lofty majesty of the poetry, has but " few peers in ancient or 
in modem song." 

COLUJIBUS. 

Cerlo dal cor, ch' alto Dcstin non scelse. 
Son r imprese magnanime negletio : 
Ma le bell' alme alle bell' opre elette 
Sanno gioir nelle falidhe eccelso: 
No biasino popolar, fralo catena, 
Spirto d' onore il suo cammin raffrena. 
Cosi lunga 8lai;ion per modi indegni 
Europa disprczzo I' inclita spemo : 
Scherncnilo il vulgo (e seco i Regi insieme) 
Kudo nocchicr promettitor di regni; 
Ma per Ic sconosciute onde marine 
Ij' invitta prora ci pur sospiiise al fine. 
Q.ual uom, chc torni al gentil consorte, 
Tal ei da sua magion spicgo I' antenne ; 
L' ocean corse, e i turbini soslcnne, 
Vinse le crude imagini di morte; 
Poscia, dell' ampio mar spcnta la guerra, 
Scorse la dianzi favolosa Terra. 
Allor dal cavo Pin scendc veloce 
E di grand' Orma il nuovo mondo imprime ; 
Ne men ratto per I'Aria crge sublime. 
Segno del Ciel, insuperabil Croco ; 
E porsc umilo escmpio. ondo adorarla 

Debba sua Gentc. CIUABKKKA, vol. i. 

Uu2 



tionary condition of magnetism ? As many theories, 
as many hypotheses, have been advanced in the lat- 
ter science as in the former. But the theories and 
fictions of the electricians contained an idea, and all 
the same idea, which has necessarily led to Method; 
implicit indeed, and only regulative hitherto, which 
requires little more than the dismission of the ima- 
gery to become constituent like the ideas of the geo- 
metrician. On the contrary, the assumptions of the 
magnetists (as for instance, the hypothesis that the 
planet itself is one vast magnet, or that an immense 
magnet is concealed within it ; or that of a concentric 
globe within the earth, revolving on its own indepen- 
dent axis) are but repetitions of the same iact or phe- 
nomenon looked at through a magnifying glass ; the 
reiteration of the problem, not its solution. The na- 
turalist, who cannot or will not see, that one fact is 
worth a thousand, as including them all in itself, and 
that it first makes all the others /ac^<f ; who has not the 
head to comprehend, the soul to reverence, a central 
experiment or observation (what the Greeks would 
perhaps have called a protophenomenon ;) will never 
receive an auspicious answer from the oracle of na 
ture. 



ESSAY VIII. 



The sun doth give 
Brightness to the eye : and some may say that the sun 
If not enlightened by the intelligence 
That doth inhabit it, would shine no more 
Than a dull clod of earth. 

CARTWRIGIIT. 



It is strange, yet characteristic of the spirit that 
was at work during the latter half of the last centu- 
ry, and of which the French revolution was, we hope, 
the closing monsoon, that the writings of Plato 
should be accused of estranging the mind from sober 
experience and substantial malier-of-fncl, and of de- 
bauching it by fictions and generalities. Plato, 
whose method is inductive throtighout, who argues 
on all subjects not only from, but in and by, induc- 
tions of facts! Who warns us indeed against that 
usurpation of the senses, which quenching the " lu- 
men siccum"of the mind, sends it astray after indi- 
vidual cases fijr their own sakes; against that "ten- 
uem et manipularem experientiamV which remains 
ignorant even of the transitory relations, to which the 
"pauca particularia" of its idolatry not seldom owe 
their fluxional existence ; but who so far ofiener, and 
with such unmitigated hostility, pursues Ihe assump- 
tions, abstractions, generalities, and verbal legerde- 
main of the sophists ! Strange, but still more strange, 
that a notion so groundless should be entitled to plead 
in its behalf the authority of Lord Bacon, from 
whom the Latin words in the preceding sentence are 
taken, and whose scheme of logic, as applied to the 
contemplation of nature, is Platonic throughout, and 
differing only in the mode : which in Lord Bacon is 
dogmatic, i. e. assertory, in Plato tentative, and (to 
525 



516 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



adopt the Socratic phrase) obstetric. We are not the 
first, or even among the first, wno have considered 
Bacon's studied depreciation of tne ancients, with his 
silence, or worse than silence, concerning the merits 
of his contemporaries, as the least amiable, the least 
exhilarating side in the character of our illustrious 
countryman. His detractions from the Divine Plato 
it is more easy to explain than to justify or even than 
to palliate : and that he has merely retaliated Aris- 
totle's own unfair treatment of Afs predecessors and 
contemporaries, may lessen the pain, but should not 
blind us by the injustice of the aspersions on the 
name and works of this philosopher. The most emi- 
nent of our recent zoologists and mineralogists have 
acknowledged with respect, and even with expres- 
sions of wonder, the performances of Aristotle, as 
the first clearer and breaker-up of the grounds in na- 
tural history. It is indeed scarcely possible to peruse 
the treatise on colors, falsely ascribed to Theophras- 
tus, the scholar and successor of Aristotle, after a due 
consideration of the state and means of science at 
that time, without resenting the assertion, that he had 
utterly enslaved his investigations in natural history 
to his ovi'n system of logic (logicae sua; prorsus manci- 
pavit.) Nor let it be forgotten that the sunny side of 
Lord Bacon's character is to be found neither in his 
inductions, nor in the application of his own method 
to particular phenomena, or particular classes of phy- 
sical facts, which are at least as crude for the age of 
Gilbert, Galileo, and Kepler, as Aristotle's for that of 
Philip and Alexander. Nor is it to be found in his 
recommendation (which is wholly independent of sci- 
entific method) of tabular collections of particulars. 
Let any unprejudiced naturalist turn to Lord Bacon's 
questions and proposals for the investigation of single 
problems ; to his Discourse on the Winds ; or to the 
almost comical caricature of this scheme in the "Me- 
thod of improving Natural Philosophy;" (page 22 to 
48,) by Robert Hooke (the history of whose multifold 
inventions, and indeed of his whole philosophical 
life, is the best answer to the scheme, if a scheme so 
palpably impracticable needs any answer,) and put it 
to his conscience, whether any desirable end could 
be hoped for from such a process ; or inquire of his 
own experience, or historical recollections, whether 
any important discovery was ever made in this way.* 



* We refer the reader to the Posthumous works of Robert 
Hooke, M. D. F..R. S. &c. Folio, published under the au- 
epicee ot" the Royal Society, by Richard Waller : and espe- 
cially to the pages from p. 22 to 42 inclusive, as containing 
the preliminary knowledges requisite or desirable for the na- 
turalist, before he can form "even a foundation upon which 
any thing like a sound and stable Theory can be constituted." 
As a small specimen of this appalling catalogue of prelimina- 
ries with which he is to make himself conversant, take the 
following : — " The history of potters, tobacco-pipe-makers, 
glaziers, glass-grinders, looking-glass-makers or foilers, spec- 
tacle-makers, and optic-glass-makers, makers of counterfeit 
pearl and precious stones, bugle-makers, lamp-blowers, color- 
makers, color-grinders, glass-painters, enamellers, varnishers, 
color-sellers, painters, limners, picture-drawers, makers of 
baby-heads, of little bowling-stones or marbles, fustian-ma- 
kers, (query whether poets are included in this trade ?) mu- 
sic-masters, tinsey-makers, and taggers. — The history of 
schoolmasters, writing-masters, printers, book-binders, stage- 
players, dancing-masters, and vaulters, apothecaries, chirur- 



For though Bacon never so far deviates from his own 
principles, as not to admonish the reader that the par- 
ticulars are to be thus collected, only that by careful 
selection they may be concentrated into umversals ; 
yet so immense is their number, and so various and 
almost endless the relations in which each is to be 
separately considered, that the life of an ante-dilu- 
vian patriarch would be expended, and his strength 
and spirits have been wasted, in merely polling the 
votes, and long before he could commence the pro- 
cess of simplification, or have arrived in sight of the 
law which was to reward the toils of the over-tasked 
PsvcHE.t 

We yield to none in our grateful veneration of 
Lord Bacon's philosophical writings. We are proud 
of his very name, as men of science : and as Eng- 
lishmen, we are almost vain of it. But we may not 
permit the honest workings of national attachment to 
degenerate into the jealous and indiscriminate par- 
tiality of clanship. Unawed by such as praise and 
abuse by wholesale, we dare avow that there are 
points in the character of our Verulam, from which 
we turn to the life and labors of John Kepler,t as 
from gloom to sunshine. The beginning and the 
close of his life were clouded by poverty and domes- 
tic troubles, while the intermediate years were com- 
prised within the most tumultuous period of the his- 
tory of his country, when the furies of religious and 
political discord had left neither eye, ear, nor heart 
for the Muses. But Kepler seemed born to prove 
that true genius can overpower all obstacles. If he 
gives an account of his modes of proceeding, and of 
the views under which they first occurred to his 
mind, how unostentatiously and in transitu, as it were, 
does he introduce himself to our notice : and yet ne- 
ver fails to present the living germ out of which the 
genuine method, as the inner form of the tree of sci- 
ence, springs up! With what affectionate reverence 
does he express himself of his master and immediate 
predecessor, Tyciio Brake ! with w hat zeal does he 
vindicate his services against posthumous detraction ! 

geons, seamsters, butchers, barbers, laun-dressers, and cos- 
metics ! &c. &c. &c. &c. (the true nature of which being ac- 
tually determined) will husely facilitate our inquiries in 
philosophy! .'.'" 

As a summary of Dr. R. Hooke's multifarious recipe for 
the growth of Science may be fairly placed that of the cele- 
brated Dr. Watts for the improvement of the mind, which 
vva£ thought by Dr. Knox, to be worthy of insertion in ths 
Elegant E.xlracts, Vol. ii. p. 456, under the head of 

DIRECTIONS CONCERNING OUR IDEAS. 

" Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of Ideas. Ac- 
quaint yourselves with things ancient and modern ; things 
natural, civil, and religious ; things of your native land, and 
of foreign countries ; things domestic and national ; things 
present, past, and future ; and above all, be well acquainted 
with God and yourselves ; with animal nature, and the work- 
ings of your own spirits. Such a general acquaintance with 
things will be of very great advantage." 

t See the beautiful allegoric tale of Cupid and Psyche, in 
the original of Apuleius. The tasks imposed on her by the 
jealousy of her mother-in-law, and the agency by which they 
are at length self-performed, are noble instances of that hid- 
den wisdom, " where more is meant than meets the ear." 

X Born 1571, ten years after Lord Bacon : died 1630, four 
years after the death of Bacon. 

526 



THE FRIEND. 



517 



How often and how gladly does he speak of Coper- 
nicus ! and with what fervent tones of faith and con- 
solatiun does he proclaim the historic fact tliat the 
great men of all ages have prepared the way for each 
other, as pioneers and lieralds ! Equally just to the 
ancients and to his contem|K)raries, how circumstan- 
tially, and with what exactness of detail, does Kepler 
demonstrate that Euclid copernicises — wj irpo rov Ko- 
TTcpi'iKov KOTTfpitKi^ei EvK^cifiis'. and how elegant the 
compliments which he addresses to Porta! with 
what cordiality he thanks him for the invention of 
the camera otecura, as enlarging his views into the 
laws of vision ! But while we cannot avoid contrast- 
ing this generous enthusiasm with Lord Bacon's cold 
invidious treatment of Gilbert, and his assertion that 
the works of Plato and Aristotle had been carried 
down the stream of time, like straws, by their levity 
alone, when things of weight and worth sunk to the 
bottom: still in the Founder of a revolution, scarcely 
less imp(jrtant for the scientific, and even for the com- 
mercial world, than that of Luther for the world of 
religion and politics, we must allow much to the heat 
of protestation, much to the vehemence of hope, and 
much to the vividness of novelty. Still more must 
we attribute to the then existing and actual state of the 
Platonic and Peripatetic philosophy, or rather to the 
dreams or verbiage which then passed current as such. 
Had he but attached to their proper authors the 
schemes and doctrines which he condemns, our illus- 
trious countryman would, in this point at least, have 
needed no apology. And surely no lover of truth, 
conversant with the particulars of Lord Bacon's life, 
with the very early, almost boyish age, at which he 
quitted the university, and the manifold occupations 
and anxieties in which his public and professional du- 
ties engaged, and his courtly, — alas! his servile, pros- 
titute, and mendicant — ambition, entangled him in 
his after years, will be either surprised or offended, 
though we should avow our conviction, that he had 
derived his opinions of Plato and Aristotle from any 
source, rather than from a dispassionate and patient 
study of the originals themselves. At all events it 
will be no easy task to reconcile many jiassages in 
the De Augmentis, and the Redargutio Philosophia- 
rum, with the author's own fundamental principles, 
as established in his Novum Organum, if we attach 
to the words the meaning which they mai/ bear, or 
even, in some instances, the meaning which might 
appear to us, in the present age, more obvious ; in- 
stead of the sense in which they were employed by 
the professors, whose false premises and barren me- 
thods Bacon was at that time controverting. And 
this historical interpretation is rendered the more ne- 
cessary by his fondness for point and antithesis in his 
style, where we must often disturb the sound in order 
to arrive at the sense. But with these precautions; 
and if, in collating the philosophical works of Lord 
Bacon with those of Plato, we, in both cases alike, 
separate the grounds and essential principles of their 
philosophic systems from the inductions themselves; 
no inconsiderable portion of which, in the British sage, 
as well as in the divine Athenian, is neither more nor 
le«s crude and erroneous than might be anticipated 



from the infant state of natural history, chemistry, and 
physiology, in their several ages ; and if we moreover 
separate their principles from their practical applica- 
tion, which in both is not seldom impracticable, and, 
in our countryman, not always reconcileable with the 
principles themselves: we shall not only extract that 
from each, which is for all apes, and which consti- 
tutes their true systems of philosophy, but shall con- 
vince ourselves that they are radically one and the 
same system: in that namely, which is of universal 
and imperishable worth ! — the science of Method, and 
the rounds and conditions of the science of Method. 



ESSAY IX. 

A great authority may be a poor proof, but it is an excellent 
presumption : and few things give a wise man a truer de- 
lislit than to reconcile two great authorities, that had been 
commonly but falsely held to be dissonant. 

STAPYLTON. 

U.N'DER a deep impression of the importance of the 
truths we have essayed to develope, we would fain 
remove every prejudice that does not originate in the 
heart rather than in the understanding. For Truth, 
says the w ise man, will not enter a malevolent spirit. 

To ofTcr or to receive names in lieu of sound argu- 
ments, is only less reprehensible than an ostentatious 
contempt of the great men of the former ages ; but 
we may well and wisely avail ourselves of authori- 
ties, in confirmation of truth, and above all, in the re- 
moval of prejudices founded on imperfect informa- 
tion. We do not see, therefore, how we can more 
appropriately conclude this first explanatory and con- 
troversial section of our inquiry, than by a brief state- 
ment of our renowned countryman's own principles 
of Method, conveyed for the greater part in his own 
words. Nor do we see, in what more precise form 
we can recapitulate the substance of the doctrines as- 
serted and vindicated in the preceding pages. For 
we rest our strongest pretensions to a calm and re- 
spectful perusal, in the first instance, on the fact, that 
we have only re-proclaimed the coinciding prescripts 
of the Athenian Verulam, and the British Plato — 
genuinam scilicet Platonis Dialecticem ; el Metho- 
dologiain Principialem. 

FRANCISCI DE VERULAMIO. 
In the first instance, Lord Bacon equally with our- 
selves, demands what we have ventured to call the 
intellectual or mental initiative, as the motive and 
guide of every philosophical experiment; some well- 
grounded purpose, some distinct impression of the 
probable results, some self-consistent anticipation as 
the ground of the "prudeiig quo'stio" (the fore-thought- 
ful query,) which he affirms to be the prior half of 
the knowledge sought, dimidium scienticB. With him, 
therefore, as with us, an idea is an experiment pro- 
posed, an experiment is an idea realized. Yot so, 
though in other words, he himself informs us: "ne- 
que scientiam molimur tarn sensu vel instrumentis 
quam experimenlif ; etenim experimentorum longe 
major est subtiiitas quam sensus ipsius, licit instru- 
627 



518 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



mentis exquisitis adjuti. Namde lis loquimur experi- 
meiitis qucB ad intenlionem ejus quod qwxrilur perite 
et secundum arlem excogilaia el apposiia sunt. Itaque 
perceptioni sensus iratnediatae et proprise non multum 
tribuimus : sed eo rem deducimus, ut sensus tantum 
de experimenio, experimentum de re judicet." This 
last senlence is, as the attentive reader will have 
himself detected, one ol'those faulty i^erfiaZ antitheses, 
not unfrequent in Lord Bacon's writings. Pungent 
antitheses, and the analogies of wit in which the re- 
semblance is too often more indebted to the double 
or equivocal sense of a word, than to any real con- 
formity* in the thing or image, form the dulcia vitia 
of his style, the Dalilahs of our philosophical Samp- 
son. But in this instance, as indeed throughout all 
his works, the meaning is clear and evident — namely, 
that the sense can apprehend, Ihrongh the organs of 
sense, only the phenomena evoked by the experi- 
ment: vis vero mentis ea, quaj experimentum excogi- 
taverat, de Re judicet: i. e. that power which, out 
of its own conception had shaped the experiment, 
must alone determine the true import of the pheno- 
mena. If again we ask, what it is which gives birth 
to the question, and then ad intentionem quaestionis 
suas experimentum excogitat, unde de Re judicet, the 
answer is : Lux Inlellecltis, lumen siccum, the pure 
and impersonal reason, freed from all the various 
idols enumerated by our great legislator of science 
{idola tribiis, specks, fori, t/icalri) ; that is, freed from 
the limits, the passions, the prejudices, the peculiar 
habits of the human understanding, natural or ac- 
quired ; but above all, pure from the arrogance, 
which leads man to take the forms and mechanism 
of his own mere reflective faculty, as the measure of 
nature and of Deity. In this indeed we find the 
great object both of Plato's and of Lord Bacon's la- 
bors. They both saw that there could be no hope 
of any fruitful and secure method, while forms merely 
subjective, were presumed as the true and proper 
moulds ot objective truth. This is the sense in which 
Lord Bacon uses the phrases, — intellectus humanus, 
mens hominis, so profoundly and justly characterized 
in the preliminary (Distributio Operis) of his De Aug- 
ment. Scient. And with all right and propriety did 
he so apply them : for this was, in fact, the sense in 
which the phrases were applied by the teachers, 
whom he is controverting ; by the doctors of the 
schools, and the visionaries of the laboratory. To 
adopt the boid but happy phrase of a late ingenious 
French writer, it is the homme particulier, as con- 
trasted with 1 homme generale ; against which, He- 
raclitus and Plato, among the ancients, and among 
the moderns. Bacon and Stewart (rightly under- 
stood,) warn and pre-admonish the sincere inquirer. 
Most truly, and in strict consonance with his two 
great predecessors, does our immortal Verulam teach 
— that the human understanding, even independent 
of the causes that always, previously to its purifica- 
tion by philosophy, render it more or less turbid or 

* Thus (to take the first instance that occurs). Bacon says, 
that some knowledges, like the stars, are so high that they 
ftive no light. Where the word " high," means deep or sub- 
lime in the one case, and " distant" in the uthu<r 



uneven, " ipsa sua natura radios ex figura et sectione 
propria immutat :" that our understanding not only 
reflects the objects subjeclively, that is, substitutes, for 
the inherent laws and properties of the objects, the 
relations which the objects bear to its own particular 
constitution ; but that in all its conscious presentations 
and reflexes, it is itself only a phenomenon of the 
inner sense, and requires the same corrections as the 
appearances transmitted by the outward senses. But 
that there is potentially, if not actually, in every ra- 
tional being, a somewhat, call it what you will, the 
pure reason, the spirit, lumen siccum, vovs, ^u? votpov, 
intellectual intuition, &c. &c. ; and that in this are to 
be fotmd the indispensable conditions of all science, 
and scientific research, whether meditative, contem- 
plative, or experimental: is often expressed, and 
everywhere supposed, by Lord Bacon. And that 
this is not only the right but the possible nature of 
the hiiinan mind, to which it is capable of being re- 
stored, is implied in the various remedies prescribed 
by him for its diseases, and in the various means of 
neutralizing or converting into useful instrumentality 
the imperfections which cannot be removed. There 
is a sublime truth contained in his favorite phrase — 
Idola intellectus. He thus tells us, that the mind of 
man is an edifice not built with human hands, which 
needs only be purged of its idols and idolatrous ser- 
vices to become the temple of the true and living 
Light. Nay, he has shown and established the true 
criterion between the ideas and the idola of the mind 
— namely, that the former are manifested by their 
adequacy to those ideas in nature, which in and 
through them are contemplated. " Non leve quiddarn 
interest inter humans mentis idola et diviuce mentis 
ideas, hoc est, inter placita quasdam inania et veras 
signaturas atque impressiones factas in creaturis, 
prout Ratione sana et sicci luminis, quam docendi 
causa interpretem naturse vocare consuevimus, inve- 
niuntur." Novum Organum xxiii. & xxvi. Thus 
the difference, or rather distinction between Plato 
and Lord Bacon is simply this: that philosophy being 
necessarily bi-polar, Plato treats principally of the 
truth, as it manifests itself at the ideal pole, as the 
science of intellect (i. e. de mundointelligibili); while 
Bacon confines himself, for the most part, lo the same 
truth, as it is manifested at the other, or maH'rial pole, 
as the science of nature (i. e. de mundo sensihili.) It 
is as necessary, therefore, that Plalo should direct his 
inquiries chiefiy to those objective truths that exist in 
and for the intellect alone, the images and represent- 
atives of which we construct for ourselves by figure, 
number, and word ; as that Lord Bacon should attach 
his main concern to the trinhs which have their sig 
natures in nature, and which (as he himself plainly 
and oAen assert.?) may indeed be revealed to us 
through and trilh, but never hi/ the senses, or the fa- 
culty of sense. Otherwise, indeed, instead of being 
more objective than the former (which they are not 
in any sense, both being in this respect the same,) 
they would be less so, and, in fact, incapable of being 
insulated from the " Idola tribiis quEe in ipsi natura 
fundata sunt, atque in ipsa tribii seu gente hominum: 
cum omnes perceptioncs tarn sensus quam mentis 
528 



THE FRIEND. 



519 



sunt ex analogia hoininis non ex annlogia universi." 
(\. O. xli.) Ilonce loo, it will not surprise us, that 
Phiio so olien calls ideas living laws, in which tlie 
niinil lins its whole true being and permanence; or | 
that Baron, vice versa, names the laws of nature, ] 
i/r-'i,?; and represents what we have, in a former j 
p-.irt o( this disquisition, called fads of science and | 
leiitrnl plifiiomciia, as signature, impressions, and | 
symbols of ideas. A disiincruished power seK-aflirm- 
ed, and seen in its unity with llie I'llomal F-ssence, 
is, according to Plato, an Ihea: and the discipline, 
by which the human mind is purified from its idols 
(fc'wXu) and raised to the contemplation of Ideas, and 
thence to the secure and ever progressive, though 
never-ending, investigation of truth and reality by 
scientific method, comprehends what liie same philo- 
sopher so highly extols under the title of Dialectic. 
According to Lord Bacon, as descril)ing the same 
truth seen from the op^xjsile point, and applied to 
natural philosophy, an idea would be defined as — 
Intuilio sive inventio, quie in perceptione sensu.s non 
est (ut qua; pune et sicci iiiminis Intellectioni est pro- 
pria) idearum divina; monlis, prout in crcaturis per 
sianaturus suas sese patefaciant. That (saith the ju- 
dicious Hooker) which doth assign to each thing the 
kind, that w^hich determines the force and power, 
that which doih appoint the form and measure of 
working, the same we term a Law. 

Wo can now, as men furnished with fit and re- 
spectable credentials, proceed to the historic impor- 
tance and practical application of Method, under 
the deep and solemn conviction, that without this 
guiding Light neither can the sciences attain to their 
full evolution, ,is the organs of one vital and harmo- 
nious body, nor that most weighty and concerning of 
all sciences, the science of Education, be under- 
stood in its first elements, much less display its 
powers, as the nisus fbrmativus'^ of social man, as 



♦ So our modical writers commonly translate Professor Blu- 
menliach's liildungstricb, the vis plastics, or vis viiae formu- 
Irix of the eldest physiologists, and the lite or living principle 
of John Hunter, the profoundust, we had almost said the 
only, physiological philosopher of the latter half of the pre- 
ceding century. For in what other eense can we undersiand 
cither his asacrtinn, that this principle or agent is " indepen- 
dent of organization," which yet it animates, sustains, and j 
repairs, or the purport of that magnificent commentary on 
his system, the Ilunierian Musnsum, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I 
The Hunteriun idea of a life or vital principle, " independnit | 
of the orffanizatiun," yet in each organ working instinctively 1 
towards its preservation, as the ants or termites in repairing 1 
the nests of their own f.ibricntion, demonstrates that John | 
Hunter did not, as Stahl and others had done, individualize, j 
or make an hypostasis of the principle of life, as a somewhat 
manifestable per se, and consequently itself a Phenomenon ; | 
the latency of which was to be attributed to accidental, or at 
least contingent causes, ex. gr. ; the limits or imperfection 
of our senses, or the inaptness of the media : but that herein 
tie philosophized in the spirit of the purest Newtonians, who 
in like manner refused to hyposlatize the law of gravitation 
into an ether, which even if its existence were conceded, 
would need another gravitation for itself. The Hunterian 
position is a genuine philosophic idea, the negative test of 
which as of all Ideas, is, that it is equi-distant from an ens 
logicum ( — an abstraction,) an ens repra^i^cnlativum ( — a pe- 
neralizuiion,) and an ens phantoslicum { — an imaginary thing 
or phenomenon.) 

Is not the progressive enlargement, the boldness without 



the appointed imiotoplast of true humanity. Never 
can society comprehend fully, and in its whole prac- 
tical extent, the permanent distinction, and the occa- 
sional contrast, between cultivation and civilization ; 
never can it attain to a due insight into the momen- 
tous fact, fearfully as it has been, and even now ts 
exemplified in a neighboring country, that a nation 
can never be a too cultivated, but may easily become 
an over-civilized, race : while we oppose ourselves 
voluntarily to that grand prerogative of our nature, 

A HUNGERING AND THIRSTING AFTER TRUTH, aS tile 

appropriate end of our intelligential, and its point of 
union with our moral, nature ; but therefore after 
truth, that must be found witiiin us before it can be 
inlelligibly reflected back on the mind from without, 
and a religious regard to which is indi.'pcnsable, 
both as a guide and object to the just formation of 
the human ueing, poor and rich: while, in a word, 
we are blind to the master-light, which we have 
already presented in various [xjinis of view, and re- 
commended by whatever is of higiiest authority w'ilh 
the venerators of the ancient, and the adherents of 
modern philosophy. 



ESSAY X. 



TloKviia^iri voov ov StSaaKCf ttvai yap iv rv Xoijiov, 
nri^acSai yvianiv i;r£ cyKvGcfivyiGCi -avra 6ia iravTuv. 

(Translation.) — The eflcclive education of the reason is 
not to be supplied by multifarious acquirements; for there h 
but one knowledf;e that merits to be called wisdom, a know- 
ledge that is one with a law which shall govern all in and 
through all. HERAC. apud Diogenem Laert. ix. § I. 



HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE. 

There is still preserved in the Royal Observatory 
at Richmond the model of a bridge, constructed by 
the late justly celebrated Mr. Atwood (at that time, 
however, in the decline of life,) in the confidence, 
that he had explained the wonderful properties of the 

temerity, of Chirurgical views and Chirurgical practice since 
Hunter's lime to the present day, aitributable, in almost every 
instance, to his subsliiution of what may perhaps be called 
experimental Dynamie, for the mechanical notions or the less 
injurious traditional empiricism, of his predecessors? And 
this, too, thoiit'h the light is still struggling tlirou;.'h a cloud, 
and ihough it is shed on many who sec cither dimly or not at 
all the Idea from which ii is eradicated ? Willingly would we 
de^ignalc, what we have cltewliere called the mental initiative, 
by some term less obnoxious to the anti-Platonic reader, than 
this of Idea — obnoxious, we mean, as soon as any precise 
and peculiar sense is attached to the sound. Willingly would 
we exchange the Term, might it be done without sacrifice of 
tho Import : and did wo not see, too, clearly, that it is the 
meaning, not the woril, that is the object of that aveifioii, 
which, fleeing from inward alarm, tries to shelter iitelf in 
outward contempt — that is at once folly and a stumbling-block 
to thu partisans of a crass and sensual materialism, the advo- 
cates of the Nihil nisi ab extra. 

They, like moles. 
Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of tho ground. 
Shrink from the light, then listen for a sound ; 
See but to dread, and dread they know not why, 

Tho natural alien of their negative eye ! S. T. C. 

529 



520 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



arch as resulting from compound action of simple 
wedges, or of the rectilinear solids of which the ma- 
terial arch was composed : and of which supposed 
discovery, his model was to exhibit ocular proof Ac- 
cordingly, he took a sufficient number of wedges of 
brass highly polished. Arranging these at first on a 
skeleton arch of wood, he then removed this scaffold- 
ing or support ; and the bridge not only stood firm, 
without any cement between the squares, but he 
could take away any given portion of them, as a third 
and a half, and appending a correspondent weight, at 
either side, the remaining part stood as before. Our 
venerable sovereign, who is known to have had a 
particular interest and pleasure in all works and dis- 
coveries of mechanic science or ingenuity, looked at 
it for awhile steadfastly, and, as his manner was, with 
quick and broken expressions of praise apd courteous 
approbation, in the form of answers to his own ques- 
tions. At length turning to the constructor, he said, 
" But, Mr. Atwood, you have presumed the figure. 
You have put the arch first in this wooden skeleton. 
Can you build a bridge of the same wedges in any 
other figure ? A straight bridge, or with two lines 
touching at the apex ? If not, is it not evident, that 
the bits of brass derive their continuance in the pre- 
sent position from the property of the arch, and not 
the arch from the property of the wedge ?" The ob- 
jection was fatal; the justice of the remark not to be 
resisted ; and we have ever deemed it a forcible il- 
lustration of the Aristotelian axiom, with respect to 
all just reasoning, that the whole is of necessity prior 
to its parts ; nor can we conceive a more apt illustra- 
tion of the scientific principles we have already laid 
down. 

All method supposes a union of several things to a 
common end, either by disposition, as in the works of 
man, or by convergence, as in the operation and pro- 
ducts of nature. That we acknovi'ledge a method, 
even in the latter, results from the religious instinct 
which bids us " find tongues in trees ; books in the 
running streams ; sermons in stones: and good {that 
is, some useful end answering to some good purpose) 
in every thing." In a self conscious and thence re- 
flecting being, no instinct can exist, without engen- 
dering the belief of an object corresponding to it, 
either present or future, real or capable of being re- 
alized : much less the instinct, in which humanity it- 
self is grounded : that by which, in every act of con- 
scious perception, we at once identify our being with 
that of the world without us, and yet place ourselves 
in contra-distinction to that world. Least of all can 
this mysterious pre-disposition exist without evolving 
a belief that the productive power, which is in na- 
ture as nature, is essentially one, (i. e. of one kind) 
with the intelligence, which is in the human mind 
above nature : however disfigured this belief may 
become, by accidental forms or accompaniments, and 
though like heat in the thawing of ice, it may appear 
only in its effects. So universally has this conviction 
leavened the very substance of all discourse, that 
there is no language on earth in which a man can 
abjure it as a prejudice, without employing terms and 
conjunctions that suppose its reality, with a feeling 



very different from that which accompanies a figura- 
tive or metaphorical use of words. In all aggregates 
of construction, therefore, which we contemplate as 
wholes, whether as integral parts or as a system, we 
assume an intention, as the initiative, of which the 
end is the correlative. 

Hence proceeds the introduction of final causes in 
the works of nature equally as in those of man. 
Hence their assumption, as constitutive and explana- 
tory by the mass of mankind ; and the employment of 
the presumption, as an auxiliary and regulative prin- 
ciple, by the enlightened naturalist, whose office it is 
to seek, discover, and investigate the efficient causes. 
Without denying, that to resolve the efficient into the 
final may be the ultimate aim of philosophy, he, of 
good right, resists the substitution of the latter for the 
former, as premature, presumptuous, and preclusive 
of all science ; well aware, that those sciences have 
been most progressive, in which this confusion has 
been either precluded by the nature of the science 
itself as in pure mathematics, or avoided by the good 
sense of its cultivator. Yet even he admits a teleo- 
logical ground in physics and physiology : that is, the 
presumption of something analogous to the causality 
of the human will, by which, without assigning to 
nature, a conscious purpose, he may yet distinguish 
her agency from a blind and lifeless mechanism. 
Even he admits its use, and, in many instances, its 
necessity, as a regulative principle; as a ground of 
anticipation, for the guidanceof his judgment and for 
the direction of his observation and experiment : 
briefly in all that preparatory process, which the 
French language so happily expresses by s'orienter, 
i. e. that is to find out the east for one's self When 
the naturalist contemplates the structure of a bird, 
for instance, the hollow cavity of the bones, the posi- 
tion of the wings for motion, and of the tail for steer- 
ing its course, &c. he knows indeed that there must 
be a correspondent mechanism, as the nexus effectivus. 
But he knows, likewise, that this will no more ex- 
plain the particular existence of the bird, than the 
principles of cohesion, &c. could inform him why of 
two buildings, one is a palace, and the other a church. 
Nay, it must not be overlooked, that the assumption 
of the nexus effectivus itself originates in the mind, 
as one of the laws under which alone it can reduce 
the manifold of the impression from without into 
unity, and thus contemplate it as one thing; and 
could never (as hath been clearly proved by Mr. 
Hume) have been derived from outward experiencev 
in which it is indeed presupposed, as a necessary 
condition. Notio nexiis causalis non oritur, sed sup- 
ponitur, a sensibus. Between the purpose and the 
end the component parts are included, and thence 
receive their position and character as means, i. e. 
parts contemplated as parts. It is in this sense, we 
will affirm, that the parts, as means to an end, derive 
their position, and therein their qualities (or charac- 
ter) nay, we dare add, their very existence — as par- 
ticular things — from the antecedent method, or self- 
organizing PURPOSE ; upon which therefore we have 
dwelt so long. 

We are aware, that it is with our cognitions as with 

530 



THL FRIEND. 



521 



our children. There is a period in which the method 
111' mil lire is working /or tliein; a period of aimless 
acliviiy and unregulated accumulation, during which 
It is enough if we can preserve ihein in health and 
(lul of liurin's itxii/. Again, there is a period of order- 
liiipss. of circumspection, of discipline, in which we 
piinfy. scparaie, define, select, arrange, and settle the 
noinenclaiiire of communication. 'I'here is also a 
period of dawning and twilight, a period of anticipa- 
tion, alTording trials of strength. And all these, both 
in the growth of the sciences, and in the mind of a 
righlly-educated individual, will precede the attain- 
ment of a scientilic .Method. But, notwithstanding 
this, unless the im|>ortance of the latter be felt and 
arknowledged, unless its attainment be looked for- 
ward to and from the very beginning prepared for, 
there is little hope and small chance that any educa- 
tion will be conducted aright; or will ever prove in 
reality worth the name. 

Much labor, much wealth may have been expend- 
ed, yet the final result will too probably warrant the 
Barc.asm of the Scythian traveller: " \'jb quantum 
nihilil" and draw from a wise man the earnest re- 
commendation of a full draught from Lethe, as the 
first and indispensable preparative for the waters of 
the true Helicon. Alas! how many examples are 
now present to our memory, of young men the most 
anxiously and expensively be-schoolmastered, be-tu- 
tored, be-leotured, any thing but educated ; who have 
received arms and ammunition, instead of skill, 
strength, and courage; varnished rather than pol- 
ished ; perilously over-civilized, and most pitiably un- 
cultivated ! And all from inattention to the method 
dictated by nature herself, to the simple truth, that as 
the l()rms in all organized existence, so must all true 
and living knowledge proceed from within ; that it 
may he trained, supported, fed, excited, but can never 
be infused or impressed. 

Look back on the History of the Sciences. Review 
the Method in which Providence has brought the 
more favored portion of mankind to the present state 
of .Arts and Sciences. Lord Bacon has justly re- 
marked, Aniiqiiilas temporis juvenilis mundi el Scien- 
li(p — .Antiquity of lime is the youth of the world and 
of Science. In the childhood of the human race, its 
education commenced with the cultivation of the 
moral sense; the object proposed being such as the 
mind only could apprehend, and the principle of obe- 
dience being placed in the will. The appeal in both 
was made to the inward man. "Through faith we 
understand that the worlds were framed by the word 
of God ; so that things which were seen were not 
r;i.ide of things which do appear." {The solution of 
yitenomfna can never be derived from Phenomena.) 
I'pon this ground, the writer of the epistle to the He- 
brews (chap, xi.) is not less philo.sophical than elo- 
quent. The aim, the method throughout was, in the 
first place, to awaken, to cultivate, and to mature the 
tiuly huinan in human nature, in and through it«elf, 
or a.s independently as possible of the notices derived 
from sense, and of the motives that had reference to 
toe sensations ; till the time should arrive when the 
»t!iise» themselves might be allowed to present sym- 
68 



bols and attestations of truths, learnt previously from 
deeper and inner sources. Thus the first period of 
the education of our race was evidently assigned to 
the cultivation of humanity itself; or of that in man, 
which of all known emlxjdied creatures he alone 
jwssesses, the pure rca.son, as designed to regulate 
the will. And by what method was this done? 
First, by the excitement of the idea of their Creator 
as a spirit, of an idea which they were strictly forbid- 
den to realize to themselves under any image; and, 
secondly, by the injunction of obedience to the will 
of a super-sensual Being. Nor did the method stop 
here. For, unless we are equally to contradict Moses 
and the New Testament, in compliment to the para- 
dox of a Warburton, the rewards of their obedience 
were placed at a distance. For the time present 
thei/ equally with us were to "endure, as si:ei.\o him 
WHO IS iNvisiBLK." Their bodies they were taught 
to consider as fleshly tents, which as pilgrims they 
were bound to pitch wherever the invisible Director 
of their route should appoint, however barren or 
thorny the spot might appear. " Few and evil have 
the days of the years of my life been," says the aged 
Israel. But that life was but " his pilgrimage ; and 
he trusted in the promises." 

Thus were the very first lessons in the Divine 
School assigned to the cultivation of the reason and 
of the will : or rather of both as united in Faith. 
The common and ultimate object of the will and of 
the reason was purely spiritual, and to be present in 
the mind of the disciple — fiuvov h Uig, lin^afin 
f((5a)X(/,wj i. e. in the idea alone, and never as an 
image or imagination. The means too, by which the 
idea was to be excited, as well as the sipiihoh by 
wliich it was to be communicated, were to be, as far 
as possible, intellectual. 

Those, on the contrary, who wilfullj' chose a mode 
opposite to this method, who determined to shape 
their convictions and deduce their knowledge from 
without, by exclusive observation of outward and 
sensible things as the only realities, became, it ap- 
pears, rapidly civilized! They built cities, invented 
musical instruments, were artificers in brass and in 
iron, and refined on the means of sensual gratification 
and the conveniencies of courtly intercourse, 'j'hey 
became the great masters of the AGiiEHAnLi;, which 
fraternized readily with cruelty and rapacity : these 
being, indeed, but alternate moods of the same sen- 
sual selfishness. Thus, both before and after the 
flood, the vicious of mankind receded from all true 
cultivation, as they hurried towards civilization. 
Finally, as it was not in their power to make them- 
selves wholly beasts, or to remain without a sem- 
blance of religion ; and yet continuing faithful to 
their original maxim, and determined to receive 
nothing as true, but what they derived, or btdieved 
themselves to derive, from their senses, or (in modern 
phrase) what they could prove a posteriori, — they be- 
came idolaters of the Heavens and the material 
elements. From the harmony of operation they con- 
cluded a certain unity of nature and dcsitin, but 
were incapable of finding in the facts any proof of 
a unity of person. They did not, in this respect, 
531 



522 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



pretend to find what they must themselves have firet 
assumed. Having thrown away the chjsters, which 
had grown in the vineyard of revelation, they could 
not — as later reasoners, by being born in a Christian 
country, have been enabled to do — hang the grapes 
on thorns, and then pluck them as the native growth 
of the bushes. But the men of sense, of the patri- 
archal times, neglecting reason and having rejected 
faith, adopted what the facts seemed to involve and 
the most obvious analogies to suggest. They ac- 
knowledged a whole hee-hive of natural Gods ; but 
while they were employed in building a temple* 
consecrated to the material Heavens, it pleased divine 
wisdom to send on them a confusion of lip, accom- 
panied with the usual embitterment of controversy, 
where all parlies are in tlie wrong, and the grounds 
of the quarrel are equally plausible on all sides. 
As the modes of error are endless, the hundred 
forms of Polytheism had each its group of partisans, 
who, hostile or alienated, henceforward formed seve- 
ral tribes kept aloof from each other by their ambi- 
tious leaders. Hence arose, in the course of a few- 
centuries, the diversity of languages, which has 
sometimes been confounded with the miraculous 
event that was indeed its first and principal, though 
remote, cause. 

Following next, and as the representative of the 
youth and approaching manhood of the human intel- 
lect, we have ancient Greece, from Orpheus, Linus, 
MuseBus, and the other mythological bards, or perhaps 
the brotherhoods impersonated inider those names, to 
the time when the republics lost their independence, 
and their learned men sunk into copyisis and com- 
mentators of the works of their forefathers. That we 
include these as educated under a distinct providen- 
tial, though not miraculous, dispensation, will sur- 
prise no one, who reflects that in whatever has a per- 
manent operation on the destinies and intellectual 
condition of mankind at large — that in all which has 
been manifestly employed as a co-agent in the mighti- 
est revolution of the moral world, the propagation of 
the Gospel ; and in the intellectual progress of man- 
kind, the restoration of Philosophy, Science, and the 
ingenious Arts — it were irreligion not to acknowledge 
the hand of divine Providence. The periods, too, 
join on to each other. The earliest Greeks took up 
the religious and lyrical poetry of the Hebrews ; and 
the schools of the Prophets were, hovi'ever partially 
and imperfectly, represented by the mysteries, derived 



*We aie far from bein? Hutchinsonians, nor have we 
found much to respect in the twelve volumes of Hutchinson's 
works, either as biblical comment or natural philosophy : 
though we give him credit for orthodoxy and good intentions. 
But his interpretation of the first nine verses of Genesis xi. 
seems not only rational in itself, and consistont with after ac- 
counts of the sacred historian, but proved to be the literal 
sense of the Hebrew text. His explanation of the cherubim 
is pleasing and plausible : we dare not say more. Those who 
would wish to learn the most important points of the Hutch- 
insonian doclrine in the most favorable form, and in the 
shortest popsible space, we can refer to Duncan Forbes's 
Letter to a bishop. If our own judgment did not withhold 
our assniit. we should never be ashamed of a conviction 
held, profi'ssetl, and advocated by so good, and wise a mtm, 
lu D.uiican Forbes. 



through the corrupt channel of the Phcenicians 
With these secret schools of physiological theology 
the mythical poets were doubtless in connection : ana 
it was these schools, which prevented Polytheism 
from producing all its natural barbarizing effects. 
The mysteries and the mythical Hymns and Preans 
shaped themselves gradually into epic Poetry and 
History on the one hand, and into the ethical Trage- 
dy and Philosophy on the other. Under their protec 
tion, and that of a youthful liberty secretly controlled 
by a species of internal Theocracy, the Sciences and 
the sterner kinds of the Fine Arls; viz. Architecture 
and Statuary, grew up together: followed, indeed, by 
Painting, but a statuesque and austerely idealized 
painting, which did not degenerate into mere copies 
of the sense, till the process, for which Greece exist- 
ed, had been completed. Contrast the rapid progress 
and perfection of all the products, which owe iheir 
existence and character to the mind's own acts, intel- 
lectual or imaginative, with the rudeness of iheir aji- 
plication to the investigation of physical laws and 
phenomena : then contemplating the Greeks {Tpatot 
act Tzat^cg) as representing a portion only of the 
education of man : and the conclusion is inevitable. 
In the education of the mind of the rare, as in that 
of the individual, each difTerenl age and purpose re- 
quires different objects and different means: though 
all dictated by the same principle, tending toward the 
same end, and forming consecutive parts of the same 
method. But if the scale taken be sufficiently large 
to neutralize or reuder insignificant the disturbing 
forces of accident, the degree of success is the best 
criterion by which to appreciate both the wisdom of 
the general principle, and the fitness of the particular 
objects to the given epoch or period. Now it is a 
fact, for the greater part of universal acceptance, and 
attested as to the remainder by all that is of highest 
fame and authority, by the great, wise and good dur- 
ing a space of at least seventeen centuries — weighed 
against whom the opinions of a few distinguished in- 
dividuals, or the fashion of a single age, must be held 
light in the balance, — that whatever could be educ- 
ed by the mind out of its own essence, by attention 
to its own acts and laws of action, or as the products 
of the same ; and whatever likewise could be reflect- 
ed from material masses transformed as it were into 
mirrors, the excellence of which is to reveal, in the 
least possible degree, their own original forms and 
natures — all these, whether arts or sciences, the an- 
cient Greeks carried to an almost ideal perfi^ction : 
while in the application of their skill and science to 
the investigation of the laws of the sensible world, 
and the qualities and composition of material con- 
cretes, chemical, mechanical, or organic, their essays 
were crude and improsperous, compared with thrjse 
of the moderns during the early morning of Iheir 
strength, and even at the first re-ascension of the 
light. But still more striking will the difli>rence ap- 
pear, if we contrast the physiological schemes and 
fancies of the Greeks with their own discoveries \i\ 
the region of the pure intellect, and with their still 
imrivalled success in arts of imagination, in the 
aversion of their great men from any practical use of 
532 



THE FRIEND. 



523 



their pliilosophic discoveries, as in the well-known 
iiisianre of Archimedes, " the soul of the world" was 
ai work ; and ihc lew exceptions were but as a rush 
ol bilious driven shorewarti by some chance gust be- 
fore the hour of tide, insianlly retracted, and leaving 
the snnds bare and soundless long afier llio moment- 
ary glitter had Ijeen lost in evafwration. 

The third period, that of the Romans, was devoted 
to tlie preparations for preserving, propagating, and 
reali/iiig ilie lalx)rs of tlie preceding; to war, empire, 
law ! To this we may refer liie defect of all origin- 
ality in the Latin poets and [jhiiosoiihcrf, on the one 
hand, and on the other, the predilectiun of the Ko- 
mans for astrology, magic, divination, in all its forms, 
li was the Roman instinct to appropriate by conquest 
and to cive fixture by legislation. And it was the 
l)i'\\ilderment and premalurity of the same inslinct 
which restlessly impelled them to materialize the 
iihas of the Greek philosophers, and to render them 
practical by superstitious uses. 

Thus the Hebrews may be regarded as the fixed 
mid point of the living line, toward which the 
(ireeks as the ideal pole, and the Romans as tiie vm- 
/cr/a/, were ever approximating; till the coincidence 
and final stjiUhesis took place in Christianity, of 
which the Bible is the law, and Christendom the 
l)henomenon. So little confirmation from Histor)', 
from the process of education planned and conducted 
bv unerring ''rovidence, do those theorists receive, 
who would at least begin (too many, alas! both be- 
gin and end) with the objects of the senses ; as if na- 
ture herself had not abundantly performed this part 
of the task, by continuous, irresistible enforcements 
of allenlion to her presence, to the direct beholding, 
to the apprehension and observation, of the objects 
that stimulate the senses! as if the cullivalion of the 
mental powers, by methodical exercise of their own 
forces, were not the securest means of forming the 
true correspondents to them in the functions of com- 
parison, judgment, and interpretation. 



ESSAY XI 



Saplmiis niiimn, fruimur nnima: sine animo anima est de- 
bilis. L.. ACCIl, Fragmenta. 



As there are two wants connatural to man, so 
are there two main directions of human activity, per- 
vading in modern times the whole civilized world ; 
and constituting and sustaining that nationality which 
yet it is their tendency, and more or less, xhext effecl 
to iranscend and to moderate — Trade and Literature. 
These were they, which, after the disnieniberment 
of the old Roman world, gradually reduced the con- 
(|iierorJ and the conquered at once into several na- 
tions and a common Christendom. The natural law 
of increa.se and the instincts of family may produce 
tribes, and under rare and peculiar circumstances, 
settlemenis and neighborhoods: and conquest may 
form empires. But without trade and literature, mu- 
Vt 



tually commingled, there can be no nation ; without 
commerce and science, no bond of nations. As the 
one hath for its object the wants of the body, real or 
artificial, the desires for which are for the greater 
part, nay, as far as respects the oripinatiun of trade 
and commerce, allogi/lwr excited from wilhoul ; so 
the other has for its origin, as well as for its object, 
the wants of the mind, the gratification of which is a 
natural and necessarj' condition of its growth and 
sanity. And the man (or the nation, considered ac- 
cording to its predominant character as one man) 
may be regarded under these circumstances, as act- 
ing in two forms of method, inseparably co-existent, 
yet producing very dilferenl efiecls according as one 
or the other obtains the primacy.* As is the rank as- 
signed to each in the theory and practice of the go- 
verning classes, and according to its prevnicnce in 
forming the foundation of their public habits and 
opinions, so will be the outward and inward life of 
the people at large ; such will the nation be. In 
tracing the epochs, and alternations of their relative 
sovereignty or subjection, consists the Piiii.osorHY 
of History. In the power of distinguishing and ap- 
preciating their several results consists the hisloric 
Sense. And that under the ascendency of the men- 
tal and moral character the commercial relations may 
thrive to the utmost desirable point, while the reverse 
is ruinous to both, and sooner or lat?r effectuates the 
fall or debasement of the country iiself— this is the 
richest truth obtained for mankind by historic Re* 
SEARCH ; though unhappily it is tlie truth, to which 
a rich and commercial nation listens with most re- 
luctance and receives with least failh. Where the 
brain and the immediate conductors of its influence 
remain healthy and vigorous, the defects and diseases 
of the eye will most often admit cilher of a cure or a 
substitute. And so is it with the outward prosperity 
of a state, where the well-being of the people posses- 
ses the primacy in the aims of the governing classes, 
and in the public feeling. But what avails the per- 
fect state of the eye, 

Tlio' clenr 
To outward view of blemish or of spot, 

where the optic nerve is paralyzed by a pressure on 
the brain ? And even so is it not only with the well- 
being, but ultimately with the prosperity of a people, 
where the former is considered (if it be considered 
at all) as subordinate and secondary to wealth and 
revenue. 

In the pursuits of commerce the man is called into 
action from without, in order to appropriate the out- 
ward world, as far as he can bring it within his reach, 
to the pur[x)ses of his senses and sensual nature. His 
ultimate end is — appearance and enjoyment. Where 
on the oihcr hand the nurture and evolution of hu- 
manity is the final aim, there will soon be seen a gen- 
eral tendency toward, an earnest seeking after, some 
ground common to the world and lo man, therein to 
find the one principle of permanence and identity, the 

* The ecnses, iho memory, ,inii the undwstanding (i. e iha 
retcniivc, rcflcclive, and Judicial lunctinns of his mind) beins 
cumniuD tu both mcdioda. 

533 



524 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



rock of strength and refuge, to which the soul may 
cling amid the fleeting serge-like objects of the senses. 
Disturbed as by the obscure quickening of an inward 
birth ; made restless by swarming thoughts, that, like 
bees when they first miss the queen and mother of 
the hive, with vain discui-sion seek each in the other 
what is the common need of all; man sallies forth 
into nature — in nature, as in the shadows and reflec- 
tions of a clear river, to discover the originals of the 
forms presented to him in his own intellect. Over 
these shadows, as if they wero the substantial pow- 
ers and presiding spirits of the stream, JNarcissus-like, 
he hangs delighted : till finding no where a represen- 
tative of that free agency which yet is a fad of im- 
mediate consciousness sanctioned and made tearfully 
significant by his prophetic conscience, he learns at 
last that what he seeks he has lefl hehind and but 
lengthens the distance as he prolongs the search. Un- 
der the tutorage of scientific analysis, haply first 
given to him by express revelation (e cogIo descendit, 
riSiiei SEAYTON) he separates the relations that 
are wholly the creatures of his own abstracting and 
comparing intellect, and at once discovers and recoils 
from the discovery, that the reality, the objective truth, 
of the objects he has been adoring, derives its whole 
and sole evidence from an obscure sensation, which 
he is alike unable to resist or to comprehend, which 
compels him to contemplate as without and independ- 
ent of himself what yet he could not contemplate at 
all, were it not a modification of his own being. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 
Yearnings she liath in her own natural knul. 
And, even with something of a Mother's mind 
And no unworthy aim, 
The homely Nurse doth all she can 
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known, 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 



O joy ! that in our embers 
Is something that doth live, 
That nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! 

The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest; 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: — 
Not for these I raise 
The song of thanks and praise, 

But for those obstinate questionings 

Of sense and outward things. 

Fallings from us, vanishings ; 

Blank misgivings of a Creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts before which our mortal Nature 
Uid tremble like a guiliy Thing surprised ! 

But for those first aflections. 

Those shadowy recol.eccions, 

Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain lisnt of all our day. 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing; 

Uphold us — cherish — and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake. 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 

Nor Man nor Boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 



Can utterly abolish or destroy I 

Hence, in a season of calm weather. 
Though inland far we be. 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither; 
Can in a moment travel thither — 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 

WORDSWORTH.' 

Long indeed will man strive to satisfy the inward 
querist with the phrase, laws of nature. But though 
the individual may rest content with the seemly met- 
aphor, the race cannot. If a law of nature be a mere 
generalization, it is included in the above as an act 
of the mind. But if it be other and more, and yet 
manifestable only in and to an intelligent spirit, it 
must in act and substance be itself spiritual : for 
things utterly heterogeneous can have no intercom- 
munion. In order therefore to the recognition of 
himself in nature, man must first learn to comprehend 
nature in himself, and its laws in the ground of his 
own existence. Then only can he reduce Phenome- 
na to Principles — then only will he have achieved 
the .METHOD, the self-unravelling clue, which alone 
can securely guide him to the conquest of the former 
— when he has discovered in the basis of their union 
the necessity of their differences ; in the principle of 
their continuance the solution of their changes. It is 
the idea of the common centre, of the universal law, 
by which all power manifests itself in opposite yet 
interdependent forces (;; ya^ AYAS aei irapa MovatSi 
Ka^rjrai, Kai vocpais as'pa-^rii roftati) that enlightening 
inquiry, multiplying experiment, and at once inspir- 
ing humility and perseverance, will lead him to com- 
prehend gradually and progressively the relation of 
each to the other, of each to all, and of all to each. 

Such is the second of the two possible directions in 
which the activity of man propels itself: and either 
in one or other of these channels — or in some one of 
the rivulets which notwithstanding their occasional 
refluence (and though, as in successive schematisms 
of Becher, Stahl, and Lavoisier, the varying stream 
may for a time appear to comprehend and inisle some 
particular department of knowledge which even then 
it only peninsulates) are yet flowing towards this mid 
channel, and will ultimately fall into it — all intellect- 
val METHOD has its bed, its banks, and its line of pro- 
gression. For be it not forgotten, that this discourse 



* During my residence in Rome I had the pleasure of recit- 
ing this sublime ode to the illustrious Baron Von Humboldt, 
then the Prussian minister at the papal court, and now at the 
court of St. James. By those who knew and honored both 
the brothers, the talents of the plenipotentiary were held equal 
to those of the scientific traveller, his judgment superior. I 
can only say, tliat I know few Englishmin, whom I could 
compare with him in the extensive knowledge and just appre- 
ciation of English literature and its various epochs. He lis- 
tened to the ode wiih evident delight, and as evidently not 
without surprise, and at the close of the recitation exclaimed, 
"And is this the work of a living English poetl I should 
have aUributed it to the age of Elizabeth, not that 1 recollect 
any writer, whose style it resembles : but rather with wonder 
that so great and original a poet should have escaped my no 
tice." — Often as 1 repeat passages from it to myself, I recur 
to the words of Dante : 

Canzon 1 io eredo, che saranno radi 
Che tua ragione bene inlenderanno : 
Tauto lor sei faticosu ed alto. 

534 



THE FRIEND. 



525 



is confined to the evolutions and ordonnanco of know- 
ledge, as proscribed by the constitution of the human 
intellect. \Vhether there be a corresjiondenl reality, 
whether the Knowing of the Mind has its correlative 
in the Being of Nature, doubts may be felt. Never 
to have felt them, would indeed betray an uncon- 
scious unbelief, which traced to its extreme roots will 
be seen gmunded in a latent disbelief How should 
it not be so? if to conquer these doubts, and out of 
the confused multiplicity of seeing with which "the 
films of corruption" bewilder us, and out of the un- 
substantial shows of existence, which, like the sha- 
dow of an eclipse, or the chasms in the sun's atmo- 
sphere, are but iwiradnns of sight, to attain that sin- 
gleness of ei/e, with which " the whole body shall be 
fitU of Ugh'.," he the purpose, the means, and the end 
of our probation, the .method which is " profitable to 
all things, and hath the promise in this life and in the 
life to come!" Imagine the unlettered African, or 
rude yet musing Indian, poring over an illumined 
manuscript of the inspired volume, with the vague 
yet deep impression that his fates and fortunes are in 
some unknown manner connected with its contents. 
Every lint, every group of characters has its several 
dream. Say that afler long and dissatisfying toils, he 
begins to sort, first the paragraphs that appear to re- 
semble each other, then the lines, the words — nay, 
that he has at length discovered that the whole is 
formed by the recurrence and interchanges of a lim- 
ited number of cyphers, letters, marks, and points, 
which, however, in the very height and utmost per- 
fection of his attainment, he makes twenty fold more 
numerous than they are, by classing every different 
form of the same character, intentional or accidental, 
as a separate element. And the whole is without 
soul or substance, a talisman of superstition, a mock- 
ery of science : or employed perhaps at last to feather 
the arrows of death, or to shine and flutter amid the 
plumes of savage vanity. The poor Indian too truly 
represents the state of learned and systematic igno- 
rance — arrangement guided by the light of no lead- 
ing idea, mere orderliness without method! 

But see ! the friendly missionary arrives. He ex- 
plains to him the nature of written words, translates 
them for him into his native sounds, and thence into 
the thoughts of his heart — how many of these 
thoughts then first evolved into consciousness, which 
yet the awakening disciple receives, and not as 
aliens ! Henceforward, the book is unsealed fijr him ; 
the depth is opened out; he communes with the 
spirit of the volume as a living oracle. The words 
become transparent, and he sees them as though he 
saw them not. 

We have thus delineated the two great directions 
of man and society with their several objects and 
ends. Concerning the conditions and principles of 
method appertaining to each, we have affirmed (for 
the facts hitherto adduced have been rather for illus- 
tration than for evidence, to make our position dis- 
tinctly understood rather than to enforce the convic- 
tion of its truth) that in both there must be a mental 
antecedent; but that in the one it may be an image 
or conception received through the senses, and ori- 



ginating from without, the inspiriting pa.tsion or de- 
sire being alone the immediate and pro|)cr offspring 
of the mind ; while m the other the initiative thought, 
the intellectual seed, must have its birth-jilace within, 
whatever excitement from without may be necessary 
for its germination. Will the soul thus awakencil 
neglect or undervalue the outward and condiiinnal 
causes of her growth? For rather, might we dnre 
Iwrrow a wild fiincy from the Mnutuan bard, or the 
jwet of Arno, will it be with her, as if a stem or 
trunk, suddenly endued with sense and reflection, 
should contemplate its green shoots, their leaflets and 
budding blossoms, wondered at as then first noticed, 
but welcomed nevertheless as its own growth : while 
yet with undiminished gratitude, and a deepened 
sense of dependency, it would bless the dews and 
the sunshine from without, deprived of the awaken- 
ing and fostering excitement of which, its own pro- 
ductivity would have remained for ever hidden from 
itself, or felt only as the obscure trouble of a baffled 
instinct. 

Hast thou ever raised thy mind to the consideration 
of EXISTE.N'CE, in and by itself, as the mere act of 
existing? Hast thou ever said to thyself thought- 
fully, IT IS ! heedless in that moment, whether it 
were a man before thee, or a flower, or a grain of 
sand ? Without reference, in short, to this or that par- 
ticular mode or form of existence? If thou hast 
indeed attained to this, thou wilt have felt the pre- 
sence of a mystery, which must have fixed thy spirit 
in awe and wonder. The very words, There is 
nothing! or, There was a time, when there was 
nothing ! are self-contradictory. There is that within 
us which repels the proposition with as full and in- 
stantaneous light, as if it bore evidence against the 
fact in the right of its own eternity. 

Not TO BE, then, is impossible : TO BE, incom- 
prehensible. If thou hast mastered this intuition of 
absolute existence, thou wilt have learnt likewise, 
that it was this, and no other, which in the earlier 
ages seized the nobler minds, the elect among men, 
with a sort of sacred horror. This it was which first 
caused them to feel within themselves a something 
ineffably greater than their own individual nature. 
It was this which, raising them aloft, and projecting 
them to an ideal distance from themselves, prepared 
them to become the lights and awakening voices of 
other men, the founders of law and religion, the 
educators and foster-gods of mankind. The power, 
which evolved this idea of Being, Being in its es- 
sence. Being limitless, comprehending its own limits 
in its dilatation, and condensing itself into its own 
apparent mounds — how shall we name it ? The idea 
itself, which like a mighty billow at once overwhelms 
and bears aloft — what is it ? Whence did it come ? 
In vain vNould we derive it from the organs of sense: 
for these supply only surfaces, undulations, phantoms ! 
In vain from the instruments of sensation : for these 
furnish only the chaos, the shapeless elements of 
sense ! And least of all may we hope to find its 
origin, or suflicient cause, in the moulds and mechan- 
ism of the UNDERSTANDING, the wholc purport and 
functions of which consist in individualization, ia 
•^25 



526 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



outlines and diferencings by quantity, quality and 
relation. It were wiser to seek substance in shadow, 
than absolute fulness in mere negation. 

We have asked then for its birth-place in all that 
constitutes our relative individuality, in all that each 
man calls exclusively himself It is an alien of 
uhich they know not: and for them the question 
is purposeless, and the very words that convey it are 
as sounds in an unknown language, or as the vision 
of heaven and earth expanded by the rising sun, 
which falls but as warmth on the eye-lids of the 
blind. To no class of phenomena or particulars can 
it be referred, itself being none : therefore, to no 
faculty by which these alone are apprehended. As 
little dare we refer it to any form of abstraction or 
generalization : for it has neither co-ordinate or anal- 
ogon ! it has absolutely one, and that it is, and 
affirms itself to be, is its only predicate. And yet this 
power nevertheless, is! In eminence of Being it IS ! 
And he for whom it manifests itself in its adequate 
idea, dare as little arrogate it to himself as his own, 
can as little appropriate it either totally or by parti- 
tion, as he can claim ownership in the breathing air, or 
make an enclosure in the cope of heaven.* He bears 
witness of it to his own mind, even as he describes 
life and light : and, with the silence of light, it de- 
scribes itself and dwells in ws only as far as we dwell 
in it. The truths which it manifests are such as it 
alone can manifest, and in all truth it manifests itself 
By what name then canst thou call a truth so mani- 
fested ? Is it not REVELATION ? Ask thyself whether 
thou canst attach lo that latter word any consistent 
meaning not included in the idea of the former. 
And the manifesting power, the source and the cor- 
relative of the idea thus manifested — is it not GOD? 
Either thou knowest it to be GOD, or thou hast called 
an idol by that awful name ! Therefore in the most 
appropriate, no less than in the highest, sense of the 
word were the earliest teachers of humanity inspired. 
They alone were the true seers of GOD, and there- 
fore prophets of the human race. 

Look round you, and you behold every where an 
adaptation of means to ends. Meditate on the nature 
of a Being whose ideas are creative, and consequent- 
ly more real, more substantial than the things that, 
at the height of their creaturely state, are but their 
dim reflexes:! and the intuitive conviction will 
arise that in such a Being there could exist no motive 



* See p. 11—19 of the Appendix to the Statesman's Man- 
val • and p. 47 — 52 of the second JLay-Sermon. 

+ If we may not rather resenihle them to the resurgent 
ashes, with which (aecordinK to the tales of the later al- 
chemists) the substantial forms of bird and flower made them- 
Bclves visible, 

'iZf TO. KaKrig tiX)7f /jAof?; jxara ^prj^a Kai fir^Xa. 

And let me be permitted to add, in especial reference to this 
passase, a premonition quoted from the same work (Zoroas- 
tri Oracula, Franciaci Palricii) 

'A Noiif \iyci, Ti,) voovvTi }>] ::» Xf'yti. 

Of the flower apparitions so solemnly alKrmed by Sir K. 
Digby, Kcrcher, Helmont, &c. ?ee a full and most interesting 
account in Snuthcy's Oinniana, with a probable solution of 
•J«is clicmical marvel. 



to the creation of a machine for its own sake ; that 
therefore, the material world must have been made 
for the sake of man, at once the high-priest and re- 
presentative of the Creator, as far as he partakes of 
that reason in which the essences of all things co- 
exist in all their distinctions yet as one and indivisi- 
ble. But I speak of man ui his idea, and as submused 
in the divine humanity, in whom God alone loved 
the world. 

If then in all inferior things, from the grass on the 
house-top to the giant tree of the forest, to the eagle 
which builds in its summit, and the elephant which 
browses on its branches, we behold — first, a subjec- 
tion to the universal laws by which each thing be- 
longs to the Whole, as interpenetrated by the powers 
of the Whole ; and, secondly the intervention of par- 
ticular laws by which the universal laws are sus- 
pended or tempered for the weal and sustenance of 
each particular class, and by which each species, and 
each individual of every species, becomes a system 
in and for itself, a world of its own — if we behold 
this economy everywhere in the irrational creation, 
shall we not hold it probable that a similar tempera- 
ment of universal and general laws by an adequate 
intervention of appropriate agency, will have been 
effected for the permanent interest of the creature 
destined to move progressively towards that divine 
idea which we have learnt to contemplate as the final 
cause of all creation, and the centre in which all its 
lines converge ? 

To discover the mode of intervention requisite for 
man's developement and progression, we must seek 
then for some general law by the untempered and 
uncounteracted action of which both would be pre- 
vented and endangered. But this we shall find in 
that law of his understanding and fancy, by which 
he is impelled to abstract the outward relations of 
matter and to arrange these phenomena in time and 
space, under the fr)rm of causes and effects. And 
this was necessary, as being the condition undei 
which alone experience and intellectual growth are 
possible. But, on the other hand, by the same law 
he is inevitably tempted to misinterpret a constant 
precedence into positive causation, and thus to break 
and scatter the one divine and invisible life of nature 
into countless idols of the sense ; and falling pros- 
trate before lifeless images, the creatures of his own 
abstraction, is himself sensualized, and becomes a 
slave to the things of which he was formed lo be the 
conqueror and sovereign. From the fetisch of the 
imbruted African to the soul-debasing errors of the 
proud fact-hunting materialist, we may trace the va- 
rious ceremonials of the same idolatry, and shall find 
selfishness, hate and servitude as the results. If, 
therefore, by the over-ruling and suspension of the 
phantom-cause of this superstition ; if by separating 
effects from their natural antecedents ; if by present- 
ing the phenomena of time (as far as is possible) in 
the absolute ibrms of eternity; the nursling of expe- 
rience should, in the early period of his pupilage, be 
compelled, by a more impressive experience, to seek 
in the invisible life alone for the true cause and in- 
visible Nexus of the things that are seen, we shall 
5,% 



THE FRIEND. 



527 



not demand ihe evidences of ordinari/ experience for 
that wliicli, if it ever existed, existed us ils nritillieijis 
and lor iis counieraclion. Was it an appropriate 
mean to a necessary end ? Has it Ih'CIi ullesled by 
lovers of triitii ; lias it been believed by lovers of 
wisdom? Do we see iliroiiglioul all nature the oc- 
ruiiional intervention of particular agencies in coun- 
ter-check of universal laws? (And of what other 
definition is a miracle susceptible ?) These are (he 
questions: and if to tliese our answer must be alFirm- 
aiive, then we too will acquiesce in the traditions of 
humaniry, and yielding, as lo a high interest of our 
own being, will discipline ourselves to the reverential 
and kindly faith, that ihe guides and teachers of man- 
kind were the handsof power, no less than (he voices 
of inspiriKion : and Utile anxious concerning the par- 
ticular forms and circumstances of each manii'eslation 
we will give an historic credence to the historic fact, 
that men sent by God have come with signs and 
wonders on the earth. 

If it be objected, that in nature, as distinguished 
from man, this intervention of particular laws is, or 
with (he increase of science will be, resolvable into 
the universal laws which they had appeared to coun- 
terbalance — we will reply : Even so it may be in the 
case of miracles; but wisdom forbids her children to 
antedate their knowledge, or to act and feel other- 
wise, or further than they know. But should that 
time arrive, the sole difference, that could result from 
such an enlargementof our view, w^ould be this : that 
what we now consider as miracles in opposition to 
ordinary experience, we should then reverence with 
a yet higher devotion as harmonious parts of one 
great complex miracle, when the antithesis between 
experience and belief would itself be taken up into 
the unity of intuitive reason. 

And what purpose of philosopfty can this acquies- 
cence answer ? A gracious purpose, a most valuable 
end : if it prevent the energies of philosophy from 
being idly wasted, by removing the opposition with- 
out confounding the distinction between philo.sophy 
and faith. The philosopher will remain a man in 
sympathy with his fellow men. The head will not 
be disjointed from the heart, nor will speculative 
truth be alienated from practical wi!?dom. And 
vainly without the union of both shall we expect an 
opening of the inward eye to the glorious vision of 
that existence which admits of no question out of it- 
self, acknowledges no predicate but the I AM IN 
THAT I AM! Oavfia^ovTcg (piXoaoipS/itv fiKoao- 
ijifiaavTti ^afifiSjxtv. In wonder (rw 5uD/ja^£ii') says 
Aristotle does philosphy begin : and in astoundment 
(t(i) ^afi^tlv) says Plato, does all true philosophy 
finish. As every faculty, with every the minutest 
organ of our naturi, owes its whole reality and com- 
prehensibility to an existence incomprehensible and 
groundless, because the groimd of" all comprehension: 
not without the union of all that is essential in all the 
fimclions of our spirit, not without an emotion tran- 
quil from its very intensity, shall we worthily contem- 
plate in the magnitude and integrity of the world that 
lil'e-ebullient stream which breaks through every 
momentary embankment, again, indeed, and ever- 
35 Vv2 



more to embank itself, but within no banks to stag- 
na(e or bo imprisoned. 
j Bu( here it beh(X)vcs us to bear in mind, that all 
true reality has both its ground and its evidence in 
the will, without which as its complement science it- 
self is but an elaborate game of shadows, begins in 
abstractions and ends in perplexity. For considered 
merely intellectually, individuality, as individuality, 
is only conceivable as with and in the Universal and 
Infinite, neither before or after it. No transition is 
possible ii-oin one to the other, as from the architect 
to the house, or the watch to its maker. Tlio finite 
form can neiiiier be laid hold of, nor is it any thing 
of itself real, but merely an a[)prehension, a frame- 
work which the human imagination forms by ils own 
limits, as the foot measures itself on the snow; and 
the sole truth of which we must again refer to the 
divine imagination, in virtue of its omniformity ; even 
as thou art capable of beholding the transparent air 
as little during the absence as during the presence 
of light, so canst thou behold the finite things as act- 
ually existing neither with nor without the substance. 
Not without, for then the f()rms cease to be, and are 
lost in night. Not with it, for it is the light, the sub- 
stance shining through it, which thou canst alone 
really see. 

The ground-work, therefore, of all true philosophy 
is the full apprehension of the diflerence between (he 
contemplation of reason, namely, that intuition of 
things, which arises when wc possess ourselves, as 
one with the whole, which is substantial knowledge, 
and that which presents itself when transferring re- 
ality to the negations of reality, to the ever-varying 
frame-work of the uni.fbrm life, we think of ourselves 
as separated beings, and place nature in antithesis to 
the mind, as object to subject, khing to thought, death 
to life. This is abstract knowiw.'.'je, or the science of 
mere understanding. By the former, we know that 
existence is its own predicate, self affirmation, the one 
attribute in which all others are contained, not as 
parts, but as manifestations. It is an eternal and in- 
finite self-rejoicing, self-loving, with a joy unfalLim- 
able, with a love all comprehensive. It is absolute; 
and the absolute is neither singly that which affirms, 
nor that which is affirmed ; but the identity and living 
copula of both. 

On the other hand, the abstract knowledge which 
belongs to us as finite beings, and which leads to a 
science of delusion then only, when it would exist 
for itself instead of being the instrument of the for- 
mer — instead of being, as it were, a translation of the 
living word into a dead language, for the purposes of 
memory, arrangement, and general communication — 
it is by this abstract knowledge that the understand- 
ing distinguishes the affirmed from the afllrming, 
Well if it distinguish without dividing! Well ! if by 
distinction it add clearness to fulness, and prepare for 
the intellectual re-union of the all in one, in that eter- 
nal reason whose fulness hath no opacity, whose 
transparency hath no vacuum. 

Thus we prefaced our inquiry into the Science of 
Method with a principle deeper than science, more 
certain than demonstration. For that the vcnj ground, 
537 



528 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



saith Aristotle, is groundless or self-grounded, is an 
identical proposition. From the indemonstrable flows 
the sap, that circulates through every branch and 
spray of the demonstration. To this principle we 
referred the choice of the final object, the control 
over time — or, to comprise all in one, the Method of 
the will. From this we started (or rather seemed to 
start: for it still moved before us, as an invisible guar- 
dian and guide,) and it is this whose re-appearance 
announces the conclusion of our circuit, and wel- 
comes us at our goal. Yea, (saith an enlightened 
physician,) there is but one principle, which alone re- 
conciles the man with himself, with others and with 
the world; which regulates all relations, tempers all 
passions, and gives power to overcome or support all 
sufTerhig ; and which is not to be shaken by aught 
earthly, for it belongs not to the earth — namely, the 
principle of religion, the living and substantial faith 
"which passeth all understanding," as the cloud 
piercing rock, which overhangs the strong-hold of 
which it had been the quarry and remains the foun- 
dation. This elevation of the spirit above the sem- 
blances of custom and the senses to a world of spirit, 
this life in the idea, even in the supreme and godlike, 



which alone merits the name of life, and without 
which our organic life is but a stale of somnambulism, 
this it is which affords the sole sure anchorage in the 
storm, and at the same time the substantiating prin- 
ciple of all true wisdom, the satisfactory solution of 
all the contradictions of human nature, of the whole 
riddle of the world. This alone belongs to and 
speaks intelligibly to all alike, the learned and the 
ignorant, if but the heart listens. For alike present 
in all, it may be awakened, but it cannot be given. 
But let it not be supposed, that it is a sort of knovj- 
ledge: No ! it is a form of being, or indeed it is the 
only knowledge that truly is, and all other science is 
real only as far as it is symbolical of this. The ma- 
terial universe, saith a Greek philosopher, is but one 
vast complex Mythos (i. e. symbolical representa- 
tion :) and mythology the apex and complement of all 
genuine physiology. But as this principle cannot be 
implanted by the discipline of logic, so neither can it 
be excited or evolved by the arts of rhetoric. For it 
is an immutable truth, that what comes fro.m the 

HE.^RT THAT ALONE GOES TO THE HEART: WHAT 
PROCEEDS FRO.M A DIVINE I.MPUI.SE THAT THE GOD- 
LIKE ALONE CAN AWAKEN. 



s;nr rtiirtr Huti'^inQ JJlate: 



ESSAYS MISCELLANEOUS. 



Etiam a musis si quando aniraum paulisper abducamus, apud Musas niliilominus feriamur : at reclines quidem, at otiosaa, 
at de his el illis inter ee libere colloquentes. 



ESSAY I. 



Fortuna plerumque est veluti 
Galaxia quarundam obscurarum 
Virtutum sine nomine. VEEULAM. 

Translation.) — Fortune is for the most part but a galaxy or 
milky way, as it were, of certain obscure virtues without 
a name. 



" Does fortune favor fools ? or how do you explain 
the origin of the proverb, which, differently worded, 
is to be found in all the languages of Europe ?" 

This proverb admits of various explanations, ac- 
cording to the mood of mind in which it is used. It 
may arise from pity, and the soothing persuasion that 
Providence is eminently watchful over the helpless, 
and extends an especial care to those who are not 



capable of caring for themselves. So used, it 
breathes the same feeling as " God tempers the wind 
to the shorn lamb" — or, the more sportive adage, that 
" the fairies take care of children and tipsy folk." 
The persuasion itself, in addition to the general reli- 
gious feeling of mankind, and the scarcely less gene- 
ral love of the marvellous, may be accounted for from 
our tendency to exaggerate all effects, that seem dis- 
proportionate to their visible cause, and all circum- 
stances that are in any way strongly contrasted with 
our notions of the persons under them. Secondly, it 
arises from the safety and success which an igno- 
rance of danger and difficulty sometimes actually as- 
sists in procuring; inasmuch as it precludes the de- 
spondence, which might have kept the more fore- 
sighted from undertaking the enterprise, the depres- 
sion which would retard its progress, and those over- 
whelming influences of terror in cases where the 
538 



THE FRIEND. 



539 



vivid perception of the danijer constitutes the greater 
purl of the danger itself Thus men are said to have 
swooned and oven died at the sight of a narrow 
bridge, over which they had rode, the night before, 
in perfect safety; or at tracing the footmarks along 
tlie edge of a precipice which the darkness had con- 
cealed from them. A more obscure cause, yet not 
wholly to be omitted, is aflorded by the undoubted 
fact, that the exertion of the reasoning fticulties tends 
to extinguish or bedim those mysterious instincts of 
skill, which, though for the most part latent, we 
nevertheless |X)ssess in common with other animals. 
Or the proverb may be used invidiousli/ : and folly 
in the vocabulary of envy or basene.ss may signify 
courage and magnanimity. Hardihood and fool-har- 
dmess are indeed as different as green and yellow, 
yet will appear the same to the jaundiced eye. Cou- 
rage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes 
making opportunities, and always availing itself of 
them : and in this sense fortune may be said to favor 
fools by those, who, however prudent in their own 
opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise. Again : 
an eminently good and wise man, for whom the 
praises of the judicious have procured a high reputa- 
tion even with the world at large, proposes to himself 
certain objects, and adapting the right means to the 
right end, attains them : but his objects not being 
what the world calls fortune, neither money nor arti- 
ficial rank, his admitted inferiors in moral and intel- 
lectual worth, but more prosperous in their worldly 
concerns, are said to have been favored by fortune 
and he slighted : although the fools did the same in 
their line as the wise man in his : they adapted the 
appropriate means to the desired end and so suc- 
ceeded. In this sense the proverb is current by a 
misuse, or a catachresis at least, of both the words, 
fortune and fools. 

How EcMom, friend ! a good great man inherits 
Honor or wealth wilh alt his worth and pains I 
It sounds, like stories from the land of spirits. 
If any man obtain that t' liich he merits, 
Or any merit that which lie obtains. 

REPLY. 

For shame, dear friend ! renounce this canting strain. 

What wouldst Ihou have a good great man obtain 1 

Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain ? 

Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain ? 

Greatness and goodness are not means but ends! 

Halh he not always treasures, always friends. 

The good great man ? Three treasures, love and light, 

And calm thoughts regular as infant's breath : 

And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, 

HimselJ, his Maker, and the angel Death. S. T. C. 

But, lastly, there is, doubtless, a true meaning at- 
tached to fortune, distinct both from prudence and 
from courage; and distinct too from that absence of 
depressing or bewildering passions, which (according 
to my favorite proverb, " extremes meet,") the Ibol 
not seldom obtains in as great perfection by his igno- 
rance, as the wise man by the highest energies of 
thought and selfdiscipline. Lcck has a real exist- 
ence in human affairs from the infinite number of 
powers, that are in action at the same time, and from 
the co-existence of things contingent and accidental 
69 



(such as to i/s at least are accidental) with the regiv 
lur appearances and general laws of nature. A fami- 
liar instance will make these words intelligible. The 
moon waxes and wanes according to a necessary law 
— The clouds likewise, and all the manifold appea^ 
ances connected with them, are governed by certain 
laws no less than the phases of the moon. But the 
laws which determine the latter, are known and cA, 
culabte: while those of the former are hidden from 
us. At all events, the nnmber and variety of their 
effects bafltle our powers of calculation : and that the 
sky is clear or obscured at any particular time, we 
speak of, in common language, as a matter of acci- 
dent. Weill at the time of full moon, but when the 
sky is completely covered with black clouds, I am 
walking on in the dark, aware of no particular dan- 
ger: a sudden gust of wind rends the cloud for a 
moment, and the moon emerging discloses to me a 
chasm or precipice, to the very brink of which I had 
advanced my foot. This is what is meant by luck, 
and according to the more or less serious mood or 
habit of our mind we exclaim, how lucky! or, how 
providential ! The co-presence of numberless phe- 
nomena, which from the complexity or subtlety of 
their determining causes are called contingencies, and 
the co-existence of these with any regular or neces- 
sary phenomenon (as the clouds with the moon for 
instance) occasion coincidences, which, when they are 
attended by any advantage or injury, and are at the 
same time incapable of being calculated or foreseen 
by human prudence, form good or ill luck. On a hot 
sunshiny afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoilt 
the farmer's hay : and this is called ill luck. We will 
suppose the event to take place, when meteorology 
shall have been perfijcted into a science, provided 
with unerring instruments ; but which the farmer had 
neglected to examine. This is no longer ill luck, but 
imprudence. Now apply this to our proverb. Un- 
foreseen coincidences may have greatly helped a 
man, yet if they have done for him only what possi- 
bly from his own abilities he might have effected lor 
himself, his good luck will excite less attention and 
the instances be less remembered. That clever men 
should attain their objects seems natural, and we ne- 
glect the circumstances that perhaps produced that 
success of themselves without the intervention of 
skill or foresight ; but we dwell on the fact and re- 
member it, as something strange, when the same 
happens to a weak or ignorant man- So too, though 
the latter should fail in his undertakings from concur- 
rences that might have happened to the wisest man, 
yet his failure being no more than might have been 
expected and accounted for from his folly, it lays no 
hold on our attention, but fleets away among the 
other undistinguished waves in which the stream of 
ordinary life murmurs by us, and is forgotten. Had 
it been as true as it was notoriously false, that those 
all-embracing discoveries, which have shed a dawn 
of science on the arl of chemistry, and give no ob- 
scure promise of some one great constitutive law, in 
the light of which dwell dominion and the power of 
prophecy; if these discoveries, instead of having been 
as they really were preconcerted by meditation, and 

539 



530 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



evolved out of his own intellect, had occurred by a 
set of lucky accidents to the illustrious father and 
founder of philosophic alchemy ; if they had present- 
ed themselves to Professor Davy exclusively in con- 
sequence of his Z((c/c in possessing a particular galvanic 
battery; if this battery, as far as Davy was concerned, 
had itself been an accident, and not (as in point of fact 
it was) desired and obtained by him for the purpose 
of ensuring the testimony of experience to his princi- 
ples, and in order to bind down material nature under 
the inquisition of reason, and force from her, as by 
torture, unequivocal answer lo prepared and precon- 
ceived questions — yet still they would not have been 
talked of or described, as instances of /jicA:, but as the 
natural results of his admitted genius and known 
skill. But should an accident have disclosed similar 
discoveries to a mechanic at Birmingham or Shef- 
field, and if the man should grow rich in conse- 
quence, and partly by the envy of his neighbors, and 
partly with good reason, be considered by them as a 
man below par in the general powers of his under- 
standing; then, "0 what a lucky fellow! — Well, 
Fortune does favor fools — that's for certain! — It is 
always so!" — And forthwith the exclaimer relates 
half a dozen similar instances. Thus accumulating 
the one sort of facts and never collecting the other, 
we do, as poets in their diction, and quacks of all 
denominations do in their reasoning, put a part for 
the whole, and at once soothe our envy and gratify 
our love of the ivar^ellous, by the sweeping proverb, 
" Fortune fav«"r& v x)ls." 



ES.S vV II. 



QuoQ -me con ■"n.-xsl 'C4timatione ; 
Vercm, ejt tit-i^ 9 •1)\m mei sodalie. 

CATULL. xii. 

(Translation.)— It inte'eslei qot by any conceit of its 
value ; but it 19 a rememLranct' ol my honored friend. 



The philosophic ruler, who secured the favors of 
fortune by seeking wisdom and knowledge in prefer- 
ence to them, has pathetically observed — "The heart 
knoweth its own bitterness; and there is a joy in 
which the stranger intermeddleth not." A simple 
question founded on a trite proverb, with a discursive 
answer to it, would scarcely suggest, to an indifferent 
person, any other notion than that of a mind at ease, 
amusing itself with its own activity. Once before (I 
believe about this time last year) I had taken up the 
old memorandum-book, from which I transcribed the 
preceding Essay, and that had then attracted my no- 
tice by the name of the illustrious chemist mentioned 
in the last illustration. Exasperated by the base and 
cowardly attempt, that had been made, to detract 
from the honors due to his astonishing genius, 1 had 
slightly altered the concluding sentences, substituting 
the more recent for his earlier discoveries ; and with- 
aat the most distant intention of publishing what I 



then wrote, I had expressed my own convictions for 
the gratification of my own feelings, and finished by 
tranquilly paraphrasing into a chemical allegory, the 
Homeric adventure of Menelaus with Proteus. Oh ! 
with what different feelings, with what a sharp and 
sudden emotion did I re-peruse the same question 
yester-morning, having by accident opened the book 
at the page, upon which it was written. I was 
moved : for it was Admiral Sir Alexander Ball, who 
first proposed the question to me, and the particular 
satisfaction, which he expressed, had occasioned me 
to note down the substance of my reply. I was 
moved : because to this conversation, T was indebted 
for the friendship and confidence with which he af- 
terwards honored me; and becatise it recalled the 
memory of one of the mo.st delightful mornings I 
ever passed ; when as we were riding together, the 
same person related to me the principal events of his 
own life, and introduced them by advening to this 
conversation. It recalled too the deep impression 
left on my mind by that narrative, the impression, 
that I had never known any analagous instance, in 
which a man so successful, had been so little indebted 
to fortune, or lucky accidents, or so exclusively both 
the architect and builder of his own success. The 
sum of his history may be comprised in this one sen- 
tence : HoEC, sub numine, nobismet fecimus, sapientia 
duce, fortuna permittente. (i. e. These things, under 
God, we have done for ourselves, through the guid- 
ance of wisdom, and with the permission of fortune.) 
Luck gave him nothing : in her most generous moods, 
she only worked with him as with a friend, not for 
him as for a fondling: but more often she simply 
stood neuter and suffered him to work for himself. 
Ah ! how could I be otherwise than affected, by what- 
ever reminded me of that daily and familiar inter- 
course with him which made the fifteen months from 
May, 1804, to October, 1805, in many respects, the 
most memorable and instructive period of my life? — 
Ah ! how could I be otherwise than most deeply af- 
fected: when there was still lying on my table the 
paper which, the day before, had conveyed to me the 
unexpected and most awful tidings of this man's 
death! his death in the fulness of all his powers, in 
the rich autumn of ripe yet undecaying manhood! I 
once knew a lady, who, after the loss of a lovely child, 
continued for several days in a state of seeming indif- 
ference, the weather, at the same time, as if in unison 
with her, being calm, though gloomy : till one morn- 
ing a burst of sunshine breaking in upon her, and sud- 
denly lighting up the room where she was sitting, 
she dissolved at once into tears, and wept passionate- 
ly. In no very dissimilar manner, did the sudden 
gleam of recollection at the sight of this memoran- 
dum act on myself. I had been stunned by the intel- 
ligence, as by an outward blow, till this trifling inci- 
dent startled and disentranced me: (the sudden pang 
shivered through my whole frame :) and if I repress- 
ed the outward shows of sorrow, it was by force that 
I repressed them, and because it is not by tears that 
I ought to mourn for the loss of Sir Alexander Ball. 

He was a man above his age ; but for that very 
reason, the age has the more need to have the nias- 
540 



THE FRIEND. 



531 



ter-leatiircs of his cliaracler poriraycil and preservctl. 
This 1 ieel it my duty to attempt, nnd this alone; for 
havin;j received neither instructions nor permission 
from the family of the deceased, I cannot think my- 
self allowed to enter into the particulars of his pri- 
vate history, strikingly as many of them would illus- 
trate the elements and composition of his mind. For 
he was indeed a living confutation of the assertion 
attributed to ihe Prince of Conde, that no man ap- 
jieared great to his vaiel do chambre — a saying which, 
I suspect, owes its currency less to its truth, than to 
the envy of mankind and the misapplication of the 
word, great, to actions unconnected with reason and 
free will. It will be suflicicnt for my purpose to ob- 
serve, that the purity and strict propriety of his con- 
duct, which precluded rather than silenced calumny, 
the evenness of his temper and his attentive and af- 
fectionate manners, in private life, greatly aided and 
increased his public utility ; and, if it should please 
Providence, that a portion of his spirit should descend 
uiih his mantle, the virtues of Sir Alexander Hall, 
as a master, a husband, and a parent, will ibrm a no 
less remarkable epoch in the moral history of the 
Maltese than his wisdom, as a governor, has made in 
that of their outward circumstances. That the pri- 
vate and personal qualities of a first magistrate should 
have political effects, will appear strange to no re- 
flecting Knglishman, who has attended to the work- 
ings of men's minds during the first ferment of revo- 
lutionary principles, and must therefore have wit- 
nessed the influence of our own sovereign's domestic 
character in counteracting them. But in Malta there 
were circumstances which rendered such an example 
peculiarly requisite and beneficent. The very exist- 
ence, for so many generations, of an Order of Lay 
Caelibates in that island, who abandoned even the 
outward shows of an adherence to their vow of chas- 
tity, must have had pernicious eff'ects on the morals 
of the inhabitants. But when it is considered too that 
the Knights of 'Malta had been for the last fifty years 
or more a set of useless idlers, generally illiterate,* 
for they thought literature no part of a soldier's ex- 
cellence; and yet effeminate, for they were soldiers 
in name only ; when it is considered, that they were, 
moreover, all of them aliens, who looked upon them- 
selves not merely as of a superior rank to the native 
nobles, but as beings of a different race (I had almost 
said, apecies,) from the Maltese collectively ; and 
finally that these men possessed exclusively the go- 
vernment of the Island : it may be safely conchided 
that they were little better than a perpetual influen- 
za, relaxing and diseasing the hearts of all the fami- 
lies within their sphere of influence. Hence the 
peasantry, who fortunately were below their reach, 

* The personal effects of every knislit were, after hia death, 
approprinlfd to Ihe Order, and his books, if he had any, de- 
volved to Ihe public library. Tliis library therefore, which 
haa been ace umulating from the lime of their fir.st settlement 
in the island, is a fair criterion of the nature and degree of 
their liicrnry studies, as an average. Even in respect to 
works of mililury science, it is conlcmplible — as the solo pub- 
lic library of so numerous and opulent an order, most con- 
temptible—and in ull other departments of literature it is be- 
low contempt. 



notwithstanding the more than childish ignorance in 
which they were kept by their priests, yet compared 
with Ihe middle and higher classes, were both in 
mind and body, as ordinary men compared with 
dwarfs. Every respectable family had some one 
knight for their patron, as a matter of course ; and to 
him the honor of a sister or a daughter was sacri- 
ficed, equally as a matter of course. But why should 
I thus disguise the truth? Alas! in nine instances 
out of ten, this patron was the common paramour of 
every female in the family. Were I composing a 
state memorial, 1 should abstain from all allusion to 
moral good or evil, as not having now first to learn, 
that with diplomatists, and with practical statesmen 
of every denomination, it would preclude all atten- 
tion to its other contents, and have no result but that 
of securing for its author's name the official private 
mark of exclusion or dismission, as a weak or suspi- 
cious person. But among those foT whom I am now 
writing, there are, I trust, many who will think it not 
the feeblest reason for rejoicing in our jMssession of 
Malta, and not the least worthy motive for wishing 
its retention, that one source of human misery and 
corruption has been dried up. Such persons will hear 
the name of Sir Alexander Ball with additional reve- 
rence, as of one who has made the protection of Great 
Britain a double blessing to the Maltese, and broken 
" the bonds of iniquilij" as well as unlocked the fet- 
ters of political oppression. 

When w'e are praising the departed by our own 
fire-sides, we dwell most fondly on those qualities 
which had won our personal affection, and which 
sharpen our individual regrets. But when impelled 
by a loftier and more meditative sorrow, we would 
raise a public monument to their memory, we praise 
them appropriately when we relate their actions 
faithfully: and thus preserving their example for 
the imitation of the living, alleviate the loss, while 
we demonstrate its magnitude. My funeral eulogy 
of Sir Alexander Ball, must therefore be a narrative 
of his life ; and this friend of mankind will be de- 
frauded of honor in proportion as that narrative is 
deficient and fragmentary. It shall, however, be as 
complete as my information enables, and as prudence 
and a proper respect for the feelings of the living per- 
mit me to render it. Ilis fame (I adopt the words of 
our elder writers) is so great throughout the world 
that he stands in no need of an encomium ; and yet 
his worth is much greater than his fame. It is im- 
possible not to speak great things of him, and yet it 
will be very diflicult to speak what he deserves. But 
custom requires that something should be said ; it is 
a duty and a debt which we owe to ourselves and to 
mankind, not less than to his memory ; and I hope his 
great soul, if it hath any knowledge of what is done 
here below, will not be oflTended at the smallness 
even of my offering. 

Ah ! how little, when among the subjects of The 
FniEND I promised " Characters met with in Real 
Life," did I anticipate the sad event, which compels 
me to weave on a cypress branch, those sprays of 
laurel, which I had destined for his bust, not his mon- 
ument! He lived as we should all live; and, 1 
5-11 



532 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



doubt not, left the world as we should all wish to 
leave it. Such is the power of dispensing blessings, 
which Providence has attached to the truly great and 
good, that they cannot even die without advantage to 
their fellow-creatures : for death consecrates their 
example; and the wisdom, which might have been 
slighted at the council-table, becomes oracular from 
the shrine. Those rare excellencies, which make 
our grief poignant, make it likewise profitable ; and 
the tears, which wise men shed for the departure of 
the wise, are among those that are preserved in hea- 
ven. It is the fervent aspiration of my spirit, that I 
may so perform the task which private gratitude, and 
public duty impose on me, that " as God hath cut this 
tree of paradise down, from its seat of earth, the dead 
trunk may yet support a part of the declining temple, 
or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar."* 



ESSAY III. 



Si partem tacuisse velim, quodcumque relinquam, 
Mii.jus erit. Veteres actus, primamque juventain 
Prosequar? Ad sepe mentem prssentia ducunt. 
Narrem justitian ? Resplendet gloria Martis. 
Armati referam vhes t Plus egit inermia. 

CLAUDIAN DE LAUD. Stil 

i Translation.)— U I desire to pass over a part in silence, 
whatever I omit will stjem the most worthy to have been re- 
corded. Shall 1 pursue his old exploits and early youth? 
His recent merits rccal the mind to themselves. Shall 1 
dwell on his justice ? The glory of the warrior rises before 
me resplendent. Shall I relate his strength in arms'? He 
performed yet greater things unarmed. 



There is something (says Harrington in the Pre- 
liminaries of the Oceana) first in the making of a com- 
monwealth, then in the governing of it, and last of 
all in the leading of its armies, which though there 
be great divines, great lawyers, great men in all ranks 
of life, seems to be peculiar only to the genius of a 
gentleman. For so it is in the universal series of his- 
tory that if any man has founded a commonwealth, 
he was first a gentleman. Such also he adds as have 
got any fame as civil governors have been gentlemen 
or persons of known descent. Sir Ale.\ander Ball was 
a gentleman by birth ; a younger brother of an old and 
respectable family in Gloucestershire. He went into the 
navy at an early age from his own choice, and as he 
himself told me, in consequence of the deep impression 
and vivid images left on his mind by the perusal of 
Robinson Crusoe. It is not my intention to detail the 
steps of his promotion, or the services in which he 
was engaged as a subaltern. I recollect many par- 
ticulars indeed, but not the dates with such distinct- 
ness as would enable me to state them (as it would 
be necessary to do if I stated them at all) in the order 
of lime. These dates might perhaps have been pro- 
cured from the metropolis : but incidents that are nei- 
ther characteristic nor instructive, even such as would 
be expected with reason in a regular life, are no part 
of my plan ; while those which are both interesting 
and illustrative I have been precluded from mention- 



* Bp. Jer. Taylor. 



ing, some from motives which have been already ex 
plained, and others from still higher considerations. 
The most important of these may be deduced from a 
reflection with which he himself once concluded a 
long and affecting narration : namely that no body of 
men can for any length of lime be safely treated other- 
wise than as rational beings ; and that therefore the 
education of the lower classes was of the utmost con- 
sequence to the permanent security of the empire, 
even for the sake of our navy. The dangers appre- 
hended from the education of the lower classes, arose 
(he said) entirely from its not being universal, and 
from the unusualness in the lowest classes oi' thoxe 
accomplishments, which He, like Doctor Bell, regard- 
ed as one of the means of education, and not as edu- 
cation itselft If, he observed, the lower classes in 
general possessed but one eye or one arm, the few 
who were so fortunate as to possess two, would natu- 
rally become vain and restless, and consider them- 
selves as entitled to a higher situation. He illustra- 
ted this by the faults attributed to learned women, 
and that the same objections were formerly made to 
educating women at all: namely, that their know- 
ledge made them vain, affected, and neglectful of 
their proper duties. Now that all women of condi- 
tion are well-educated, we hear no more of these ap 
prehensions, or observe any instances to justify them. 
Yet if a lady understood the Greek one-tenth part as 
well as the whole circle of her acquaintances under 
stood the French language, it would not surprise ua 
to find her less pleasing from the consciousness of her 
superiority in the possession of an unusual advantage. 
Sir Alexander Ball quoted the speech of an old admi- 
ral, one of whose two great wishes was to have a 
ship's crew composed altogether of serious Scotch- 
men. He spoke with great reprobation of the vulgar 
notion, the worse man, the better sailor. Courage, 
he said, was the natural product of familiarity with 
danger, which thoughtlessness would oftentimes turn 
into fool-hardiness ; and that he had always found the 
most usefully brave sailors the gravest and most ra- 
tional of his crew. The best sailor he had ever had, 
first attracted his notice by the anxiety which he ex- 
pressed concerning the means of remitting some mo- 
ney which he had received in the West Indies, to his 
sister in England ; and this man, without any tinge 
of Methodism, was never heard to swear an oath, and 
was remarkable for the firmness with which he de- 
voted a part of every Sunday to the reading of his 
Bible. I record this with satisfaction as a testimony 
of great weight, and in all respects unexceptionable 
for Sir Alexander Ball's opinions throughout life re- 
mained unwarped by zealotry, and were those of a 
mind seeking after truth, in calmness and complete 
self-possession. He was much pleased with an un- 
suspicious testimony furnished by Dampier. (V'ol. ii. 
Part 2, page 89.) " I have particularly observed," 



t Which consists in educing, or to adopt Dr. Bell's own 
expression, eliciting the faculties of the human mind, and at 
the same time subordinating them to the reason and con- 
science ; varying the means of this common end according to 
the sphere and particular mode in which the individual is likj*» 
ly to act and become useful. 

542 



THE FRIEND. 



533 



writes this famous old navigator, "there and in other 
places, that such as had been well-bred, were gene- 
rally most careful to imiirovo their time, and would 
be very industrious and frugal where there was any 
probability of considerable gain ; but on the contra- 
ry, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard 
labor when Ihey came to have plenty would extrava- 
gantly s<iuandcr away their time and money in drink- 
ing and making a bluster.'' Indeed it is a melancholy 
proof, how strangely jiower warps the muids of ordi- 
nary men, that there can be a doubt on tiiis subject 
among jiersons who have been themselves educated. 
It tempts a suspicion, that unknown to themselves 
they find a comfort in the thought that their inferiors 
are something less than men ; or that they have an 
uneasy half-consciousness that, if this were not the 
case, they would themselves have no claim to be 
their superiors. For a sober education naturally in- 
spires self-respect. But he who respects himself will 
respect others, and he who res|iects both himself and 
others, must of necessity be a brave man. The great 
importance of this subject, and the increasing interest 
which good men of all denominations (eel in the 
bringing about of a national education, must be my 
excuse for having entered so minutely into Sir Alex- 
ander Ball's opinions on this head, in which, however, 
I am the more excusable, being now on that part of 
his life which I am obliged to leave almost a blank. 
During his lieutenancy, and after he had perfected 
himself in the knowledge and duties of a practical 
sailor, he was compelled by the state of his health to 
remain in Cngland for a considerable length of lime. 
Of this he indtistrious-ly availed himself to the ac- 
quirement of substantial knowledge from books; and 
during his whole life afterwards, he considered those 
as his happiest hours, which, without any neglect of 
official or professional duty, he could devote to read- 
ing. He preferred, indeed he almost confined him- 
self to history, political economy, voyages and travels, 
natural historv', and latterly agricultural works: in 
short, to such books as contain specific facts, or prac- 
tical principles capable of specific application. Ilis 
active life, and the particular objects of immediate 
utility, some one of which he had always in his view, 
precluded a taste for works of pure speculation and 
abstract science, though he highly honored those who 
were eminent in these respects, and considered them 
as the benefiictorsof mankind, no less than those who 
afterwards discovered the mode of applying their 
principles, or who realized them in practice. Works 
of amusement, as novels, plays, &;c., did not appear 
even to amuse him: and the only poetical comjwsi- 
tion, of which I have ever heard him speak, was a 
manuscript* poem written by one of my friends, which 
I read to his lady in his presence. To my surprise 
he afterwards spoke of this with warm interest ; but 
it was evident to me, that it was not so much the po- 
etic merit of tlie composition that had interested him. 
as the truth and psychological insight with which it 

• Though it remains, I believe, unpublished, I cannot resist 
the temptation of recording that it was Mr. Wordsworth's 
Peter Jicll. 



represented the practicability of reforming the most 
hardened minds, and the various accidents which 
may awaken the most brutalized person to a recog- 
nition of his nobler being. I will aild one remark of 
his own knowledge acquired from books, which ap- 
pears to me both just and valuable. The prejudice 
against such knowledge, he said, and the custom of 
opposing it to that which is learnt by practice, origin- 
ated in those times when books were almost confined 
to theology, and to logical and metaphysical subtle- 
ties ; but that at present there is scarcely any practi- 
cal knowledge, which is not to be found in books: 
the press is the means by which intelligent men now 
converse with each other, and persons of all classes 
and all pureuits convey, each the contribution of his 
individual experience. It was therefore, lie said, as 
absurd to hold book-knowledge at present in contempt, 
as it would be for a man to avail himself only of his 
own eyes and cars, and to aim at nothing which could 
not be performed exclusively by his own arms. The 
use and necessity of personal experience consisted in 
the power of choosing and applying what had been 
read, and of discriminating by the light of analogy 
the practicable from the impracticable, and probabil- 
ity from mere plausibility. Without a judgment ma- 
tured and steadied by actual experience, a man would 
read to little or perhaps to bad purpose ; but yet that 
experience, which in exclusion of all other knowledge 
has been derived from one man's life, is in the pre- 
sent day scarcely worthy of the name — at least for 
those who are to act in the high and wider spheres 
of duty. An ignorant general, he said, inspired him 
with terror; for if he were too proud to take advice 
he would ruin himself by his own blunders ; and if 
he were not, by adopting the worst that was oHi^tqA. 
A great genius may indeed form an exception ; but 
we do not lay down rules in expectation of wonders. 
A similar remark I remember to have heard from a 
gallant officer, who to eminence in professional sci- 
ence and the gallantry of a tried soldier, adds all the 
accomplishments of a sound scholar, and the f oweis 
of a man of genius. 

One incident, which happened at this period of Sir 
Alexander's life, is so illustrative of his character, 
and fiirnishes so strong a presumplion, that the 
thoughtful humanity by which he was distinguished, 
was not wholly the growth of his latter years, that 
though it may appear to some trifling in itself, I will 
insert it in this place, with the occasion on which it 
was communicated to me. In a large party at the 
Grand Master's palace, I had observed a naval officer 
of distinguished merit listening to Sir Alexander 
Ball, whenever he joined in the conversation, with 
so marked a pleasure, that it seemed as if his very 
voice, independent of what he said, had been delight- 
ful to him: and once as he fixed his eyes on Sir 
Alexander Ball, I could not but notice the mixed ex- 
pression of awe and affection, which gave a more 
than common interest to so manly a countenance. 
During his stay in the island, this officer honored me 
not unfrequently with his visits ; and at the conclu- 
sion of my last conversation with him, in which I had 
543 



534 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



dwelt on the vvisdom of the Governor's* conduct in 
a recent and difficult emergency, he told me that he 
considered himself as indebted to the same excellent 
person for thai which was dearer to him than his lile. 
Sir Alexander Ball, said he, has (T dare say) forgotten 
the circumstance; but when he was Lieutenant Ball, 
he was the officer whom I accompanied in my first 
hoat expedition, being then a midshipman and only 
in my fourteenth year. As we were rowing up to 
the vessel which we were to attack, amid a discharge 
of musketry, I was overpowered by fear, my knees 
trembled under me, and I seemed on the point of 
fainting away. Lieutenant Ball, who saw the condi- 
tion I was in, placed himself close beside me, and 
still keeping his countenance directed toward the 
enemy, took hold of my hand, and pressing it in the 
most friendly manner, said in a low voice, " Courage, 
my dear boy, don't be afraid of yourself! you will 
recover in a minute or so — I was just the same, when 
I first went out in this way." Sir, added the officer 
to me, it was as if an angel had put a new soul into 
me. With the feeling, that I was not yet dishonored, 
the whole burthen of agony was removed ; and from 
that moment I was as fearless and forward as the 
oldest of the boat's crew, and on our return the lieu- 
tenant spoke highly of me to our captain. I am 
scarcely less convinced of my own being, than that I 
should have been what 1 tremble to think of, if, in- 
stead of his humane encouragement, he had at that 
moment scofl['ed, threatened, or reviled me. And this 
was the more kind in him, because, as I afterwards 
understood, his own conduct in his first trial, had 
evinced to all appearances the greatest fearlessness, 
and that he said this therefore only to give me heart, 
and restore me to my own good opinion. — This anec-, 
dote, I trust, will have some weight with those who 
may have lent an ear to any of those vague calum- 
nies from which no naval commander can secure his 
good name, who knowing the paramount necessity 
of regularity and strict discipline in a ship of war, 
adopts an appropriate plan for the attainment of these 
objects, and remains constant and immutable in the 
execution. To an Athenian, who in praising a public 
functionary had said, that every one either applauded 
him or left him without censure, a philosopher replied 
— " How seldom then must he have done his duty !" 
Of Sir Alexander Ball's character, as Captain Ball, 
of his measures as a disciplinarian, and of the wise 
and dignified principle on which he grounded those 
measures, I have already spoken in a former part of 
this work, and must content myself therefore with 
entreating the reader to re-peruse that passage as be- 
longing to this place, and as a part of the present 



* Such Sir Alexander Ball was in reality, and such was his 
general appellation in the Mediterranean -. I adopt this title 
therefore, lo avoid the ungraceful repetition of his own name 
on the one hand, and on the other the confusion of ideas, 
which might arise from the use of his real title, viz. "His 
Majesty's civil Commissioner for the Island of Malta and its 
dependencies ; and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Order of, 
St. John." This is not the place to expose the timid and un- 
steady policy which continued the latter title, or the petty 
jealousies which interfered to pj-event Sir Alexander Ball from 
having the title of Governor from one of the very causes 
which rendered him fitted fur the uliice. 



narration. Ah ! little did I expect at the time i 
wrote that account, that the motives of delicacy 
which tlien impelled me to withhold the name 
would so soon be exchanged for the higher duty 
which now justifies me in adding it ! At the thought 
of such events the language of a tender superstition 
is the voice of nature itself, and those facts alone 
presenting themselves to our memory which had 
left iin impression on our hearts, we assent to, and 
adopt the poet's pathetic complaint : 

" O Sir 1 the good die. 



And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
Burn to the socket." 

Thus the humane plan described in the pages 
now referred to, that a system in pursuance of 
which the captain of a man-of-war uniformly re- 
garded his sentences not as dependent on his own 
will, or to be afl!ected by the state of his feelings at 
the moment, but as the pre-established determina- 
tions of known laws, and himself as the voice of the 
law in pronouncing the sentence, and its delegate in 
enforcing the execution, could not but furnish occa 
sional food to the spirit of detraction, must be evi' 
dent to every reflecting mind. It is indeed little less 
than impossible, that he, who in order to be effective- 
ly humane determines to be inflexibly just, and who 
is inexorable to his own feelings when they would 
interrupt the course of justice; who looks at each 
particular act by the light of all its consequences, 
and as the representative of ultimate good or evil ; 
should not sometimes be charged with tyranny by 
weak minds. And it is too certain that the calumny 
will be willingly believed and eagerly propagated 
by all those, who would shun the presence of an eye 
keen in the detection of imposture, incapacitj', and 
misconduct, and of a resolution as steady in their ex- 
posure. We soon hate the man whose qualities we 
dread, and thus have a double interest, an interest of 
passion as well as of policy, in dccrj'ing and defaming 
him. But good men will rest satisfied with the pro- 
mise made to them by the divine Comforter, that BY 

HER CHILDREN SHALL WISDOM BE JUSTIFIED. 



ESSAY IV. 



-the generous spirit, who, when brought 



Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan thai pleased his childish ihought- 
Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
That make the path before him always bright; 
Who doom'd to go in company with Pain, 
And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train! 
Turns his necessity to glorious gain; 
By objects, which might force the soul to abai<3 
Her feeling, render'd more compassionaie. 

woRDSwora'H. 



At the close of the American war. Captain Ball 
was entrusted with the protection ard convoying of 
an immense mercantile fleet to America, and by his 
great prudence and unexampled attention to the in> 

544 



THE FRIEND. 



535 



teresis of all and each, endeared his name to the 
American merchants, and laid the foundation of that 
liigh respect and predilection which both the Amer- 
icans and their government ever afterwards enter- 
taincil lor him. My recollection does not enable nie 
to attempt any accuracy in the date of circumstances, 
or to add the particulars of his services in the West 
Indies and on the coast of America. I now there- 
fore merely allude to the fact with a prospective 
reference to opinions and circumstances, wbiuli I 
shall have to mention hereafter. Shortly after the 
general peace was established, Captain Bull, who 
was now a married man, passed some time with his 
lady in France, and, if I misiake not, at Nantz. At 
the same time, and in the same town, among the 
other English visiters. Lord (then Capiain) Nelson, 
happened to be one. In consequence of some punc- 
tilio, as to whose business it was to pay the compli- 
ment of the (irst call, they never met, and this trifling 
offair occasioned a coldness between the two naval 
commanders, or in truth a mutual prejudice against 
each other. Some years after, both their ships being 
together close off Minorca and near Port Mahon, a 
violent storm nearly disabled Lord Nelson's vessel, 
and in addition to the fury of the wind, it was night- 
time and the thickest darkness. Captain Ball, how- 
ever, brought his vessel at length to Nelson's assist- 
ance, look his in tow, and used his best endeavors to 
bring her and his own vessel into Port Mahon. The 
difliculiies and the dangers increased. Nelson con- 
sidered the case of his own ship as desperate, and 
that unless she was immediately left to her own fate, 
boih vessels would ineviiably be lost. He, therefore, 
with the generosity natural to him, repeatedly re- 
quested Captain Ball to let him loose ; and on Cap- 
tain Ball's refusal, he became impetuous, and enforced 
his demand with passionate threats. Captain Ball 
then himself took the speaking-trumpet, which the 
fury of the wind and the waves rendered necessary, 
and with great solemnity and without the least dis- 
turbance of temper, called in reply, " 1 feel confident 
that I can bring you in safe; I therefore must not, 
and, by the help of Almighty God! I will not leave 
you !"' What he promised he performed ; and after 
they were safely anchored, Nelson came on board 
of Ball's ship, and embracing him with all the ardor 
of acknowledgement, exclaimed — "a friend in need 
is a friend indeed !" At this time and on this occa- 
sion commenced that firm and perfect friendship 
between those two great men, which was interrupted 
only by the death of the former. The pleasing task 
of dwelling on this mutual attachment I defer to that 
part of the present sketch which will relate to Sir 
Alexander Ball's opinions of men and things. It will 
be sufficient for the present to say, that the two men, 
whom Lord Nelson especially honored, were Sir 
Thomas Troubridge and Sir Alexander Ball ; and 
once, when they were lx)th present, on some allusion 
made to the loss of his arm, he replied, " who shall 
dare to tell me that I want an arm, when I have 
three right arms — this (putting forth his own) and 
Ball, and Troubridge." 
In the pl.in of ihe battle of the Nile it was Lord 
Ww 



Nelson's design, that Captains Troubridge and Bull 
should have led up the attack. The former was 
stranded; and the latter, by accident of the wind, 
could not bring his ship into the line of battle till 
some time after the engagement had become general. 
With his characteristic forecast and activity of (what 
may not improperly be called) practical imagination, 
he had made arrangements to meet every probable 
contingency. All ilie shrouds and sails of the ship, 
not absolutely necessary for its immediate manage- 
ment, were thoroughly wetted and so rolled up, that 
they were as hard and as little inflammable as so 
many solid cylinders of wood ; every sailor had his 
appropriate place and function, and a ccrlain number 
were apiioinied as the firemen, whose sole duty it 
was to be on the watch if any part of the vessel 
should take fire ; and to these men exclusively the 
charge of extinguishing it was committed. It was 
already dark when he brought his ship into action, 
and laid her alongside I'Orient. One particular only 
I shall add to the known account of the memorable 
engagement between these ships, and this I received 
from Sir .Mexander Ball himself He had previously 
made a combustible preparation, but which from the 
nature of the engagement to be expected, he had 
purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just 
at the time when, from several symptoms, he had 
every reason to believe that the enemy would soon 
strike to him, one of the lieutenants, without his 
knowledge, threw in the combustible matter ; and 
this it was that occasioned the tremendous explosion 
of that vessel, which, with the deep silence and in- 
terruption of the engagement which succeeded to it, 
has been justly deemed the sublimest war incident 
recorded in history. Yet the incident which follow 
ed, and which has not, I believe, been publicly made 
known, is scarcely less impressive, though its sub- 
limity is of a different character. At the renewal of 
the battle, Capiain Ball, though his ship was then on 
fire in three dilTerent parts, laid her alongside a 
French eighty-four : and a second longer obstinate 
contest began. The firing of the enemy having then al- 
together ceased, and yet no sign given of surrender, 
the senior lieutenant came to Captain Ball and in- 
formed him, that the /learls of his men were as good 
as ever, but that they were so completely exhausted, 
that they were scarcely capable of lifting an arm. 
He asked, therefore, whether, as the enemy had now 
ceased firing, the men might be permitted to lie 
down by their guns for a short time. After some 
reflection, Sir Alexander acceded to the proposal, 
taking of course the proper precautions to rouse 
them again at the moment he thought requisite. 
Accordingly, with the exception of himself, his offi- 
cers, and the appointed watch, the ship's crew lay 
dovin, each in the place to which ho was stationed, 
and slept for twenty minutes. They were then 
roused; and started up, as Sir Alexander expressed 
it, more like men out of an ambush than from sleep, 
so coinstantaneously did they all obey the summons! 
They recommenced their fire, and in a few minutes 
the enemy surrendered ; and it was soon after dis- 
covered, that during that interval, and almost ira- 
545 



536 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



mediately after the French ship had first ceased 
firing, the crew had sunk down by their guns, and 
there slept almost by the side, as it were, of their 
sleeping enemy. 



ESSAY V. 



Whose powers plied round him in the common strife. 

Or mild concerns, of ordinary life, 

A conslant influence, a peculiar grace; 

But who if he be call'd upon to face 

Some awful moment, to which heaven has join'd 

Great issues, good or bad for human kind. 

Is happy as a lover, is attired 

With sudden brightness like a man inspired ; 

And through the heat of conflict keeps the law 

In calmness made, and sees what ho foresaw. 

WORDSWORTH. 



An accessibility to the sentiments of others on sub- 
jects of importance often accompanies feeble minds, 
yet it is not the less a true and constituent part of 
practical greatness, when it exists wholly free from 
that passiveness to impression which renders counsel 
itself injurious to certain characters, and from that 
weakness of heart which, in the literal sense of the 
word, is always craving advice. Exempt from all 
such imperfections, say rather in perfect harmony 
with the excellencies that preclude them, this open- 
ness to the influxes of good sense and information, 
from whatever quarter they might come, equally 
characterized both Lord Nelson and Sir Alexander 
Bali, though each displayed it in the way best suited 
to his natural temper. The former with easy hand 
collected, as it passed by him, whatever could add to 
his own stores, appropriated what he could assimilate, 
and levied subsidies of knowledge from all the acci- 
dents of social life and familiar intercourse. Even at 
the jovial board, and in the height of unrestrained 
merriment, a casual suggestion, that flashed a new 
light on his mind, changed the boon companion into 
the hero and the man of genius; and with the most 
graceful transition he would make his company as 
serious as himself When the taper of his genius 
seemed extinguished, it was still surrounded by an 
inflammable atmosphere of its own and rekindled at 
tlie first approach of light, and not seldom at a dis- 
tance which made it seem to flame up self-revived. 
In Sir -Alexander Ball, the same excellence was more 
an aflfair of system : and he would listen even to weak 
men vvilh a patience, which, in so careful an econo- 
mist of time, always demanded my admiration, and 
not seldom excited my wonder. It was one of his 
maxims, that a man may suggest what he cannot 
give : adding that a wild or silly plan had more than 
once, from the vivid sense, and distinct perception of 
its folly, occasioned him to see what ought to be done 
in a new light, or with a clearer insight. There is, 
indeed, a hopeless sterility, a mere negation of sense 
and thought, which, suggesting neither difference nor 



contrast, cannot even furnish hints for recollection. 
But on the other hand, there are minds so whimsi- 
cally constituted that they may sometimes be profita 
bly interpreted by contraries, a process of which the 
great Tycho Brache is said to have availed himself 
in the case of the little Lackwit, who used to sit and 
mutter at his feet while he was studying. A mind 
of this sort we may compare to a magnetic needle, 
the poles of which had been suddenly reversed by a 
flash of lightning, or other more obscure accident of 
nature. It may be safely concluded, that to those 
whose judgment or information he respected. Sir 
.\lexander Ball did not content himself with giving 
access and attention. No ! he seldom failed of con- 
sulting them whenever the subject permitted any 
disclosure; and where secresy was necessary, he 
well knew how to acquire their opinion without 
exciting even a conjecture concerfiing his immediate 
object. 

Yet, with all this readiness of attention, and with 
all this zeal in collecting the sentiments of the well 
informed, never was a man more completely uninflu- 
enced by authority than Sir Alexander Ball, never 
one who sought less to tranquillize his own doubts bv 
the mere suffrage and coincidence of others. Tiie 
ablest suggestions had no conclusive weight with 
him, till he had abstracted the opinion from its au- 
thor, till he had reduced it into a part of his own 
mind. The thoughts of others were always accept- 
able as affording him at least a chance of adding to 
his materials for reflection ; but they never directed 
his judgment, much less superseded it. He even 
made a point of guarding against additional confi- 
dence in the suggestions of his own mind, from find- 
ing that a person of talents had formed the same 
conviction : unless the person, at the same time, fur- 
nished some new argument or had arrived at the 
same conclusion by a different road. On the latter 
circumstance he set an especial value, and, I may al- 
most say, courted the company and conversation of 
those, whose pursuits had least resembled his own, if 
he thought them men of clear and comprehensive 
faculties. During the period of our intimacy, scarcely 
a week passed in which he did not desire me to think 
on some particular subject, and to give him the result 
in writing. Most frequently by the time I had ful- 
filled his request, he would have written down his 
own thoughts, and then, with the true simplicity of a 
great mind, as free from ostentation, as it was above 
jealousy, he would collate the two papers in my pre- 
sence, and never expressed more pleasure than in the 
few instances in which I had happened to light on all 
the arguments and points of view which had oc- 
curred to himself, with some additional reasons which 
had escaped him. A single new argument delighted 
him more than the most perfect coincidence, unless, 
as before stated, the train of thought had been very 
different from his own and yet just and logical. He 
had one quality of mind, which I have heard attrib- 
uted to the late Mr. Fox, that of deriving a keen plea- 
sure from clear and powerful reasoning for its own 
sake, a quality in the intellect which is nearly con 
546 



THE FRIEND. 



537 



necled wiili vcracily and a love of justice in the 
moral characler.* 

\'ahiiiig ill olliers merits which he himself |X)S- 
besscil, Sir Alexander Ball felt no jealous apprehen- 
sion oi' great talent. Unlike those vulgar functiona- 
ries, whose place is too big for them, a truth which 
tiiey nilempt to disguise from themselves, and yet 
feel, he was under no necessity of arming himself 
Dgainsi the natural su|)eriority of genius hy fnctilious 
ciiiitempt and an industrious association of exlrava- 
"unce and impracticability, with every deviation 
from the ordinary routine; as the geographers in the 
middle ages used to designate on their meagre maps, 
tlie greater part of the world, as deserts or wilder- 
nesses, inhabited by grilTuis and chimeras. Compe- 
tent to weigh each system or project by its own argu- 
ments, he did not need these preventive charms and 
cautionary amulets against delusion. He endeavored 
It) make talent instrumental to his purjioses in what- 
ever shape it appeared, and with whatever imperfec- 
tions it might be accompanied ; but wherever talent 
was blended with moral worth, he sought it out, 
loved and cherished it. If it had pleased Providence 
to preserve his life, and to place him on the same 
course on which Nelson ran his race of glory, there 
are two points in which Sir Alexander Ball would 
most closely have resembled his illustrious friend. 
The first is, that in his enterprises and engagements 
he would have thought nothing done, till all had been 
done that was possible : 

"Xil actum reputans, si quid supereseet agendum." 

The second, that he would have called forth all the 
talent and virtue that existed within his sphere of 
influence, and created a band of heroes, a gradation 
oroflicers, strong in head and strong in heart, worthy 
to have been his companions and his successors in 
fame and public usefulness. 

Never was greater discernment shown in the se- 
lection of a fit agent, than when Sir Alexander Ball 
was stationed off the coast of Malta to intercept the 
supplies destined for the French garrison, and to 
watch the movements of the French commanders, 
and those of the inhabitants who had been so basely 
lietrayed into their |X)wer. Encouraged by the well- 
limed promises of the English captain, the Maltese 
rose through all their casals (or country towns) and 



* It mny not be amiss to add, that the pleasure from the 
pTCoplion of truth was so well poised and regulated by the 
ic|iial or irreater delight in ulilily, that his love of real accu- 
racy WHS accompanied with a proportionate dislike of thai 
holliiw appearance of it, wliich may be produced by turns of 
phrase, words placed in bnlanced antithesis, and those epi- 
praminaiic points that pass for subtle and luminous distinc- 
tions wiih ordinary readirs, but are most commonly Iranslata- 
lilc into mere truisms or trivialiiies, if indeed they contain any 
mcaiiinir at all. Having observed in some casual conversation, 
that tbou^'ll there were doubtless masses of matter unoigan- 
I7ud, I saw no ground for asserting a mass of unorganized 
mntter : Sir A. B. paused and then said to me, with that 
frankni'KS of manner which made his very rebukes gratifying, 
"The dLslinulion is just ; and now I understand you, abun- 
dantly obvious; but hardly worth the trouble of inventing a 
puzzle of worils to make it appear otherwise." I trual the 
rebuke was uut lost on me. 



70 



themselves commenced the work of their emancipa- 
tion, by storming the citadel at Civita \ ecchiii, the 
ancient metropolis of Malta, and the central height 
of the island. Without discipline, without a military 
leader, and almost without arms, these brave peasanta 
succeeded, and destroyed the French garrison by 
tiirowing them over the battlements into the trench 
of the citadel. In the course of this blockade, and of 
the tedious siege of X'alletle, Sir .Vlexander Ball dis- 
played all that strength of character, that variety and 
versatility of talent, and that sagacity, derived in part 
from habitual circumspection, but which, when the 
occasion demanded it, appeared intuitive and like an 
instinct ; at the union of which, in the same man, one 
of our oldest naval commanders once told me, " he 
could never exhaust his wonder." The citizens of 
\'allette were fond of relating their astonishment, and 
that of the French, at Captain Ball's ship wintering 
at anchor out of the reach of the guns, in a depth of 
fathom unexampled, on the assured impracticability 
of which the garrison had rested their main hope of 
regular supplies. Nor can I forget, or remember 
without some portion of my original feeling, the so- 
lemn enthusiasm with which a venerable old man, 
belonging to one of the distant casals, showed me the 
sea coombe, where their father Ball (for so they 
commonly called him) first landed ; and afterwards 
pointed out the very place, on which he first stepped 
on their island, while the countenances of his towns- 
men, who accompanied him, gave lively proofs, that 
the old man's enthusiasm was the representative of 
the common feeling. 

There is no reason to suppose, that Sir Alexander 
Ball v\as at any time chargeable with that weaknes.? 
so frequent in Englishmen, and so injurious to our 
interests abroad, of despising the inhabitants of other 
countries, of losing all their good qualities in their 
vices, of maldng no allowance for those vices, from 
their religious or political impediments, and still more 
of mistaking for vices, a mere diflerence of manners 
and customs. But if ever he had any of this errone- 
ous feeling, he completely freed himself from it, by 
living among the JNIallese during their arduous trials, 
as long as the French continued masters of the capi- 
tal. He witnessed their virtues, and learnt to under- 
stand in what various shapes and even disguises the 
valuable parts of human nature may exist. In many 
individuals, whose littleness and meanness in the 
common intercourse of life would have stamped 
them at once as contemptible and worthless, with or- 
dinary Englishmen, he had iounA such virtues of dis- 
interested patriotism, fortitude, and self-denial as 
would have done honor lo an ancient Roman. 

There exists in England, a ^e?i//tma»/i/ character, 
a gentlemanly feeling, very different even from that, 
which is the most like it, the characterof a well-born 
Spaniard, and unexampled in the rest of Europe. 
This feeling probably originated in the fiirtunate cir- 
cumstance, that the titles of our English nobility fol- 
low the law of their property, and are inherited by 
the eldest sons only. From this source, under the in 
fluences of our constitution, and of our astonishing 
trade, it has diffused itself in different modifications 
547 



538 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



through the whole country. The uniformity of our 
dress among all classes above that of the day laborer, 
while it has authorized all classes to assume the ap- 
pearance of gentlemen, has at the same time inspired 
the wish to conform their manners, and still more 
their ordinary actions in social intercourse, to their 
notions of the gentlemanly, the most commonly re- 
ceived attribute of which character, is a certain gen- 
erosity in trifles. On the other hand, the encroach- 
ments of the lower classes on the higher, occasioned 
and favored by this resemblance in exteriors, by this 
absence of any cognizable marks of distinction, have 
rendered each class more reserved and jealous in 
their general communion, and far more than our cli- 
mate, or natural temper, have caused that haughti- 
ness and reserve in our outward demeanor, which is 
so generally complained of among foreigners. Far 
be it from me to depreciate the value of this gentle- 
manly feeling: I respect it under all its forms and va- 
rieties, from the House of Commons to the gentlemen 
in the one-shilling gallery. It is always the ornament of 
virtue, and oftentimes a support ; but it is a wretched 
substitute for it. Its worth, as a moral good, is by no 
means in proportion to its value, as a social advantage. 
These observations are not irrelevant ; for to the 
want of reflection, that this diffusion of gentlemanly 
feeling among us, is not the growth of our moral ex- 
cellence, but the effect of various accidental advan- 
tages peculiar to England ; to our not considering 
that it is unreasonable and uncharitable to expect the 
same consequences, where the same causes have not 
existed to produce them ; and, lastly, to our proneness 
to regard the absence of this character (which, as I 
have before said, does, for the greater part, and, in 
the common apprehension, consist in a certain frank- 
ness and generosity in the detail of action) as decisive 
against the sum total of personal or national worth ; 
we must, I am convinced, attribute a large portion of 
that conduct, which in many instances has left the in- 
habitants of countries conquered or appropriated by 
Great Britain, doubtful whether the various solid ad- 
vantages which they derived from our protection and 
just government, were not bought dearly by the 
wounds inflicted on their feelings and prejudices, by 
the contemptuous and insolent demeanor of the En- 
glish as individuals. The reader who bears this re- 
mark in mind, will meet, in the course of this narra- 
tion, more than one passage that will serve as its 
comment and illustration. 

It was, I know, a general opinion among the En- 
glish in the Mediterranean, that Sir Alexander Ball 
thought too well of the Maltese, and did not share in 
the enthusiasm of Britons, concerning their own supe- 
riority. To the former part of the charge, I shall only 
reply at present, that a more venial, and almost desi- 
rable fault, can scarcely be attributed to a governor, 
than that of a strong attachment to the people whom 
lie was sent to govern. The latter part of the charge 
is false, if we are to understand by it, that he did not 
think his countrymen superior on the whole to other 
nations of Europe ; but it is true, as far as relates to 
his belief, that the Engli-sh thought themselves still 
better than they are ; that they dwelt on. and exag- 



gerated their national virtues, and weighed them by 
the opposite vices of foreigners, instead of the virtues 
which those foreigners possessed, and they them- 
selves wanted. Alxive all, as statesmen, we must 
consider qualities by their practical uses. Thus — he 
entertained no doubt, that the English were superior 
to all others in the kind, and the degree of their cou- 
rage, which is marked by far greater enthusiasm, 
than the courage of the Germans and northern na- 
tions, and by a far greater steadiness and sell-subsis- 
tence, than that of the French. It is more closely 
connected with the character of the individual. The 
courage of an English army (he used to say) is the 
sum total of the courage which the individual sol- 
diers bring with them to it, rather than of that which 
they derive from it. This remark of Sir Alexander's 
was forcibly recalled to my mind, when I was at Na- 
ples. A Russian and an English regiment were 
drawn up together in the same square — "See," said 
the Neapolitan to me, who had mistaken me for one 
of his countrymen, "there is but one face in that 
whole regiment, while in thai" {pointing to the En- 
glish) " every soldier has a face of his own." On the 
other hand, there are qualities scarcely less requisite 
to the completion of the military character, in which 
Sir A. did not hesitate to think the English infrrior to 
the continental nations : as for instance, both in the 
power and the disposition to endure privations ; in 
the friendly temper necessary, when troops of differ- 
ent nations are to act in concert; in their obedience 
to the regulations of their commanding officers, re- 
specting the treatment of the inhabitants of the coun- 
tries through which they are marching; as well as in 
many other points, not immediately connected with 
their conduct in the field ; and, above all. in sobriety 
and temperance. During the siege of Vallette, espe- 
cially during the sore distress to which the besiegers 
were for some time exposed from the failure of provi- 
sion. Sir Alexander Ball had an ample opportunity 
of observing and weighing the separate merits and 
demerits of the native, and of the English troops ; 
and surely since the publication of Sir John Moore's 
campaign, there can be no just offence taken, though 
I should say, that before the walls of Vallette, as 
well as in the plains of Gallicia, an indignant com- 
mander might, with too great propriety, have ad- 
dressed the English soldiery in the v\oi-ds of an old 
Dramatist — 

Will you still owe your virtues to your Ijellies? 
And (inly then think nnbly when y' are full? 
Doth fodder keep you honest ? Are you bad 
When out ot'tiesh ? And think you 't an excuse 
Of vile and ignominious actions, that 
Y' are lean and out of likinp ? 

CARTWRIGHT'S Love's Convert. 

From the first insurrectionary movement to the 
final departure of the French from the Island, though 
the civil and military powers and the whole of the 
Island, save Vallette, were in the hands of the pea- 
santry, not a single act of excess can be charged 
against the Maltese, if we except the razing of one 
house at Civila Vecchia belonging to a notorious and 
abandoned traitor, the creature and hireling of tlie 
648 



THE FRIEND. 



539 



French. In no insiance did they injure, insult, or 
plnnder, any one of tlie nalivo nobility, or employ 
even the nppearance of force toward them, except in 
the rolled iiiti of the lead and iron from their houses 
and iiarderis, in order to su|)ply themselves with bui- 
lds: and this very appearance was assumed from 
the tjenerous wish to shelter the nobles from the re- 
fientnieni of the French, should the patriotic ellbris 
of the peasantry prove unsuccessful. At the dire 
command of (limine the Maltese troops did indeed 
once force their way to the ovens, in which the bread 
for the British soldiery was baked, and were clamor- 
ous that an equal division should be made. I men- 
tion this unpleasant circumstance, because it brought 
into proof the firmness of Sir Alexander Ball's char- 
acter, his presence of mind, and generous disregard 
of danger and personal responsibility, where the sla- 
very or emancipation, the misery or the happiness, 
of an innocent and patriotic people were involved ; 
and because his conduct in this exigency evinced, 
that his general habits of circumspeciion and delibe- 
ration were the result of wisdom and comjileto self- 
fxwsession, and not the easy virtues of a spirit consti- 
tutionally timorous and hesitating. He was sitting 
at table with the principal British ofTicers, when a 
certain general addressed him in strong and violent 
terms concerning this outrage of the Maltese, re- 
minding him of the necessity of exerting his com- 
manding influence in the present case, or the conse- 
quences must be taken. " What," replied Sir Alex- 
ander Ball, " would you have us do >. Would you 
have us threaten death to men dying with fimine ? 
Can you sup[v)se that the hazard of being shot will 
weigh with whole regiments acting under a common 
necessity ? Does not the extremity of hunger take 
away all difference between men and animals? and 
is it not as absurd to appeal to the prudence of a 
body of men starving, as to a herd of famished 
wolves? Ko, general, I will not degrade myself or 
outrage humanity by menacing famine with massa- 
cre ! More effectual means must be taken." With 
these words he rose and left the room, and having 
first consulted with Sir Thomas Troubridge, he de- 
termined at his own risk on a step, which the ex- 
treme necessity warranted, and which the conduct 
of the Neapolitan court amply justified. For this 
court, though terror-stricken by the French, was still 
actuated by hatred to the English, and a jealousy of 
their power in the Mediterranean : and this in so 
Ftrange and senseless a manner, that we must join 
the extremes of imbecility and treachery in the same 
cabinet, in order to find it comprehensible.* Though 

* It cannot bo doubted, that the sovereign liicnself was kept 
in a stale oPdelusinn. Both his understand ini; and hia moral 
principles are Par better than could rca8on:ibly be expected 
from the infamous mode of his educiilion : if indeed the pyi- 
tematic preclusion of all knowledge, and the unregtriiined 
indiileence of his passions, ndopled by the Spanish court for 
the purposes of preserving him depcndcni, can be culU'd by 
the name of education. Of the other influencini; persons in 
the Neiipoliian eovernment, J\fr. Lickle has civcn us a true 
and lively account. It will be (;really to the advantnso of the 
present narration, if the reader should have previously pe- 
rused Mr. I.eckic's pamphlet on the stale of Sicily : the facts 
wliicli I shult have occasion to mention hercat'icr will recipro- 
Ww2 



the very existence of Naples and Sicily, as a nation, 
depended wholly and exclusively on British support , 
though the royal family owed their personal safety to 
the British fleet; though not only Iheir dominions and 
their runk, but the liberty and even the lives of Fer- 
dinand and his fiimily, were interwoven with our 
success; yet with an infatuation scarcely credible, 
the most afTeoling reprosenlations of the distress of 
the besiegers, and of the utter insecurity of Sicily if 
the French remained po.ssessors of Malta, were 
treated with neglect ; and the urgent remonstrances 
fiir the permission of importing corn from Messina, 
were answ^ered only by sanguinary edicts precluding 
all supply. Sir Alexander Ball sent for his senior 
lieutenant, and gave him orders to proceed imme- 
diately to the (wrt of Me.ssina, and there to seize and 
bring with him to Malta the ships laden with corn, 
of the number of which Sir Alexander hid received 
accurate infiirmation. These orders were executed 
without delay, to the great delight and profit of the 
ship owners and proprietors; the necessity of raising 
the siege wa.s removed ; and tho author of the mea- 
sure waited in calmness for the consequences that 
might result to himself personally. But not a com- 
plaint, not a murmur proceeded from the court of 
Naples. The sole result was, that the governor of 
Malta became an especial object of its haired, its fear, 
and its respect. 

The whole of this tedious siege, from its commence- 
ment to the signing of the capitulation, called forth 
into constant activity the rarest and most difficult vir- 
tues of a commanding mind ; virtues of no show or 
splendor in the vulgar apprehension, yet more infal- 
lible characteristics of true greatness than the most 
unequivocal displays of enterprise and active daring. 
Scarcely a day passed, in which Sir .Alexander Ball's 
patience, fijrbearance, and inflexible constancy were 
not put to the severest trial. He had not only to re- 
move the misunderstandings that arose between the 
Maltese themselves, and to organize their efToris; he 
was likewise engaged in the more diflicult and un- 
thankful task of counteracting the wcarinci's. discon- 
tent, and despondency of his own countrymen — a task 
however, which he accomplished by management 
and address, and an alternation of real firmness with 
apparent yielding. During many months he remain- 
ed the only Englishman who did not think tlie siege 
hopeless and the object worthless. lie often spoke 
of the time in which he resided at the country-seat 
of the grand master at St. .\ntonio, four miles from 
\'allette, as perhaps the most trying period of his life. 
For some weeks Captain Vivian was his sole Eng- 
lish companion, of whom, as his partner in anxiety, 
he always expressed himself with afTectionate esteem. 
Sir Alexander Ball's presence was absolutely neces- 
sary to the Maltese, who, accustomed to be governed 
by him, became incapable of acting in concert with- 
out his immediate influence. In the out-burst of popu- 



cally confirm and be confirmed by the documents furnished in 
that most intereslinc work : in which 1 see but one blemish 
of importance, namely, that the author appears too frequently 
to consider justice and true policy as capable of being cot- 
tiadidiinBuished, 

549 



540 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



lar emotion, the impulse, which produces an insurrec- 
tion, is for a brief while its sufficient pilot: the at- 
traction constitutes the cohesion, and the common pro- 
vocation, supplying an immediate object, not only 
unites, but directs, the multitude. But this first im- 
pulse had passed away, and Sir Alexander Ball was 
the one individual who possessed the general confi- 
dence. On him they relied with implicit faith: and 
even after they had long enjoyed the blessings of Brit- 
ish government and protection, it was still remarka- 
ble with what child-like helplessness they were in 
the habit of applying to him, even in their private 
concerns. It seemed as if they thought him made on 
purpose to think for them all. Yet his situation at St. 
Antonio was one of great peril: and he attributed his 
preservation to the dejection, which had now begun 
to prey on the spirits of the French garrison, and 
which rendered them unenterprising and almost pas- 
sive, aided by the dread which the nature of the 
country inspired. For subdivided as it was into small 
fields, scarcely larger than a cottage-garden, and each 
of these little squares of land enclosed with substan- 
tial stone walls; these too from the necessity of hav- 
ing the fields perfectly level, rising in tiers above 
each other; the whole of the inhabited part of the 
island was an effective fortification for all the pur- 
poses of annoyance and offensive warfare. Sir Alex- 
ander Ball exerted himself successfully in procuring 
information respecting the state and temper of the 
garrison, and by the assistance of the clergy and the 
almost universal fidelity of the Maltese, contrived that 
the spies in the pay of the French should be in truth 
his own most confidential agents. He had already 
given splendid proofs that he could out-fight them; 
but here, and in his after diplomatic intercourse pre- 
vious to the recommencement of the war, he likewise 
out-witted them. He once told me with a smile, as 
we were conversing on the practice of laying wagers, 
that he was sometimes inclined to think that the final 
perseverance in the siege was not a little indebted to 
several valuable bets of his own, he well knowing 
at the time, and from information which himself alone 
possessed, that he should certainly lose them. Yet 
this artifice had a considerable effect in suspending 
the impatience of the officers, and in supplying topics 
for dispute and conversation. At length, however, 
the two French frigates, the sailing of which had been 
the subject of these wagers, left the great harbor on 
the 24th of August, 180G, with a part of the garrison : 
and one of them soon became a prize to the English. 
Sir Alexander Ball related to me the circumstances 
which occasioned the escape of the other ; but I do 
not recollect them with sufficient accuracy to dare 
repeat them in this place. On the 15ih of September 
following, the capitulation was signed, and after a 
blockade of two years the English obtained possession 
of Vallette, and remained masters of the whole island 
and its dependencies. 

Anxious not to give offence, but more anxious to 
communicate the truth, it is not without pain that I 
find myself under the moral obligation of remonstrat- 
ing against the silence concerning Sir Alexander Ball's 
services or the transfer of them to others. JMore than 



once has the latter roused my indignation in the re- 
ported speeches of the House of Commons; and as to 
the former, I need only state that in Rees's Cyclopae- 
dia there is an historical article of considerable length 
under the word Malta, in which Sir Alexander's 
name does not once occur! During a residence of 
eighteen months in that island, I possessed and avail- 
ed myself of the best possible means of information, 
not only from eye-witnesses, but likewise from the 
principal agents themselves. And I now thus pub- 
licly and unequivocally assert, that to Sir A. Ball pre- 
eminenlly — and if I had said, to Sir A. Ball alone, the 
ordinary use of the word under such circumstances 
would bear me out — the capture and the preservation 
of Malta was owing, with every blessing that a pow- 
erful mind and a wise heart could confer on its docile 
and grateful inhabitants. With a similar pain I pro- 
ceed to avow ray sentiments on this capitulation, bi 
which Malta was delivered up to his Britannic Ma- 
jesty and allies, without the least mention made of the 
Maltese. With a warmth honorable both to his head 
and his heart. Sir Alexander Ball pleaded, as not less a 
point of sound policy than of plain justice, that the 
Maltese, by some representatives, should be made a 
parly in the capitulation, and a joint subscriber in the 
signature. They had never been the slaves or the 
property of the knights of St. John, but freemen and 
the true landed proprietors of the country, the civil 
and military government of which, under certain re- 
strictions, had been vested in that order: yet checked 
by the rights and influences of the clergy and the na- 
tive nobility, and by the customs and ancient laws of 
the island. This trust the knights had, with the 
blackest treason and the most profligate perjury, be- 
trayed and abandoned. The right of government of 
course reverted to the landed proprietors and the 
clergy. Animated by a just sense of this right, the 
Maltese had risen of their own accord, had contend- 
ed for it in defiance of death and danger, had fought 
bravely, and endured patiently. Without undervalu- 
ing the military assistance afterwards furnished by 
Great Britain (though how scanty this was before the 
arrival of General Pigot is well known,) it remained 
undeniable, that the Maltese had taken the greatest 
share both in the fatigues and in the privations con- 
sequent on the siege ; and that had not the greatest 
virtues and the most exemplary fidelity been uniform 
ly displayed by them, the English troops (they not be- 
ing more numerous than they had been for the great- 
er part of the two years) could not possibly have re- 
mained before the fortifications of Vallette, defended 
as that city was by a French garrison, that greatly 
outnumbered the British besiegers. Still less could 
there have been the least hope of ultimate success ; 
as if any part of the Maltese peasantry had been 
friendly to the French, or even indifferent, if they had 
not all indeed been most zealous and persevering in 
their hostility towards them, it would have been im 
practicable so to blockade that island as to have pr 
eluded the arrival of supplies. If llie siege had pro- 
ved unsuccessful, the Maltese were well aware that 
they should be exposed to all the horrors which re- 
venge and wounded pride could dictate to an unprin- 
550 



THE FRIEND. 



541 



ciplod, rapacious, and sanguinary soldiery ; and now 
that success has crowned their etlbrls, is this to be 
their reward, (liat tiieir own allies are to bargain for 
ihem witli the French as for a herd of slaves, whom 
the French had before purchased from a former pro- 
prietor ? If it be urged, that there is no established 
government in Malta, is it not equally true, that 
through the wliole population of the islaiul there is 
not a single dissentient ? and thus that the chief incon- 
venience, which an established authority is to obvi- 
ate, is virtually removed by the admitted factof'their 
imanimity ? And have they not a bishop, and a dig- 
nified clergy, their judges and municipal magistrates, 
who were at all times sharers in the power of the go- 
vernment, and now, supported by the unanimous suf- 
frage of the inhabitants, have a rightful claim to be 
considered as its representatives ? Will it not be of- 
tener said than answered, that the main difference be- 
tween the French and English injustice rests in this 
iwint alone, that the French seized on the Maltese 
without any previous pretences of friendship, while 
the English procured possession of the island by means 
of their friendly promises, and by the co-operation of 
the natives afforded in confident reliance on these 
promises ? The impolicy of refusing the signature on 
the part of the Maltese was equally evident : since 
such refusal could answer no one purpose but that 
of alienating their affections by a wanton insult to 
their feelings. For the Maltese were not only ready 
but desirous and eager to place themselves at the 
same time under British protection, to take the oatlis 
of loyalty as subjects of the British crown, and to ac- 
knowledge their island to belong to it These repre- 
sentations, however, were over-ruled : and I dare af- 
firm, from my own experience in the Mediterranean, 
that our conduct in this instance added to the im- 
pression which had been made at Corsica, Minorca, 
and elsewhere, and was often referred to by men of 
reflection in Sicily, who have more than once said to 
me, "a connection with Great Britain, with the con- 
sequent extension and security of our commerce, are 
indeed great blessings : but who can rely on their 
permanence ? or that we shall not be made to pay 
bitterly fijr our zeal as partisans of England, when- 
ever it shall suit its plans to deliver us back to our 
old oppressors?" 



ESSAY VI, 



The way of ancient ordnance, though it winds, 

Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes 

The lightning's path ; and elraicht the fearful path 

Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flics and rapid. 

Shattering that it mnp reach, and ehatterinz what it reaches. 

My son! the road, Ihe human being travels, 

That on which Blessing comes and goes, doth rollow 

The river's course, the valley's playful windings. 

Curves round the corn-field and Ihe hill of vines, 

Honoring the holy bounds of property ! 

Thrre exists 

An higher than the warrior's excellence. 

WALLENSTEIN. 



Captain Ball's services in Malta were honored 
with his sovereign's approbation, transmitted in a 
letter from the Secretary r)uiulas, and with a baron- 
etcy. A thousand potiiuls * were at the same time 
directed to be paid him from the Maltese treasury 
The best and most appropriate addition to the ap- 
plause of his king and his cciinlry, Sir Ale.vander 
Ball found in the feelings and faithful affection of 
the Maltese. 'J'he enthusiasm manifesled in reveren- 
tial gestures and shouts of triumph v\henever their 
friend and deliverer appeared in public, was the ut- 
terance of a deep feeling, and in no wise the mere 
ebullition of animal sensibility ; which is not indeed 
a part of the Maltese character. The truth of this 
observation will not be doubted by any person, who 
has witnessed the religious processions in honor of 
the favorite saints, both at Vallelte and at Messina or 
Palermo, and who must have been struck with the 
contrast between the apparent apathy, or at least the 
perfect sobriety, of the Maltese, and the fanatical 
agitations of the Sicilian fjopulace. Among the lat- 
ter each man's soul seems hardly containable in his 
body, like a prisoner, whose jail is on fire, flying mad- 
ly from one barred outlet to another; while the for- 
mer might suggest the suspicion, that their bodies 
were on the point of sinking info the same slumber 
with their understandings. But their political de- 
liverance w-as a thing that came home to their hearts, 
and intertw'ined with their most impassioned recol- 
lections, personal and patriotic. To Sir Alexander 
Ball exclusively the Maltese themselves attributed 
their emancipation: on him too they rested their 
hopes of the future. Whenever he appeared in 
V'allette, the passengers on each side, through the 
whole length of the street, stopped and remained un- 
covered till he had passed : the very clamors of the 
market-place were hushed at his entrance, and then 
exchanged for shouts of joy and welcome. Even af- 
ter the lapse of years he never appeared in any one 
of their casals.t which did not lie in the direct road 



* I scarce know whether it be worth mentioning, that this 
sum remained undemanded till the sptiiig of the year 1805 ; 
at which time the writer of these sketches, during an exami- 
nation of the treasury accounts, observed the circumstance 
and noticed it to the Governor, who had sufTercd it to escape 
altogether from his memory, for the latter years at least. 
The value attached to the present by tho receiver, must have 
depended on his construclion of its purpose and meaning : 
for in a pecuniary point of view, the sum was not u moiety 
of what Sir Alexander had expended from his private fortune 
during the blockade. His immediate appointment to the 
government of the island, so earnestly prayed for by the 
Maltese, would doubtless have furnished a less questionable 
proof that his services were as highly estimated by the min- 
istry as they were graciously accepted by his sovereign. But 
this was withheld as long as it remoincd possible to dciuht, 
whether great talents, joined to local experience, and the 
confidence and affection of tho inhabitants, might not be dis- 
pensed with in Ihe person entrusted with that government. 
Crimen ingrati animi quod magnis Inseniis baud ram objici- 
tur, sojpius nil aliud est quam perspicaria quopdam in caitsam 
bencticii collati. See WALLKNSTEIN, Part I. 

t It was the Governor's custom to visit every cnsal Ihroueh- 
out the island once, if not twice, in the course of each sum- 
mer; and during my residence ihcre, I had the honor of 
being his constant, and most often, his only companion, 
in the«e rides \ to which I owa acme of the happiest and 
551 



542 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



between Vallette and St. Antonio, his summer resi- 
dence, but tbie women and cliildren, with such of the 
men who were not at labor in their fields, fell into 
ranks, and followed, or preceded him, singing the 
Maltese song which had been made in his honor, and 
which was scarcely less familiar to the inhabitants 
of Malta and Goza, than God save the King to 
Britons. When he went to the gale through the city, 
the young men refrained talJdng ; and the aged arose 
and stood up. When the ear heard, then it Messed 
him ; and when the eye saw him, it gave wit7iess: to 
him: because he delivered the poor that cried, and the 
fatherless, and those that had none to help them. The 
blessing of them that were ready to perish came upon 
him ; and he caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. 

These feelings were afterwards amply justified by 
his administration of the government; and the very 
accesses of their gratitude on their first deliverance 
proved, in the end, only to be acknowledgments an- 
tedated. For some time after the departure of the 
French, the distress was so general and so severe, 
that a large proportion of the lower classes became 
mendicants, and one of the greatest thoroughfares 
of Vallette still retains the name of the " Nix Man- 
giare Stairs," from the crowd who used there to as- 
sail the ears of passengers with cries of " nix man- 
giare," or " nothing to eat," the former word 7iix being 
the low German pronunciation of ?u'c/(?s, nothing. By 
what means it was introduced into Malta, I know not; 
but it became the common vehicle both of solicita- 
tion and refusal, the Maltese thinking it an English 
word, and the English supposing it to be Maltese. I 
often felt it as a pleasing remembrancer of the evil 
day gone by, when a tribe of little children, quite 
naked, as is the custom of that climate, and each 
with a pair of gold ear-rings in its ears, and all fat 
and beautifully proportioned, would suddenly leave 
their play, and, looking round to see that their parents 
were not in sight, change their shouts of merriment 
for "nix mangiare!" awkwardly imitating the piain- 
tive tones of mendicancy ; while the white teeth in 
their little swarthy faces gave a splendor to the happy 
and confessing laugh, v^ith which they received the 
good-humored rebuke or refusal, and ran back to 
their former sport. 

In the interim between the capitulation of the 
French garrison and Sir Alexander Ball's appoint- 
ment as his Majesty's civil commissioner for Malta, 
his zeal for the Maltese was neither suspended nor un- 
productive of important benefits. He was enabled to 
remove many prejudices and misunderstandings ; and 
to persons of no inconsiderable influence gave juster 
notions of the true importance of the island to Great 
Britain. He displayed the magnitude of the trade of 
the Mediterranean in its existing state; showed the im- 
mense extent to which it might be carried, and the 
^'.)lIowness of the opinion, that this trade was at- 
tached to the south of France by any natural or in- 
dissoluble bond of connection. I have some reason 

most instructive hours of my life. In the poorest house of 
the most distant caaal two rude paintings were sure to be 
found : A picture of the Virgin and Child ; and a portrait of 
Sir Ale.\ander Ball. 



likewise for believing, that his wise and patriotic re- 
presentations prevented Malta from being made the 
seat and pretext for a numerous civil establishment, 
in hapless imitation of Corsica, Ceylon, and the Cape 
of Good Hope. It was at least generally rumored, 
that it had been in the contemplation of the ministry 
to appoint Sir Ralph Abercrombie as governor, with 
a salary of 10,000/. a year ; and to reside in England, 
while one of his countrymen was to be the lieutenant- 
governor, at 5000Z. a year ; to which were added a 
long et cetera of other offices and places of propor- 
tional emolument. This threatened appendix to the 
stale calendar may have existed only in the imagina- 
tions of the reporters, yet inspired some uneasy appre- 
hensions in the minds of many w^ell-wishers to the 
Maltese, who knew that — for a foreign settlement at 
least, and one too possessing in all the ranks and 
functions of society an ample population of its own — 
such a stately and wide-branching tree of patronage, 
though delightful to the individuals who are to pluck 
its golden apples, sheds, like the inanchineel, un- 
wholesome and corrosive dews on the multitude who 
are at rest beneath its shade. It need not however 
be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert him- 
self to preclude any such intention, by slating and 
evincing the extreme impolicy and injustice of the 
plan, as well as its utter inutility, in the case of Malta. 
With the exception of the governor, and of the public 
secretary, both of whom undoubtedly should be na- 
tives of Great Britain, and appointed by the British 
government, there was no civil office that could be 
of the remotest advantage to the island which was 
not already filled by the natives and the functions of 
which none could perform so well as they. The num- 
ber of inhabitants (he would state) was prodigious 
compared with the extent of the island, though from 
the fear of the Moors one-fourth of its surface had 
remained unpeopled and uncultivated. To deprive, 
therefore, the middle and lower classes of such places 
as they had been accustomed to hold, would be cruel ; 
while the places held by the nobility, were, for the 
greater part, such as none but natives could perform 
the duties of By any innovation we should affi-ont 
the higher classes and alienate the affections of all, 
not only without any imaginable advantage but with 
the certainty of great loss. Were Englishmen to be 
employed, the salaries must be increased four-fold 
and would yet be scarcely worth acceptance ; and in 
higher offices such as those of the civil and criminal 
judges, the salaries must be augmented more than 
ten-fold. For, greatly to the credit of their patriotism 
and moral character, the Maltese gentry sought these 
places as honorable distinctions, which endeared 
them to their fellow-countrymen, and at the same 
time rendered the yoke of the order somewhat less 
grievous and galling. With the exception of the 
Maltese secretary, whose situation was one of inces 
sant labor, and who at the same time performed th 
duties of law counsellor to the government, the high 
est salaries scarcely exceeded 100/. a year, and were 
barely sufficient to defray the increased expenses of 
the functionaries for an additional equipage, or one 
of more imposing appearance. Besides, it was of ini' 

652 



THE FRIEND. 



543 



portancc that the person placed at the head of that 
government, shouJu be looked up to l)y tiio natives, 
and possess l)ie means of distinguishing and reward- 
ing those vvho had been most faithful and zealous in 
their attachment to Great Britain, and hostile to their 
fonner tyrants. The number of the employments to 
be conferred would give considerable iniluenre to 
his ^/ajesty■s civil representative, while the trifling 
amount of the emolument attached to each precluded 
all temptation of abusing it. 

Sir .Moxandcr Ball would likewise, it is probable, 
urge that ilie commercial advantages of Malta, which 
were most inlolligible to the English public, and best 
fitted to render our retention of the island popular, 
must necessarily be of very slow growth, though 
finally they would become great, and of an extent 
not to be calculated. For this reason, therefore, it 
was highly desirable, that the possession should be, 
and appear to be, at least inexpensive. After the 
British Government had made one advance (or a 
stock of corn sufiicient to place the island a year be- 
Ibre-Imnd, the sum total drawn from Great Britain 
need not exceed '25, or at most 30,()lX)/. annually ; ex- 
cluding of course the expenditure connected with her 
own military and navy, and the repair of the fortifi- 
cations, which latter expense ought to be much less 
than at Gibraltar, from the multitude and low wages 
of the laborers in Malta, and from the softness and 
admirable quality of the stone. Indeed much more 
might safely be promised on the assumption, that a 
wise and generous system of pfjiicy were adopted and 
persevered in. The monopoly of the Maltese corn- 
irade by the government formed an exception to a 
general rule, and by a strange, yet valid, anomaly in 
the operations of political economy, was not more 
necessary than advantageous to the inhabitants. The 
chief reason is, that the produce of the island itself 
barely snfTicea for one-fourth of its inhabitants, al- 
though fruits and vegetables form so large a part of 
their nourishment. Meantime the harbors of Malta, 
and its equi-distance from Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
gave it a vast and unnatural importance in the pre- 
sent relations of the great European powers, and im- 
posed on its government, whether native or depend- 
ent, the necessity of considering the whole island as 
a single garrison, the provisioning of which could not 
be trusted to the casualties of ordinary commerce. 
What is actually necessary is seldom injurious. Thus 
in Malta bread is better and cheaper on an average 
than in Italy or the coast of Barbary : while a similar 
interference with the corn trade in Sicily impover- 
ishes the inhabitants and keeps the agriculture in a 
slate of barbarism. But the point in question is tlie 
expense to Great Britain. Whether the monopoly be 
good or evil in itself, it remains true, that in this es- 
tablished usage, and in the gradual enclosure of the 
•mcullivated district, such resources exist as without 
the least oppression might render the civil govern- 
ment in Vallette independent of the Treasury at 
nome, finally taking upon itself even the repair of the 
fortifications, and thus realize one instance of an im- 
fxirtant possession that cost the country nothing. 

But now the time arrived, which threatened to 
36 



frustrate the patriotism of the Maltese themselves .ind 
all the zealous eflbrls of their disinterested friend. 
Soon aHer the war had for the first time become in- 
disjiulably just and necessary, the people at large and 
a majority of independent scnatons, incapable, as it 
might seem, of translniing their fanatical anti-jucobin- 
ism into a well-grounded, yet ecjually imiwssioned, 
anti-Gallicanism, grew impatient for peace, or rather 
for a name, under which the most terrific of all war 
would be incessantly waged against us. Our con- 
duct was not much wiser than that of the weary tra- 
veller, who having proceeded half way on his jour- 
ney, procured a short rest for himself by getting up 
behind a chaise which was going the contrary road. 
In the strange treaty of Amiens, in which we neither 
recognized our former relations with France or with 
the other European powers, nor formed any new ^ 
ones, the compromise concerning Malta formed the 
prominent feature: and its nominal re-delivery to the 
Order of St. John was authorized in the mind of the 
people, by Lord Aelson's opinion of its worthlessness 
to Great Britain in a political or naval view. It is a 
melancholy fact, nnd one that must often sadden a 
reflective and philanthropic mind, how little moral 
considerations weigh even with the noblest nations, 
how vain are the strongest appeals to justice, hu- 
manity, and national honor, unless when the pubUc 
mind is under the immediate influence of the cheer- 
ful or vehement passions, indignation or avaricious 
hope. In the whole class of human infirmities there 
is none, that makes such loud appeals to prudence 
and yet so frequently outrages its plainest dictates, 
as the .'spirit of fear. The worst cause conducted in 
hope is an overmatch for the noblest managed by 
despondence : in both cases an unnatural conjunction 
that recalls the old fable of Love and Death, taking 
each the arrows of the other by mistake. When 
islands that had courted British protection in reliance 
upon British honor, are with their inhabitants and 
proprietors abandoned to the resentment which we 
had tempted them to provoke, what wonder, if the 
opinion becomes general, that alike to England as tx) 
France, the fates and fortunes of other nations are 
but the counters, with which the bloody game of v\ar 
is played : and that notwithstanding the great and 
acknowledged difl!erence between the two govern- 
ments during possession, yet the protection of France 
is more desirable because it is more likely to endure ? 
for what the French take, they keep. Often both in 
Sicily and Malta have I heard the case of Minorca 
referred to, where a considerable portion of the most 
respectable gentry and merchants (no provision hav- 
ing been made for their protection on the re-delivery 
of that island to Sjiain) expiated in dungeons the 
warmth and forwardness of their predilection for 
Great Britain. 

It has been by some persons imagined, that Lord 
Nelson was considerably influenced, in his public 
declaration concerning the value of Malta, by minis- 
terial flattery, and his own sense of the great service- 
ableness of that opinion to the persons in office 
This supposition is, however, wholly false and 
groundless. His lordship's opinion was mdeed greatly 
553 



544 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



shaken afterwards, if not changed ; but at that time 
he spoke in strictest correspondence with his existing 
convictions. He said no more than he had often pre- 
viously declared to his private friends: it was the 
point on which, after some amicable controversy, his 
lordship and Sir Alexander Ball had " agreed to dif- 
fer." Though the opinion itself may have lost the 
greatest part of its interest, and except for the histo- 
rian is, as it were, superannuated ; yet the grounds 
and causes of it, as far as they arose out of Lord Nel- 
son's particular character, and may, perhaps tend to 
re-enliven our recollection of a hero so deeply and 
justly beloved, will forever possess an interest of 
their own. In an essay, too, which purports to be no 
more than a series of sketches and fragments, the 
reader, it is hoped, will readily excuse an occasional 
^digression, and a more desultory style of narration 
than could be tolerated in a work of regular biogra- 
phy- 

Lord Nelson was an admiral every inch of him. 
He looked at every thing, not merely in its possible 
relations to the naval service in general, but in its 
immediate bearings on his squadron ; to his officers, 
his men, to the particular ships themselves, his affec- 
tions were as strong and ardent as those of a lover. 
Hence, though his temper was constitutionally irrita- 
ble and uneven, yet never was a commander so en- 
thusiastically loved by men of all ranks, from the 
Captain of the fleet to the youngest ship-boy. Hence 
too the unexampled harmony which reigned in his 
fleet, year after year, under circumstances that might 
well have undermined the patience of the best-bal- 
anced dispositions, much more of men with the im- 
petuous character of British sailors. Year after year, 
the same dull duties of a wearisome blockade, of 
doubtful policy — little if any opportunity of making 
prizes ; and the few prizes, which accident might throw 
in the way, of little or no value — and when at last 
the occasion presented itself which would have com- 
pensated for all, then a disappointment as sudden and 
unexpected as it was unjust and cruel, and the cup 
dasheu from their lips ! — Add to these trials the sense 
of enterprises checked by feebleness and timidity 
elsewhere, not omitting the tiresomeness of the Med- 
iterranean sea, sky, and climate ; and the unjarring 
and cheerful spirit of affectionate brotherhood, which 
linked together the hearts of that whole squadron, 
will appear not less wonderful to us than admirable 
and affecting. When the resolution was taken of 
commencing hostilities against Spain, before any in- 
telligence was sent to Lord Nelson, another admiral, 
with two or three ships of the line, was sent into the 
Mediterranean, and stationed before Cadiz, for the 
express purpose of intercepting the Spanish prizes. 
The admiral despatched on this lucrative service 
gave no information to Lord Nelson of his arrival in 
the same sea, and five weeks elapsed before his lord- 
ship became acquainted with the circumstances. The 
prizes thus taken were immense. A month or two 
sufficed to enrich the commander and officers of this 
small and highly-favored squadron: while to Nelson 
and his fleet the sense of having done their duty, and 
the consciousness of the glorious services which they 



had performed, were considered, it. must be presumed, 
as an abundant remuneration for all their toils and 
long suffering! It was indeed an unexampled cir- 
cumstance, that a small squadron should be sent to 
the station which had been long occupied by a large 
fleet, commanded by the darling of the navy, and the 
glory of the British empire, to the station where this 
fleet had for years been wearing away in the most 
barren, repulsive, and spirit-trying service, in which 
the navy can be employed ! and that this minor 
squadron should be sent independent of and without 
any communication with the commander of the for- 
mer fleet, for the express and solitary purpose of step- 
ping between it and the Spanish prizes, and as soon 
as this short and pleasant service was performed, of 
bringing home the unshared booty with all possible 
caution and despatch. The snbsta?ilial advantages 
of naval service were perhaps deemed of too g-;-oss a 
nature for men already rewarded with the grateful 
affections of their own countrymen, and the admira- 
tion of the whole world ! They were to be awarded, 
therefore, on a principle of compensation to a com- 
mander less rich in fame, and whose laurels, though 
not scanty, were not yet sufficiently luxuriant to hide 
the golden crown, which is the appropriate ornament 
of victory in the bloodless war of commercial cap- 
ture ! Of all the wounds which were ever inflicted 
on Nelson's feelings (and there were not a few,) this 
w-as the deepest ! this rankled most ! " I had thought," 
(said the gallant man, in a letter written on the first 
feelings of the affront) — " I fancied — but nay, it must 
have been a dream, an idle dream — yet, I confess it, 
I did fancy, that I had done my country service — and 
thus they use me. It was not enough to have robbed 
me once before of my West-India harvest — now they 
have taken away the Spanish — and under what cir- 
cumstances, and with what pointed aggravations ! 
Yet, if I know my own thoughts, it is not for myself, 
or on my own account chiefly, that I feel the sting 
and the disappointment; no ! it is for my brave offi- 
cers ! for my noble-minded friends and comrades — 
such a gallant set of fellows ! such a band of bro- 
thers ! My heart swells at the thought of them !" 

This strong attachment of the heroic admiral to his 
fleet, faithfully repaid by an equal attachment on their 
part to their admiral, had no little influence in at- 
tuning their hearts to each other; and when he died 
it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another: for 
all were made acquaintances by the rights of a com- 
mon anguish. In the fleet itself, many a private 
quarrel was forgotten, no more to be remembered ; 
many, who had been alienated, became once more 
good friends; yea, many a one was reconciled to his 
very enemy, and loved, and (as it were) thanked him, 
for the bitterness of his grief, as if it had been an act 
of consolation to himself in an intercourse of private 
sympathy. The tidings arrived at Naples on the day 
that I returned to that city from Calabria : and never 
can I forget the sorrow and consternation that lay on 
every countenance. Even to this day there are times 
when I seem to see, as in a vision, separate groups 
and individual facesof the picture. Numbers stopped 
and shook hands with me, because they had seen the 

554 



THE FRIEND. 



545 



tears on my cheek, and conjectured, that I was on 
Englislimnn; niul several, as they held my hand, 
burst, themselves, into tears. And tluiuiih it may 
awake a smile, yet it pleased and alfected me, as a 
proof of the goodness of the human heart siruggling 
to exercise its kindness in spite of prejudices the most 
obstinate, and eager to carry on ils love and honor 
into the life beyond life, that it was whispcretl alxnit 
Naples, that I/ird Nelson had become a good Catho- 
lic before his death. The absurdity of tiie fiction is 
a sort of measurement of tiie flind and ailectiunate 
esteem which had ripened the pious wish of some 
kind individual through all the gradations of possi- 
bility and probability into a confident assertion be- 
lieved and affirmed by hundreds. The feelings of 
Great Britain on this a«ful event, have been de- 
scribed well and worthily by a living poet, who has 
happilv blended the passion and wild transitions of 
lyric song with the swell and solemnity of ejtic nar- 
ration. 

Thou art falPn ! fall'n, in the Inp 

Of victory. To thy country thou cam'st hack, 
Thou conqupror, to triiimphal .Mliion cam'st 
A corse I I eavv hrforc Ihy hpnr?e pass on 
The comrades of thy perils and renown. 
The frequent tear upon their dauntless breasts 
Fell. I beheld the pomp thick gather'd round 
The trophy 'd car that bore Ihy graced remains 
Thro' arm'd ranks, and a nation gazing on. 
Bright glow'd the sun. and not a cloud distain'd 
Heaven's arch of gold, but all was gloom beneath. 
A holy and unutterable pang 
Thrill'd on the soul. Awe and mule anguish fell 
On all. — Yet high the public bo.soin llirobb'd 
With triumph. And if one, 'mid that vast pomp, 
If but the voice of one had shouted forth 
The name of J\''elson : Thou hadst passed along. 
Thou in thy hoarse to burial past, as oft 
Before the van of battle, proudly rode 
Thy prow, down Britain's line, shout after shout 
Rending the air with triumph, ere thy hand 
Had lanc'd the bolt of victory. 

SOTHEBY {Saul, p. 80.) 

I introduced this digression with an apology, yet 
have extended so much further than I had designed, 
that I must once more request my reader to excuse 
me. It was to be expected (I have said) that Lord 
Nelson would appreciate the isle of Malta from its 
relations to the British fleet on the Mediterranean 
station. It was the fa.shion of the day to style Egypt 
the hey of India, and Malta the heij of Egypt. Nel- 
son saw the hollowness of this metaphor : or if he 
only doubled its applicability in the former instance, 
he was sure that it was false in the latter. Egypt 
might or might not be the key of India ; but Malta 
was certainly not the key of Egypt. It wa.s not in- 
tended to keep constantly two distinct fleets in that 
sea; and the largest naval force at Malta would not 
supersede the necessity of a squadron off Toulon. 
Malta does not lie in the direct course from Toulon 
to Alexandria : and from the nature of the winds 
(taking one time with another) the comparative 
length of the voyage to the latter port will be found 
fdr less than a view of the map would suggest, and 
m truth of little practical in)|v>rtancc. If it were 
the object of the French fleet to avoid Malta in its 
passage to Egypt, the port-admiral at \'allelte would 
71 



in all probability receive his first intelligence of ita 
course from Minorca or the squadron ofl' Toulon, in- 
stead of communicating it. In what regards the 
refitting and pmvisioning of the fleet, either on ordi- 
nary or extraordinary occasions, Malta was as incon- 
venient as Minorca was advantageous, not only from 
its distance (which yet was suflicient to render it al- 
most useless in cases of the most pressing necessity 
as after a .«evcre action or iiijiiries of tempest) but 
likewise from the extreme dilliciilly, if not impracti- 
cability, of leaving the harbor of \al!ctte with a 
N. W. wind, which often lasteii for week.s together. 
In all these points his lordship's observations were 
perfectly just : and it must be conceded by all per- 
sons acquainted with the situation arul circumstances 
of Malta, that its importance, as a British possession, 
if not exaggerated on the whole, was unduly magni- 
fied in several important jiarticulars. Thus Lord 
Minto, in a speech delivered at a county meeting 
and afterwards published, afllrms, that supposing 
(what no one could consider as unlikely to take place) 
that the court of Naples should he compelled to act 
under the influence of Franco, and that the Barbary 
powers were unfriendly to us either in consequence 
of French intrigues or from their own caprice and in- 
solence, there would not be a single port, harbor, bay, 
creek, or roadstead in the whole Mediterranean, 
from which our men-of-war could obtain a single ox 
or an hogshead of fresh water : unless Great Britain 
retained possession of Malta. The noble speaker 
seems not to have been aware, that under the cir- 
cumstances supposed by him, Odessa too being closed 
against us by a Russian war, the island of Malta it- 
self would be no better than a vast almshouse of 
75,000 persons, exclusive of the British soldiery, all 
of whom must be regularly supplied with corn and 
salt meat from Great Britain or Ireland. The popu- 
lation of Malta and Goza exceeds 100,000: while 
the food of all kinds produced on the two islands 
would barely suffice for one-fourth of that number. 
The deficit is procured by the growth and spinning 
of cotton, for w hich corn could not be substituted 
from the nature of the soil, or were it attempted, 
would produce but a small proportion of tlie quantity 
which the cotton raised on the same fields and spun * 
into thread, enables the Maltese to purchase, not to 
mention that the substitution of grain for cotton 
would leave half of the inhabitants without employ 
ment. As to live stock, it is quite out of the qties- 
tion, if we except the pigs and goats, which perform 
the office of scavengers in the streets of Valletta 
and the towns on the other side of the Porto Grande 



*The .Maltese cotton is naturally of a deep buff, or duskjr 
orange culnr, and by the laws of the island, must be spun be- 
fore it can be expnrted. I have heard it asfcrted, by persons 
appMrpnily well informed on the subject, that the raw mate- 
rial would (cicli as high a price as the thread, weight fur 
weight : the thread from its coarseness being applicable to 
few purposes. It i^ manufitciurcd likewise for the use of the 
natives Ihenisclves into a cnarse nankin, which never loses its 
color by washing, and is durable beyond any clothing I have 
ever known or heard of. The cotton seed is used as a food 
fi)r the cattle that nio not immediately wanted for the mar- 
ket: it is very nutritious, but changes the fat of the animal 
into a kind of suet, congealing quickly, of an adhesive sut>- 
stancc. 

555 



546 



COLERIDGE'S PROSE WORKS. 



Against these arguments Sir A. Ball placed the fol- 
lowing considerations. It had been long his convic- 
tion, that the Mediterranean squadron should be sup- 
plied by regular store-ships, the sole business of 
which should be :hat of carriers for the fleet This 
he recommended as by far the most economic plan, 
in the first instance. Secondly, beyond any other it 
would secure a system and regularity in the arrival 
of supplies. And, lastly, it would conduce to the dis- 
cipline of the navy, and prevent both ships and offi- 
cers from being out of the way on any sudden emer- 
gence. If this system were introduced, the objections 
to Malta, from its great distance, &c. would have 
little force. On the other hand, the objections to 
Minorca he deemed irremovable. The same disad- 
vantages which attended the getting out of the har- 
bor of Vallette, applied to vessels getting into Port 
Mahon ; but while fifteen hundred or two thousand 
British troops might be safely entrusted with the pre- 
servation of Malta, the troops for the defence of 
Minorca must ever be in proportion to those which 
the enemy may be supposed likely to send against it. 
It is so little favored by nature or by art, that the pos- 
sessors stood merely on the level with the invaders. 
Casteris paribus, if there 12,000 of the enemy landed, 
there must be an equal number to repel them ; nor 
could the garrison, or any part of it, be spared for 
any sudden emergence without risk of losing the 
island. Previously to the battle of Marengo, the 
most earnest representations were made to the go- 
vernor and commander at Minorca, by the British 
admiral, who offered to take on himself the whole 
responsibility of the measure, if he would permit the 
troops at Minorca to join our allies. The governor 
felt himself compelled to refuse his assent. Doubt- 
less he acted wisely, for responsibility is not transfer- 
able. The fact is introduced in proof of the defence- 
less state of Minorca, and its constant liabihty to at- 
tack. If the Austrian army had stood in the same 
relation to eight or nine thousand British soldiers at 
Malta, a single regiment would have precluded all 
alarms, as to the island itself, and the remainder have 
perhaps changed the destiny of Europe. What 
might not, almost I would say, what 7nusl not eight 
thousand Britons have accomplished at the battle of 
Marengo, nicely poised as the fortunes of the two ar- 
mies are now known to have been ? Minorca too is 
alone useful or desirable during a war, and on the 
supposition of a fleet off Toulon. The ad vantages of 
Malta are permanent and national. As a second 
tiibraltar, it must tend to secure Gibraltar itself; for 
if by the loss of that one place we could be excluded 
from the Mediterranean, it is dflicult to say what 
sacrifices of blood and treasure the enemy would 
deem too high a price for its conquest. Whatever 
Malta may or may not be respecting Egypt, its high 
importance to the independence of Sicily cannot be 
doubted, or its advantages, as a central station, for 
any portion of our disposable force. Neither is the 
influence which it will enable us to exert on the 
Barbary powers, to be wholly neglected. I shall only 



■/\^ 



add, that during the plague at Gibraltar, Lon 

son himself acknowledged that he began to see ' 

possession of Malta in a different light. 

Sir Alexander Ball looked -forward to future c 
tingencies as likely to increase the value of Maltt. 
Great Britain. He foresaw that the whole of Italy 
would become a French province, and he knew that; 
the French government had been long intriguing, '>n 
the coast of Barbary. The Dej' of Algiers was be- 
lieved to have accumulated a treasure of fifteen mil- 
lions sterling, and Buonaparte had actually duped 
him into a treaty, by which the French were to be 
permitted to erect a fort on the very spot where the 
ancient Hippo stood, the choice between which and 
the Hellespont as the site of New Rome, is said to * 
have perplexed the judgment of Constantino. To 
this he added an additional point of connection with 
Russia, by means of Odessa, and on the supposition 
of a war in the Baltic, a still more interesting rela- 
tion to Turkey, and the Morea, and the Greek j 
islands. — It has been repeatedly signified to the Bri- 
tish government, that from the Morea and the coun- 
tries adjacent, a considerable supply of ship-timber 
and naval stores might be obtained, such as would at 
least greatly lessen the pressure of a Russian war. 
The agents of France were in full activity in the 
Morea and the Greek islands, the possession of vvliiti), 
by that government, would augment the naval re- 
sources of the French to a degree of which few are 
aware, who have not made the present stale of com- 
merce of the Greeks, an object of particular atten- 
tion. In short, if the possession of Malta were ad- 
vantageous to England solely as a convenient watch- 
tower, as a centre of intelligence, its importance 
would be undeniable. 

Although these suggestions did not prevent the 
signing away of Malta at the peace of Amiens, they 
doubtless were not without effect, when the ambition 
of Buonaparte had given a full and final answer to 
the grand question: can .we remain in peac- 
France ? I have likewise reason to believe m , 

Alexander Ball, baffled by exposing an insidious pro- i 
posal of the French government, during the negoti- 
ations that preceded the re-commencement of the ' 
war — that the fortifications of Malta should be en- [ 
tirely dismantled, and the island left to its inha>^-* 
ants. Without dwelling on the obvious inhum' ; 
and flagitious injustice of exposing the Mai" 
certain pillage and slavery, from their old anr' 
rate enemies, the Moors, he showed tha' ,rjl 

would promote the interests of Buonaparte 
than his actual possession of the islands, whiL. 
had no possible interest in desiring, except as i j 
means of keeping itout of the hands of Great Britai. 

But Sir Alexander Ball is no more. The write; 
still clings to the hope, that he may yet be enabled t 
record his good deeds more fully and regularly ; tha 
then, with a sense of comfort not without a subdue' 
exultation, he may raise heavenward from his h 
ored tomb the glistening eye of an humble, but eve r 
grateful Friend. 



THE END 



556 



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